Analysing system of systems performance of a carrier strike group conducting anti-submarine warfare

Abstract

The operation of US and Allied military forces freely and safely across the world’s oceans remains a paramount goal of the US Navy, often to be carried out through the deployment of a carrier strike group (CSG). This paper examines the need for an improved anti-submarine warfare (ASW) system to protect a CSG, focusing on the design of an ASW system that is able to thwart an attack through effective, timely, and precise engagement based on the use of tactically significant detection, localisation, tracking and classification of threat submarines. This effort results in the development of system functions and objectives, appropriate metrics, an operational concept, several competing physical architectural alternatives, and conduct of trade-off analysis regarding system performance. Primarily, the focus is on the operational performance of the competing physical architectures, which is defined as the need to detect and defeat an enemy submarine during a typical CSG mission. Potential ASW and CSG components are described, as well as an assessment of several alternative ASW systems within the CSG system of systems, a brief operational concept, and the specifics of the performance modelling effort to include results.