Threat Engineering
Abstract
The Threat Engineering program assesses the current and future threat environment and works in coordination with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to develop, produce, and evolve digital threat engineering models in support of test and evaluation (T&E) requirements. NAVSEA requires comprehensive, validated threat modeling and simulation (M&S) products to dynamically and responsively interact with surface ship air defense systems and subsystems to allow for a performance evaluation in an operationally realistic environment. These threat M&S products, called Acquisition Threat Engineering Products (ATEP), must contain the details, features, and components necessary to react with the Blue air defense systems as the actual threats will with, deployed air defense systems to provide a comprehensive, high-confidence evaluation of Blue system capabilities. The successful and rigorous end-to-end evaluation of surface ship combat systems, to include the component systems, are required before capability and ship baselines can be delivered to the warfighter. ATEPs are valid T&E assets that satisfy Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) and Operational Test & Evaluation Force (OPTEVFOR) requirements in both Modeling and Simulation (M&S) testbed and at-sea configurations. ATEPs satisfy OPTEVFOR's threat model requirement for fidelity commensurate with the blue-force system representations and contain intel-derived lethality/vulnerability data, physics-based six degrees-of-freedom models, reactive seekers and guidance, and other engineering data. ATEPs are necessary to evaluate mandatory ship Key Performance Parameters (KPP), including operational effectiveness and suitability. ATEPs are also used to evaluate a system's lethality and survivability, and its ability to achieve its performance requirements within operation and sustainment costs. In many cases, ATEP models are the only way in which the Navy can accurately emulate threat ASCM performance. ATEPs reduce Navy operational testing (OT) costs by enabling portions of OT to be conducted via M&S, increasing requirements coverage and avoiding the costs of targets and weapons that would ordinarily be required to conduct OT solely via live fire events. Threat Engineering products inform investment strategies, validate the effectiveness of capabilities provided to the Fleet, and augment live-fire T&E to obtain affordable, statistical confidence in measured performance. Threat Engineering work is prioritized to avoid technical surprise, avoid point solutions, and ensure Fleet capability against specific threats (most stressing, unique, or widely deployed and exported). Each threat system poses unique challenges to the various combat system elements and each threat system affects Blue system effectiveness in different ways, therefore each combat system configuration must undergo rigorous testing against multiple threats. T&E using M&S is essential to fill gaps and to offer realistic operational scenarios that cannot be tested via live-fire events (due to safety, numbers of targets, limitations on the characteristics of the targets, cost to develop a realistic threat, etc.). OPTEVFOR has listed a number of threat representations in ATEPs as their number one and number two priorities for the past five years because they are appropriately built to represent the salient features of the threat as an Intelligence Community-Validated and sufficient product qualified to be used in Operational T&E (OT&E). As each threat system is unique, the ATEP representation of each must include the features of specific threats, such as electronic countermeasures (ECM), active countermeasures, communications links, electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM). Furthermore, the ATEP products must capture any engineering or manufacturing uncertainties as well as intelligence uncertainties so that our Blue Systems, once deployed to the Fleet, operate in the face of these threats as they were/are designed. Finally, these ATEP products must integrate with the PEO IWS testbeds to be used in Developmental and Operational T&E. In short, each validated threat product must contain the features, components, and details necessary to evaluate the specific combat system or ship baseline. The Threat Engineering group develops specific requirements from threat foundational information (i.e., intelligence data), and systems under test. The requirements are used to guide design, development, and integration of each ATEP product. Blue Systems face severe limitations to test, and risk delayed deployment to the warfighter without required ATEP products. ATEP products need to be developed and integrated IAW Blue System needs and schedules in order to clearly evaluate performance and enable all capabilities to be delivered to the Fleet expeditiously. Additionally, until analysis is performed using the ATEP products, it is often unclear or unknown what the impacts are due to various features and techniques found to be on threat systems. The focus is to meet combat/weapon system Systems Engineering and T&E requirements for in-service and new construction surface platforms to include: -DDG 51 FLT III -CVN 78 -CVN 79 -LHD 8 -LPD FLT II -FFG 62 and others ATEPs cost approximately $5-30M per product, require a minimum of 18 months to build, and include all features and capabilities, unlimited number of runs, and may be used for live, virtual, constructive (LVC) testing. Notably, the advanced seeker discrimination, target selection, and salvo operations and decisions are difficult to characterize until the second or third versions of the ATEP products. It is important to note that the development and integration of each ATEP is a function of the threat system and its complexities, the available foundational intelligence data, and the Blue Systems requirements to include the schedules for T&E; therefore, the cost to develop and integrate each ATEP is not consistent. Moreover, the threat products must be sustained; there are many reasons that ATEP products require additional development and enhancements to evolve to the next version. -Our adversaries are continually developing new threats and upgrading and improving existing threat systems additionally our understanding of the threat foundation data may change and evolve. -Our Blue Systems and their operational characteristics change (e.g., a new Radar may operate in a new RF Band, with different channels/bandwidth, and/or other signature requirements). -Our operating T&E or operational environments may change.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2025
- Source ID
- 3238_0605863N_6_1319_PB_2025
Related Documents
- Root: RDT&E Ship & Aircraft Support
- Child Accomplishment: Threat Engineering