Evaluation of Combat
Abstract
Assessment of effects of changes in weapons systems or battle tactics is difficult because of the variations in battles and the resulting instability of measures of combat effectiveness. Even in the relatively stable conditions of designed experimentation, traditional measures may fail to reflect important battle events and dynamics, and sample sizes are driven high in an effort to overcome large variances. This variation in results makes the design, conduct and evaluation of combat experimentation a challenging endeavor, indeed. We develop and examine a measure of combat effectiveness, based on Lanchester models, which we call the battle trace. The battle trace is a measure of ongoing battle results, measured as a function of time into the battle. We discuss how such measures can be used to compare effects of factor levels in designed comparisons, and we describe an application to evaluation of human factors in combat simulations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA243322
Entities
People
- Donald Barr
- James Hoffman
- Maurice Weir
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School