Operational use of oceanographic environmental data for naval operations

The race for advanced sensors in ASW has given birth to a growing interest in the oceanographic environment in the last decade. It is now widely understood that modern Navies can make a difference to combat situations by taking advantage of the environmental data available to them. This paper will describe the nature of environmental data of importance for naval systems. These are mainly divided in static data, semi-static data and dynamic data. Several years of system development for the French Navy has produced unique experience in processing environmental data. In collaboration with partners in the military oceanographic community, two generations of E.T.A.S (Environmental Tactical Aid Software) have been developed and deployed successfully aboard French units. However, collecting, gathering and sharing environmental data is a growing challenge for the military oceanographic community, as it is for the civilian community. Finally, this paper considers some of the boundaries of ocean knowledge which currently limit the E.T.A.S operational interest and some solutions envisioned or planned to overcome these limitations in the future