PREDICTION AND SURVEY 89 



Fleet Operational Investigation (FOI), being conducted by COMASWFOR- 

 LANT. Progress reports of the FOI, and a recently completed operational 

 research study of ASWEPS, demonstrate that the program provides signif- 

 icant increases in the effectiveness of ASW tactics such as barriers, convoy 

 escort and screening, and air-sea coordinated searches. 



Techniques and procedures developed in ASWEPS are being extended 

 to further applications, particularly in ASW in a shallow water environ- 

 ment, and to a study of marine Hfe to develop a false target prediction ca- 

 pability. ASW tactical doctrines are being reviewed to accommodate con- 

 siderations of support provided by environmental prediction. 



Although ASWEPS products are now used effectively by the operating 

 forces, room for improvement exists. Additional synoptic environmental 

 data can and should be provided daily to improve analysis and prediction 

 accuracy. Planned instrumentation for ships, aircraft, and buoys will 

 greatly enhance the quaUty and quantity of synoptic oceanographic ob- 

 servations in the next few years. Development of new and revised fore- 

 casting models will be accelerated by increased use of computer techniques 

 and automatic data processing as more synoptic data becomes available. 



Although designed for ASW support, ASWEPS has been a source of 

 ancillary benefits. The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, for example, is 

 making profitable use of ASWEPS predictions in selecting areas of maxi- 

 mum horizontal sea surface temperature; four-fold increases of catch have 

 been reported as a result of consulting environmental charts. 



SHIPBOARD SURVEY SYSTEM 



An integrated shipboard data-collecting and recording system, the Ship- 

 board Survey System, is a most significant development in ocean survey- 

 ing. Prior to the early 1960s, oceanographic surveying, was performed by 

 instrumentation which was largely an accumulation of items, evolving largely 

 from projects supported in the Ocean Science Program. In 1962, Navy de- 

 velopment funds were provided to initiate a program for modem, sophis- 

 ticated instrumentation to complement and accelerate the effort of the 

 Navy's TENOC plan, first outlined in 1961 as a ten-year program in 

 oceanography. The USNS SILAS BENT, the Navy's first ship built for 

 this purpose, has been joined by a second new oceanographic survey 

 ship, USNS ELISHA KANE. With this system, measurements of 

 sound velocity, temperature, depth, salinity, ambient light, magnetics, 



