Estimation of sensor and weapon system effectiveness during initial ship design

Naval ship design is a multi-disciplinary and complex undertaking. Operational requirements, uncertain future threats and scenarios, new technologies and ever reducing budgets increase the necessity for early and accurate decision making support. This paper will present the Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E) process that TNO has applied to support the Royal Netherlands Navy in the development of highly cost-effective ships.
During the requirement definition and design phases of new naval surface platforms , several important trade-offs need to be made, defining for example the level of self-protection and required sensor and weapon system suite performance. Operational analysis techniques and modelling & simulation are used to iteratively determine the best concepts and sensor and weapon performance. Concept Development & Experimentation is a common methodology to do this. Starting off with brainstorming sessions, to explore all possibilities. Using war gaming to down select the most promising options. And finally simulating these options in detailed system simulation models to determine the sensor and weapon system effectiveness for the ship as a whole against a wide range of expected future threats and scenarios.
The availability of simulation models of the future ship configuration also enables crew familiarisation in their yet to be built vessel. Virtual simulations of the bridge and command centre allows for the evaluation and definition of future conops and tactics. It brings out bottle necks in weapon system operation or communication between crew members, and allows for fine tuning before the ship is operational. This approach has decreased the time for the ships to become fully operational capable and with fewer operational risks.