The Bang-Soak Theory of Missile Attack and Terminal Defense

Abstract

Analyses of the terminal defense of a set of targets by anti-ballistic missiles are generally conducted under the assumption that all attacking reentry vehicles are identical. This paper generalizes to the case where the attacking arsenal is mixed, the main motivation being that a mixed attacking arsenal can contain decoys that are harmless to targets, but which can still "soak up" defenders. All defenders are assumed to be perfect, and the main focus of the paper is on cases where the attack is comparatively weak. A kind of Prim-Read defense results. A simple method for deriving an upper bound on damage is described and illustrated.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA487733

Entities

People

  • Alan R. Washburn

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Anti-Ballistic Missiles
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Casualties
  • Command And Control
  • Command And Control Systems
  • Control Systems
  • Defense Systems
  • Information Operations
  • Mathematical Models
  • Military Operations
  • New York
  • Operations Research
  • Reentry Vehicles
  • Terminal Defense
  • Terminals
  • United States
  • Urban Areas

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Marksmanship and Weaponry.
  • Mathematical Modeling and Probability Theory.
  • Missile Defense Systems.