Weapon Acquisition and Allocation under Conditions of Target Uncertainty.

Abstract

This research analyzes the problem of ordnance acquisition when the targets to be attacked are uncertain. It introduces the use of a utility function to evaluate the outcome of the attack process. Two models of the attack process are considered: The first assumes that the random target vector is attacked simultaneously with the available weapons, The second is a sequential-attack model in which targets appear one at a time and the attack process continues as long as the current target can be attacked. The expected utility for a mix of weapons for the simultaneous-attack model (SIAM) is computed as the weighted average of the expected utility of the mix of weapons against each target vector. The expected value for the sequential-attack model (SEAM) is estimated by using a simulation of the attack process. It is argued that older methods of selecting weapons are biased towards special-purpose weapons and that the SIAM and SEAM models are not subject to this deficiency. In spite of being the more complicated model, the SEAM approach appears more realistic in the way that it models the attack process. Keywords: Acquisition, Allocation, Attack process, Kill probabilities, Mathematical models; Ordnance acquisition, SEAM Model, SIAM Model, Targets, Weapon mixes, Weapons.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1984
Accession Number
ADA155977

Entities

People

  • M. Mangel
  • R. H. Nickel

Organizations

  • Center for Naval Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Aircrafts
  • Attrition
  • Bombs
  • Deployment
  • Geographic Regions
  • Guided Bombs
  • Kill Probabilities
  • Logistics
  • Mathematical Models
  • Munitions
  • Operations Research
  • Optimization
  • Probability
  • Simulations

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Marksmanship and Weaponry.
  • Systems Analysis and Design