Combat: A Computer Program to Investigate Aimed Fire Attrition Equations, Allocations of Fire, and the Calculation of Weapons Scores

Abstract

RePortReport ase the most authorittative and most carefully considered products I0A pua-!stss.They normally embody results of msajor projectii which (a) hovw a direct bearing on deciskion affecting major programs, or (b) address Issues of significant concern to the lExecutive Branch, the Caonrss and/or the public, or (c) address issues that have significant economic implications. IDA Reports are reviewed by outside panels of exports toI ensure their high quality and relevance to the problems studied, and they are released by the Presidet of IDA. Group ReportsGroup Reports reord the findings and resulits of IDA established Y.woking groups and panels conmpoeed of senior Individuals addressing major Issues which otiverwise wojuld Lie the subjiect of an IDA Report. IDA Group Reports are reiewed by ft.e sersior Individuals responsible for tse project and others asselected by IDA tW ensure their high quality and relevance to the problems studied, and ame released by the President of IDA. PapermPapeKrs, also auxwthoiatv and carefully considered products of IDA, address studies that are narrower in tcope than those covered in Reports. IDA Papers are reviewed to ensure that they meet the high standards expected of refereed papers in professional journal or formal Agency reports. The work reported In this publication was conducted Linder IDA's Independent ResearchI Pr ogran. ilb publication does not imply endorsementi by the Department of Defense or any othe Govenmnent Agency, nor should the contents be c~onstrued as reflecting the official position of any Government Agency. This Paper has been reviewe by IDA to assure that it meets the high standards of1 thoroughness, objectivity, and appropriate analytical methodology and that the results, conclusions and recomimendatons are properly supported by the material presentd. IAPproveol for Public release; disuribution unlimited. ABSTRACTr (Maxhmmm 200 words)This pape*r describes and summarily documaents a computer program called COMBAT, and it discusses in detail the methodologica concepts behind that program. COMBAT is designed to Investigate selected subsets of three aspects of the modeling of combat. The aspects considered are: formulas used to compute attrition in combat Rmodal s, touim~ulas used to, compute allocations of fire in combat models, and formulas used to compute relative measures of force effectiveness that result from combat models.IThree potential uses fcr the COMBAT computer program are as iollows. First, it can be used as a research tool to Investigaxte the characteristics and interrelationships of various formulas that compute attrition, allocation of fire, and force offecttven'-ss; measures. Second, code can be extracted from the COMBAT computer program (or this code cokl serve as a pirototype) for use in other (more detailed) models of combat. Third, COMBAT can be used Ias a highly aggregated, stand-alone model of conventional combat. A copy of the code of COMBAT on a 5.25-inch disk (PC/MS-DOS format) is attached to the inside base cover of the paper. ...

An Investigation of System Identification Techniques for Simulation Model Abstraction

“…In general, fire allocation is a function of the current force levels, the average rates of fire, the kill probabilities, and any additional externally provided allocation parameters, A (Anderson and Miercort, 1989 There are two major types of fire allocation rules within this framework -strict priorities, and fractional allocations. Strict priority methods select a single target weapon system at each firing event, while fractional allocation methods distribute the fire proportionally {probabilistically, in our stochastic model) among targets at each firing event.…”

A Heterogeneous Shoot-Look-Shoot Attrition Process

“…In addition to discussing general approaches for modeling attrition over time, Chapter V of Reference [1] defines and describes several specific attrition processes. (Computer code implementing those attrition processes is also given in Reference [lJ.…”

“…Mrs. Marcia Kostelnick also contributed her valuable time and efforts to preparing the typed manuscript. Shoot-look-shoot attrition generally refers to cases in which the shooting side has (or can be adequately modeled as having) sufficient coordination among its shooters that (1) it can assign any particular shooter to engage any particular target, (2) engagements 5 occur in succession, and the shooting side can assess the results of each engagement before being required to make succeeding assignments, and (3) Shoot-look-shoot fire clearly requires a very high level of coordination among the shooters. If such coordination exists, there are several cases in which the shooting side would want to take advantage of this capability.…”

“…For example, and perhaps most importantly, shoot-look-shoot fire generally results in killing more targets than other types cofire bc..,se fir, is nnt waste._q_ against previously destroyed targets. 1 Additionally, shoot-look-shoot flre might be able to save munitions (even if all of the targets are eventually killed) by not using munitions against targets that have alIready been destroyed. Finally, if the targets are of different value and if the shooting side can choose the order in Swhich targets are attacked, it could engage only the most valuable targets until such targets are destroyed, and then switch to the second most valuable targets, and so on.…”

“…See Section A of Chapter V of Reference [1] for a more thorough discussion of this structure for representing attrition over time.…”