Analysis of maritime operations - methodology and implementation

The report presents the accumulated experience, obtained methodology and associated recommendations gained through FFI project P1200 (Analysis of Maritime Operations) and P1337 (Analysis of Maritime Operations and Exercises). The Royal Norwegian Navy’s (RNoN) increased attention to the analysis of operations and exercises, relates to the high complexity of new vessels and weapon systems, and an aspiration to optimise these exercises and operations accordingly. An essential part of P1200, and now P1337, is therefore to conduct analyses on a tactical level, whose outcome materialises in solutions and recommendations – also described as “Lessons Identified” turned into “Lessons Learned”. The concept of analysis includes, in this report, all accompanying activities, and two main approaches are both being used in our project: Inductive and deductive analysis. The inductive approach is more exploratory in nature, and is used when unforeseen, yet interesting, events occur, and where finding potential patterns and relations are needed to explore a new field. Deductive analysis is used when a strong hypothesis can be made ahead, and therefore where thorough preparations can be made accordingly. The project strives to work within the deductive approach as much as possible, albeit would naturally not shy away from inductively analysing new and unexplored events when they occur. After having contributed to several exercises, we have seen some reoccurring analysis fields, and for those we have been able to develop analysis objectives deductively. The methodology has been divided into three main phases: 1. Preparation of the analysis 2. At the event 3. Post event analysis. For the first phase – the preparation of the analysis – we describe our team, the planning of the analyses, the definition of analysis objectives (AOs), the collection of data, and the general analysis plan. For the second phase – at the event – we describe the two different hats we wear as observers during an exercise; the hat for ‘in theatre’ observation and the one for data collection. For the last phase – the post event analysis – we describe how we reconstruct and visualise interesting events that take place, which tools are being used (specifically the analysis program Fram – a tool that enables a reconstruction and visualisation of events from the exercise), the post event analysis process, and finally the reporting and presentation of results to RNoN. A substantial amount of knowledge and experience has been accumulated in analysing maritime operations. Altogether, the project has gained crucial insight into the analysis of maritime multiplatform operations on a tactical level. This includes all the different aspects of data collection, analysis methodology and tactics, in addition to documentation and visualisation. Data collection and data analysis is demanding when it comes to data support utilities and data expertise. The RNoN now can benefit from the analysis capabilities at FFI in improving the identification of lessons from exercises. The project has experienced that a close cooperation between the analysis groups respectively at FFI and KNM T/TAS, when it comes to the reconstruction of events after exercises and the identification of lessons, is crucial to the outcome of the analysis.