Historical Characteristics of Combat for Wargames. (Benchmarks)
Abstract
A need exists to compare war games results with military history. The Principal Accomplishment of this work is the derivation of tables of numerical characteristics that describe ground combat during the last 50 years. The study objective is to provide a tool for judging whether the results of simulated combat are consistent with historical combat. For 260 battles between 1937 and 1982 historical data were assembled about the environment tactics, outcomes and number of weapons in each force. From this data, a series of ratios, percentages and rates were calculated for each battle describing its characteristics. For each characteristic, the range was determined within which it was usually found and the median value of the characteristic. These ranges and medians may serve as criteria of credibility for the results of war games and combat simulations. A procedure is provided for comparing these criteria with the results. Keywords: Battles; Casualties; Ground combat; Movement rates; Chaotic data; Weapons density; Combat simulations; Combined arms combat; Historical data; Model validation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA200036
Entities
People
- Robert Mcquie
Organizations
- Center for Army Analysis