Optimum Wind Soundings and Army Fallout Prediction Accuracies.
Abstract
ND AN EXPRESSION IS DERIVED TO FIND THE OPTIMUM SOUNDING PERIOD FOR MAXIMUM COST EFFECTIVENESS. Consideration of accuracy versus cost trade-offs is used to show that if 6-hour sounding periods are the policy, they are optimum for nuclear yields up to 100 Kilotons (KT), and the acceptable error in downwind range prediction is about 50%. However, decreasing the error to 20% by shortening sounding periods results in 5-fold cost increase. Further losses of prediction accuracy with small cost savings are the result of increasing the sampling period. To continue to practice of 6-hour sounding periods or to reduce the density of soundings to less than one per Corps would imply accepting an error larger than 20% in fallout prediction for weapons greater than 4 KT. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1973
- Accession Number
- AD0762192
Entities
People
- Joseph H. Shinn
Organizations
- United States Army Communications-Electronics Command