The naval airship and the revolution at sea

• Main Author: Shelby, James Richard
• Other Authors: Hughes, Wayne P.
• Published: Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School 2013
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/34936; http://hdl.handle.net/10945/34936

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. === A system is proposed to combine an airship based fire control system (using-off-the-shelf hardware) with surface ship launched SAMs (NTUSM-2-ER) to provide OTH wide area ASCM defense for convoys and surface battle groups currently without organic airborne AAW assets. The effectiveness of surface ship AAW area defense is compared, both with and without the airship system, against low-flying ASCMs. The proposed airship system is based on combining the F-14 fire control system (AWG-9) with extrapolations from the current DARPA sponsored design for an operational development model airship (ODM). The impact on the required airship size for obtaining a given level of performance from the airshipsurface ship team is examined by varying the number of fire control units (AWG-9s) carried by the airship from 2 to 12. Costs of the proposed system are estimated. Scenarios are developed for convoy missions in a low to moderate ASCM threat environment and for surface battle group operations in a high threat (60, closely spaced ASCMs) environment.