INTRODUCTION
Warship design originates from the following order of priority:
Doctrine development in regard to the manner in which the Navy will address the strategic concepts of responding against the challenges of threat.
The Naval Staff & Circular of Requirements are parameters desired by the Navy in the development and design that will lead to shape the performance and capabilities of a warship, which is anchored on doctrines.
Technical Specification is the responsibility of and prepared by the Ship designer and shipyard which is technology-driven and is the expertise of a shipyard. Said specification will match and tailor fit to the Doctrines of a Navy.
Ship Construction is in accordance with the technical specification prepared by the shipyard.
Upon completion, technical evaluation will be conducted by the Navy to determine the compliance of the ship design in the technical specification.
The Combined Operation Effectiveness Integration Appraisal Study (COEIAS) is to complete the ship design loop (items 1 to 5) and establish the combat reputation of the warship that is matched and tailor fitted with the aptitude of combat readiness of a Fighting Ship.
NAVAL STAFF & CIRCULAR OF REQUIREMENTS OF A WARSHIP
A Warship must be designed to withstand certain amounts of battle damage inflicted through combat action in order to keep on fighting while providing maximum protection to the crew and vital critical sensitive equipment onboard the ship, under extremely hazardous situations. The following parameters may be used as guide in doing the appraisals.
Group I: Seaworthiness – The ability of the Frigate to operate at sea with sufficient stability standard, buoyancy, hull structural strength, watertight integrity, crew habitability, speed and power performance at various sea state conditions, etc. A vessel is seaworthy if all its parts and equipment are reasonably fit for their intended purpose, and is operated by an adequate and competent crew for the work assigned.
Group II: Battleworthiness – The ability of the Frigate to fight at sea with the capability to avoid early detection, target detection capability beyond the horizon or underwater; can float, communicate, detect, tract, move, shoot, survive, etc.
The following are the Circular of Requirements (COR), which will provide guidelines, in generic terms, on the parameters of ship design derived from the Naval Staff Requirements.
SUSCEPTIBILITY – evaluation of the level of susceptibility of signature threshold with minimal electromagnetic spectrum based on proven design ship records, reduce the degree of attractions to hostile weapon system seeker’s lock-on to home in to the Warship.
VULNERABILITIES – the ship systems must have some level of resistance to weapon effects from spreading in several parts of the ship, and minimize degree of damage from the aftermath of the strike from hostile munitions/ordnance.
RECOVERABILITY – the ability of the ship to immediately recover from temporary stoppage after multiple hits from combat in a short time scale, and resume operations.
SURVIVABILITY – the capability to provide protection to the crew and vital equipment on board during an extremely hazardous combat situation.
SPEED AND POWER – the ability of the ship to provide the desired economical power needed at minimum fuel consumption, and longer period of time between overhauls, while providing longer patrol time at sea.
MAINTAINABILITY – the ability of the ship to sustain vital ship systems in a short time scale efficiently.
OFFENSIVE CAPABILITY – the fighting capability of the Warship to strike in anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine with the ability to strike surgically against hostile targets with a high probability of the degree of success to defeat hostile threats.
DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES – the ability of the Warship to protect and defend itself effectively from various hostile weapons such as attacks from air, surface, and the subsurface.
ELECTRONIC WARFARE CAPABILITY – Electronic Surveillance Measure (ESM) provides early warning of an attack or identification of an incoming aircraft; Electronic Counter Measure (ECM) – jammers, decoys to counter or distract sensor seekers of incoming missile on path and stop an inbound missile lock-onto the target (Soft kill); by Electronic Counter-Counter Measure (ECCM) – hard kill of the target (fitted with SAM, CIWS, etc).
SHIP SYSTEMS AND SUB-SYSTEMS
RELIABILITY – Dependency diagram showing each system and sub-system functionalities that can operate independently to provide the necessary services (duplication, segmentation or redundancy) in case of damage of one system during combat.
HABITABILITY – the ability of the ship to provide comfortable living conditions that can enhance the morale of the crew in prolonged, stressful durations of combat deployment at sea.
MATERIAL QUALITY CONTROL AND STANDARDS – The highest quality control standards are crucial elements of a warship’s survivability.
SHIP SYSTEMS ACQUISITION COST DISTRIBUTION – Cost distribution must be allocated by Ship Work Breakdown Structure (SWBS) to determine the direct and indirect cost per ship system of ship acquisition program.
LIFE CYCLE COST (30 YEARS) – The cost needed to operate and maintain the warship for the entire life span of the ship upward to the next 50 years with the paramount goal of operational readiness of a battle-ready warship in harm’s way.
MIDLIFE REFIT – A system in upgrading the level of capability when same equipment nearing obsolescence and no longer responsive congruent to each ship system to support other sub-system in order to accomplished the mission efficiency are to be replaced by a new technology unit.
CONCLUSION
The COEIAS provides a total overview and basis of appraisals and evaluations of the complex components of various ship systems anticipated to face the future perceived scenario of challenges in terms of performance, task and capabilities to be done by establishing both the density of their fighting outfit and their expected levels of survivability, making said vessel’s combatant capability readiness confidence more challenging.
The COEIAS is a must for the end-user NAVY in order to complete the ship design loop, which originally starts from the doctrine of Navy Staff Requirements to the actual evaluations, and are verified once the vessel is operational in various naval exercises and other operations experiences.
Reference: British Aerospace lecture.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The Philippine Navy sponsored Capt Tomas D Baino to undergo orientation training in Ship System Evaluation at the United Kingdom Defense Evaluation Research Agency (DERA). He earned a diploma in Submarine Design at the University College of London (UCL), Great Britain under the sponsorship of the UK Ministry of Defense in 1998 and also attended a weeklong orientation seminar on Design and Construction of Shallow Water Attack Submarine at Cosmos Shipyard, Livorno, Italy. In the same year, he also attended the MEKO Frigate Shipbuilding Construction on modular ship construction and survivability at Blomh & Voss in Hamburg, Germany.