File:SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND ANALYSIS FOR AMERICA CLASS EXPANDED ADAPTIVE FORCE PACKAGE (IA systemarchitectu1094560393).pdf

Since 2015, when naval leadership first introduced the tactic of distributed lethality, significant work from academia and fleet tacticians has established the requirements, capabilities, and functions a force package needs to successfully execute the tactic. To this point, researchers have focused on using traditional surface combatants to conduct surface warfare and ballistic missile defense. This thesis examines incorporating the AMERICA Class, General Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship (LHA-6) and Marine Corps F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—which are not designed to conduct surface warfare—with traditional surface combatants to form an expanded adaptive force package (EAFP) and conduct distributed lethality tactics under the recently established tactic of distributed maritime operations. Using traditional systems engineering approaches and the Department of Defense Architectural Framework, an executable architecture modeled in Vitech’s Core Schema outlines the functions and components of this EAFP. Simulating the EAFP architecture in a realistic threat environment shows an increase in lethality and a reduction in the number of hits when compared to a traditional surface action group, though this comes with a tradeoff of a 20-percent chance the LHA sustains at least one hit during an engagement. Recommendations for follow-on work include modeling more functionality and architecting other aspects of distributed lethality beyond the tactics.

Subjects: naval tactics; distributed lethality; sea control; expanded adaptive force package; distributed maritime operations; Department of Defense Architectural Framework; littoral combat ship; guided missile destroyer; Amphibious Assault Ship; unmanned system