Combat System Engineering: A Return to Fundamentals

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Navy's focus has shifted from global war scenarios to preparedness for the prospect of involvement in regional, littoral contingencies and conflicts. Operationally, shipboard personnel will need the ability to shift focus from the combat system multimission roles to that of only a single mission. From a development perspective, combat systems must accommodate a continual infusion of technology in a budget constrained environment. Combat system architecture is the single most important feature affecting combat system flexibility, from both an operational and developmental aspect.There is a fundamental partitioning of combat system functions into detect, command, and engage in a horizontal integration approach that enhances this needed flexibility. This fundamental partitioning is currently applied to individual weapon systems, but not to combat systems as a whole. Instead, self‐contained weapon systems are often developed and then vertically integrated to form a combat system, causing reduced flexibility.The battle organization is the principal driving requirement for combat system architecture. This paper shows that the battle organization is best supported by a horizontally integrated combat system of detect, command, and engage. It concludes that a horizontally integrated combat system architecture of detect, command, and engage should be a candidate for future combat systems.