Growing world-wide commitments and potential naval threats in the future will challenge the U.S. maritime forces to become more integrated and interoperable. The Total Fleet Concept calls for a maritime force for the nation that essentially combines the assets and unique capabilities of each maritime agency available to the U.S. government and forms a scalable force that can be employed around the globe to accomplish missions in the national interest. The U.S. Navy is the preeminent maritime power in the world. However, it has concentrated almost exclusively on maintaining its capability at the Blue-water level of operations. In light of the emerging asymmetrical threat from non-peer competitor forces, the Navy has embarked on a stated program of building up its littoral and lowlevel regional capability in order to engage these adversaries in their own environment. This thesis studies the Navy's budget requests of the Future Years Defense Program. It also examines whether these budget requests and the long-range 30-year shipbuilding plan is leading to the transformational Fleet that is envisioned by the Total Fleet Concept, or is a continuation of the predominantly Blue-water operations focused Fleet and the assets that accompany that strategy. / US Navy (USN) author.

Thesis (M.S., operations research)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed Oct. 9, 2008). Thesis Advisor(s): Pilnick, Steven E. "March 2008." "ADA479828"--DTIC URL. Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95).

Thesis (M.S., operations research)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Pilnick, Steven E. "March 2008." Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95).

Includes supplementary material. / Published as received: "volume 1" only. / Distributing naval combat power into many small ships and unmanned air vehicles that capitalize on emerging technology offers a transformational way to think about naval combat in the littorals in the 2020 time frame. Project CROSSBOW is an engineered systems of systems that proposes to use such distributed forces to provide forward presence to gain and maiantain access, to provide sea control, and to project combat power in the littoral regions of the world. Project CROSSBOW is the result of a yearlong, campus-wide, integrated research systems engineering effort involving 40 student researchers and 15 supervising faculty members. This report (Volume I) summarizes the CROSSBOW project. It catalogs the major features of each of the components, and includes by reference a separate volume for each of the major systems (ships, aircraft, and logistics). It also prresents the results of the mission and campaign analysis that informed the trade-offs between these components. It describes certain functions of CROSSBOW in detail through specialized supporting studies. The student work presented here is technologically feasible, integrated and imaginative. The student project cannot by itself provide definitive designs or analyses covering such a broad topic. It does strongly suggest that the underlying concepts have merit and deserve further serious study by the Navy as it transforms itself.

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / This thesis uses an agent-based simulation model named EINSTein to perform an exploratory study on the feasibility of using Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) to augment or replace the current defenses of Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESG). Specifically, LCS's ability to help defend an ESGs in an anti-access scenario against a high-density small boat attack is simulated. Numbers of CRUDES (CRUiser, DEStroyer, Frigate) ships are removed and LCSs are added to the ESG force structure in varying amounts to identify force mixes that minimize ship losses. In addition, this thesis explores various conceptual capabilities that might be given to LCS. For example, helicopter/Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (helo/UCAVs), Stealth technology, close-in high volume firepower, and 50+ knot sprint capability. Using graphical analysis, analysis of variance, and large-sample comparison tests we find that being able to control aircraft is the most influential factor for minimizing ship losses. Stealth technology is another significant factor, and the combination of the two is highly effective in reducing ship losses. Close-in high volume firepower is effective only when interacting with helo/UCAVs or stealth. 50+ knot sprint capability is potentially detrimental in this scenario. An effective total sum of CRUDES ships and LCS is between five and seven platforms. / http://hdl.handle.net/10945/855 / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis will address the planned configuration of Lockheed Martin's Flight Zero, Module Spiral Alpha Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the ongoing development of the SPARTAN SCOUT, one of the Navy's Unmanned Surface Vessels (USV). Technology currently available as well as developmental technologies will be recommended for implementation in order to make the LCS and SCOUT assets to Information Operations (IO) objectives. Specific technology will include Outboard, TARBS, HPM, Loudspeakers, LRAD and Air Magnet. This thesis will include an evaluation of the current policy for authorizing Information Operations missions, specifically in the areas of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Electronic Warfare (EW). / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / The Littoral Combat Ship's (LCS) minimally manned core crew goal is 15 to 50 manpower requirements and the threshold, for both core and mission-package crews, is 75 to 110. This dramatically smaller crew size will require more than current technologies and past lessons learned from reduced manning initiatives. Its feasibility depends upon changes in policy and operations, leveraging of future technologies and increased Workload Transfer from sea to shore along with an increased acceptance of risk. A manpower requirements analysis yielded a large baseline (200) requirement to support a notional LCS configuration. Combining the common systems from the General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin designs with other assumed equipments (i.e. the combined diesel and gas turbine (CODAG) engineering plant) produce the notional LCS configuration used as the manpower requirements basis. The baseline requirement was reduced through the compounded effect of manpower savings from Smart Ship and OME and suggested paradigm shifts. A Battle Bill was then created to support the notional LCS during Conditions of Readiness I and III. An efficient force deployment regime was adopted to reduce the overall LCS class manpower requirement. The efficiency gained enables the LCS force to "flex" and satisfy deployment requirements with 25% to 30% fewer manpower requirements over the "one-forone" crewing concept. costs $60K. / Lieutenant, United States Navy