ALLIED MARITIME FORCES TRANSFORMATION: TOWARDS A DEFENCE PLANNING PROCESS THAT INCLUDES ADAPTABLE WARSHIPS

摘要

Warships have long service lives. During the life of a warship the types of operations that will be assigned to the ship will change (this happened for example at the end of the Cold War), the technology behind the installed systems will advance (e.g., radar performance and miniaturisation) and new technologies will emerge. New technologies are likely to require changes in the way operations are presently conducted (e.g., off-board systems for conducting mine countermeasures operations) and can deliver new operational capabilities to the ship (e.g., directed-energy weapon systems). For these reasons, warships can only maintain maximum operational relevance through-life if their operational capabilities can be augmented and adapted to meet changing user requirements. NATO nations and partners, and also their peer competitors, are designing and building more adaptable warships. A common characteristic of these ships is that mission essential systems can be added to and removed from the ship in a relatively short time period. Warship roles can thus be reconfigured. The future of this trend is transforming the NATO defence planning process so that the future structure of the allied maritime forces will include an appropriate mix of adaptable warships and up-to-date mission packages that can respond to constantly changing operational tasking. The naval architect is already aware that traditional warship design features must be re-worked to accommodate modular, in addition to—or even to replace—organic systems. This paper considers the transformation from the engineering and management of mission packages, their deployment and integration into new warship designs towards a new maritime defence planning philosophy and process.