Abstract
The objective of this Diploma thesis is to examine the decision-making process on a Danish frigate, more specifically the process regarding how technical leaders make complex decisions during the in ternal battle on a warship. A series of semi-structured interviews have been held with technical lead ers in the Royal Danish Navy (RDN), who have experience regarding the use of the procedure Combat Timeline, to learn more about this procedure and how to use it. Furthermore, a different set of inter views were held to establish the foundation for an analysis of how technical officers in the RDN make difficult decisions under pressure. The interviews show that the technical officers onboard the Danish frigate Niels Juel primarily base their decisions on intuition. The interviewees explained that their ac tions during the internal battle, leading to good decisions, really are built on a foundation combining their situational awareness and their experience into one thought. They also described that a greater part of their decisions was made based on pattern recognition and that training buys the crew the ability to create this pattern recognition. The overall pattern of this thesis therefore shows that deci sion-making process for technical officers is based on their intuition, situational awareness and their ability to recognize patterns in a complex and chaotic environment. During the internal battle, the technical officers primarily use the procedure Combat Timeline as a psychological tool for the deci sionmaker for him or her to have a sense of urgency during combat. They also pointed out that it worked great for mental guidance in regards to prioritizing what information was important at a given time throughout the battle.
The results of this project emphasize the importance of training as a unit to keep the fighting capability during the battle. Training creates the bases for recognition and therefore speeds up the decision making process.