A Lanchester Model for Air Battles

Abstract

A historical verification, comparing data with model predictions, was made between the results of three World War 2 bombing missions and the outcome which was obtained by allowing an analytical model to 'replay' the battles. The model used to predict bomber force size as a function of time was a closed form solution for a set of differential equations which correspond to Frederick Lanchester's Square Law of combat. An attempt to measure the quality of the model was made by arbitrarily considering a prediction to be 'accurate' if it was within two per cent of the known force size value.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1972
Accession Number
AD0741412

Entities

People

  • John H. Latchaw

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerial Warfare
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Attrition
  • Civil War
  • Computations
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Lanchester Equations
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Mathematical Models
  • New York
  • Operations Research
  • Second World War
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies