Validating indirect fire models with field experiments

Abstract

Field experiments were used to evaluate three different indirect fire models: the cookie cutter and the Carleton damage functions and a simplified physical model for fragmenting ammunition. Data from three field tests, in which a total of 66 mortar bombs (120 mm high explosive) were fired in flat terrain, is used for validation. The results imply that no universal parameters, that would fit the results, can be found for the damage function models while the physical model predicted the field test results consistently without parameter fitting.

Tactical Size Unit as Distribution in a Data Farming Environment

“…The results of the model were within 1% accuracy of all field tests [7]. In fact, the accuracy of the physical loss calculation model is good enough for actual weapon effect calculations.…”

“…Using the perforation equation and the fragment mass distribution, it is straightforward to compute the number of perforating fragments and further the fragment kill probability. The fragment effect model consists of four components: fragment zones, a fragment drag model, a fragment perforation model, and a target element model [4,7,16,17]. A fragmentation warhead is characterized by fragment zones, which are modeled as spherical zones.…”

“…The two most popular ones are the cookie-cutter and the exponent function model, illustrated in Figure 8. The circular cookie-cutter damage model with 100% losses inside a lethal radius and 0% outside is poor in general, because it does not represent the physical reality [7]. However, combined with calculation points it becomes even worse, when losses for the whole calculation point are 100% or zero.…”

“…The procedure has been discussed in [15], where the optimization criterion was to minimize the risk to shooting soldiers. Comparison with field tests have showed that the error of the cookie-cutter damage model is at least three times greater than that of the exponent function model and at least six times greater than the error of physical model [7]. For this reason, the physical effectiveness model is the most suitable even in an aggregated model with a platoon as agent.…”

“…This computational model of a platoon has been implemented in the Sandis simulation software [4]. There has been published papers of models used in Sandis software: the Markov model used [4] and verification of the Markov model compared with entity level calculation [5], weapon effectiveness models [4,6,7] and validation of the model in war historical context [8], but overall description of the platoon model and areal calculations inside the platoon have not been published elsewhere.…”