This paper aims to support the selection decision of a medium-sized warship (between 2,000 and 3,000 tons), to be built in Brazil, presenting the alternatives in a hierarchical manner. Among the various multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods, we used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a basis. Throughout the study, we will propose some adjustments to the AHP in order to make the decision more robust (such as the use of the Gaussian factor and Pearson’s correlation). The criteria were listed and their respective weights were assigned in light of the National Defense Strategy, the Navy’s Strategic Program and interviews carried out with Brazilian navy officers with more than twenty years of career. To list the criteria, we adopted the critical incident technique. The use of the adapted AHP method in choosing the unit to be built can be considered as a transparent way, with a clearly scientific bias, for the Brazilian society to have the perception that the best option was made among the three models of warships presented.