Ships generally comprise control bridges which are situated in the superstructures and allow the officer responsible for control of the ship to see what is happening around the ship and to make the necessary decisions for controlling the ship. If these ships are military ships, they further comprise an operations control room which receives information in real time about the situation of the ship's environment in general and more particularly the tactical situation and this allows the officers responsible, in particular, for the ship's weapons system to make the necessary decisions and to transmit the required orders.
The operations control room is generally installed inside the ship in an area comprising means for analysing the ship's environment.
This arrangement has several drawbacks.
Firstly, the officers responsible for controlling the ship's weapons system are not in direct contact with the bridge and do not have a direct perception of the ship's environment.
The second drawback of this arrangement is that the means for analysing the ship's environment are limited to means which can be embarked on the actual ship. These means are limited by the capacity of the ship and by the nature and quantity of information available to it.
Furthermore, if the meteorological conditions are not favourable, direct viewing of the environment from the bridge is limited and the information provided by the supplementary means for perceiving the environment such as radar may be inadequate. These problems of inadequate perception of the ship's environment, which are particularly crucial in the case of military ships, can also arise in the case of civilian ships.
In addition, this arrangement necessitates the presence on each ship of specialised personnel who will increase the crew.