An integrated analysis of naval platform survivability for mission resilience

Mission resilience is a primary consideration for naval platforms operating in contested maritime environments. It is a concept that encapsulates a platform’s ability to endure, and to survive threats that affect the achievement of mission objectives. Historically, platform survivability analysis was constrained by “stove piping” the analysis within individual survivability domains (susceptibility, vulnerability and recoverability). However, the trade-space combining susceptibility, vulnerability and recoverability in a temporal framework enables holistic survivability analysis. This is referred to as “Integrated Survivability”. To demonstrate the utility of Integrated Survivability analysis, and its contribution to mission resilience, a naval platform survivability case study was developed. The case study examined the achievement of a mission objective for four platform configurations exposed to a detonating weapon threat. There were three primary outcomes. Firstly, the case study demonstrated a platform general arrangement configuration change to improve crew access, instead of a technological solution, provided the best outcome for achieving the mission objective. Secondly, the case study demonstrated the use of a warship computer model specifically designed for naval platform survivability analysis. This warship model is an unclassified, generalised naval platform representation designed to foster collaboration and for documenting research in the open literature. Finally, the case study enabled the development of a workflow to facilitate Integrated Survivability analysis for the enhancement of the fleet-in-being and assessment of future naval platform acquisitions.