Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS) is a combat system that intends to integrate and coordinate all of the existing sensors and weapons systems aboard a ship.

The system will eventually be installed aboard most classes of non-Aegis ships. SSDS makes it possible to automate the detect through engage sequence using identification and engagement doctrine statements.

The Threat
The principal air threat to U.S. naval surface ships is a variety of highly capable anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). These include subsonic (Mach 0.9) and supersonic (Mach 2+), low altitude ASCMs. Detection, tracking, assessment, and engagement decisions must be accomplished to defend against these threats, with the duration from initial detection of an ASCM to its engagement with weapons typically on the order of a minute or less. SSDS is designed to accomplish these defensive actions.

System Description
With radars and anti-air weapons for self defense of today's amphibious ships and aircraft carriers installed as stand-alone systems, considerable manual intervention is required to complete the detect to engage sequence against ASCMs. The Ship Self Defense System (SSDS) is designed to expedite that process. SSDS, consisting of software and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, integrates radar systems with anti-air weapons, both hardkill (missile systems and rapid fire gun systems) and softkill (decoys).

SSDS includes embedded doctrine to provide an integrated detect-through-engage capability with options ranging from use as a tactical decision aid to use as an automatic weapon system to respond with hardkill and softkill systems.

Although SSDS will not improve capability of individual sensors, it enhances target tracking by integrating the inputs from several different sensors to form a composite track. For example, SSDS will correlate target detections from individual radars, the electronic support measures (ESM) system (radar warning receiver), and the identification-friend or foe (IFF) system, combining these to build composite tracks on targets while identifying and prioritizing threats. Similarly, SSDS will not improve capability of individual weapons, but should expedite the assignment of weapons for threat engagement, and provide a "recommend engage" display for operators, or if in automatic mode, initiate weapons firing, ECM transmission, chaff or decoy deployment, or some combination of these.

SSDS integrates previously "stand-alone" sensor and engagement systems for aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships, thereby supporting the Joint Vision 2010 concept of full-dimensional protection, by providing a final layer of self protection against air threat "leakers" for individual ships. By ensuring such protection, SSDS contributes indirectly to the operational concept of precision engagement, in that strike operations against targets are executed from several of the platforms receiving SSDS.

QRCC vs. SSDS
The entire combat system, including the sensors and weapons, is known as Quick Reaction Combat Capability (QRCC). SSDS is the integrating element of QRCC. SSDS is not intended to improve the performance of any sensor or weapon beyond the performance of the stand-alone version. The primary advantage SSDS brings to the combat systems suite is the ability to coordinate both hard kill and soft kill systems and employ them to their optimum tactical advantage.