Modeling of combat operations

Introduction/purpose: The goal of the research in this paper is to present and evaluate the method of modeling operations by aggregating forces by simulating the battle process with Lanchester's equations. This method is the software basis of a certain number of programs used in NATO, in war simulations, and in the planning and analysis of operations. Its value is in understanding the consequences of decisions made with outcomes and results of combat actions. Methods: The case study of the well-known Operation Desert Storm gathered the necessary data on operational parameters and the way forces are used in battles. The obtained data were transformed into operational variables of the combat model using the force aggregation method, whose simulation was carried out using the method of differential Lanchester's equations (quadratic law). Results: By simulating the modeled operation, the parameters of the outcome of the conflict were obtained with numerical indicators of success, consumption of resources, etc. The results were analyzed and a certain correlation with the parameters of the real operation was determined, which enables the validation of the model. Conclusion: The partial validity of the model describing the conflict on a practical historical example from a case study was confirmed. There are objective limitations in the application of modeling of military operations and optimization of the use of forces. The value of this method is the possibility of a reliable strategic assessment of the adversary's military power at the strategic level

Lanchester-Type Models of Warfare, Volume I

The Twentieth Century has been characterized by innumerable attempts to use the Scientific Method as a basis for policy planning in national and international affairs. The emergence of the field of operations research (OR) out of attempts of scientists in the Western Democracies to apply the Scientific Method to military problems during World War II is well known. Since World War II there has been a dramatic growth in both the interest in and use of OR and systems-analysis techniques for such purposes within the U.S. defense establish- ment, especially since the beginning of the so-called McNamara Era of defense planning. A concomitant trend has been an equally dramatic increase in both the number and variety of mathematical models used to support these analytical activities

Learning conflict duration: insights from predictive modelling

Why do some conflicts last longer than others? Previous work on conflict duration posits information asymmetries and credible commitment problems can cause protracted civil wars. The bifurcated nature of conflict studies, based on the notion that civil and interstate wars are qualitatively different, has so far prevented studies from including both types of conflict in the same dataset. Thus, empirical evidence is lacking as to whether the explanations apply to both types of conflict, or they are indeed separate phenomena. This dissertation expands on the Cunningham and Lemke (2013) study on combining civil and interstate wars by including a large number of predictors taken from the rich civil war literature. The proposed framework unpacks the bargaining failure framework into three components governing power projection over distance, which I argue to be the main determinant of duration: material capability, politics, and geography. In doing so, I do not discriminate between the ‘types’ of war and provide a general theory of conflict duration. I empirically test the general theory using a multi-method research design. First, I employ predictive modelling techniques such as machine learning, deep learning, and ensemble methods to demonstrate that the majority of predictive covariates of war duration are indeed common to both civil and interstate wars. Further, in most cases, the direction of the effect holds across types, suggesting that the underlying mechanism operates in a similar fashion. Second, I provide a shadow case study of the Sierra Leone Civil War to illustrate how capability shifts can occur on the ground that cannot be captured by observational data. Taken together, I contribute to the rationalist literature by providing a diverse set of empirical evidence showing that a unified model can explain the duration of both types of war

Aerospace medicine and biology, an annotated bibliography. volume xi- 1962-1963 literature

Aerospace medicine and biology - annotated bibliography for 1962 and 196