Impact of Citadels on Damage Control in Naval Ships: An Open Challenge

In response to the requirement to operate in an environment contaminated by chemical and biological warfare agents, the Navy is designing Citadels containing Collective Protection Systems (CPS) on all ships starting in 1985. The CPS uses internal pressurization, air locks and filtration to prevent the ingress of contaminants into the ship's interior. CPS impacts significantly on all phases of ship engineering design integration and correspondingly on ship system configuration and operations. The introduction of CPS on Navy ships requires a reexamination of Damage Control philosophy with special emphasis on maintaining combat readiness.