Cueing a submarine from standoff to ambush a target in an anti-submarine environment: How often can the cue be a false alarm?

Abstract

Ambushing an adversary’s vessels as they transit a chokepoint is a key mission for submarines. While the submarine could patrol inside the chokepoint, anti-submarine capabilities are making such patrols too dangerous. Emerging technologies could allow the submarine to stand off at a safe location, and move forward to the chokepoint when cued. There is a need for analysis that can establish the concept’s viability, and whether the technologies are mature enough to be developed into working systems. The important factor is the rate at which the submarine is cued to a target that is not actually present—a false alarm—for as the submarine is clearing a false alarm, it is exposed to counter-acquisition. We establish the false alarm performance that is acceptable, for a given probability of the submarine being counter-acquired.

Keywords:

• Military
• information systems
• probability
• automation
• submarine

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Emma Kennedy, David Marlow, Cath Morgan, Paul Montague, Marc West, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback. Microsoft clip art is used under the Microsoft Services Agreement (July 31, 2014, paragraph 8.1). This article is UNCLASSIFIED and approved for public release. Any opinions in this document are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent those of the Australian Department of Defence.

Notes

Please note this paper has been re-typeset by Taylor & Francis from the manuscript originally provided to the previous publisher.