Advanced Combatant Craft for Increased Affordability and Mission Performance

As low intensity conflicts increase on a global basis, our Armed forces are becoming increasingly dependent on small combatant craft. These high-speed platforms are improving mission capabilities and helping to reduce risk for all of our armed forces. The demands on combatant craft are ever increasing. The increased capabilities and scope of missions create challenges. One principal challenge is to reduce the structural weight of the platform. We will reduce the weight of combatant craft by blending the approaches from both the aerospace and recreational marine industries and add in a healthy batch of innovation. In this proposal we present an affordable, durable, lightweight structural approach that can be applied to a broad class of combatant craft and boats. Following the approach discussed in the proposal we will work to achieve a structural weight savings of 40% or greater over current construction methods