Military Operations Research

Operations Research (OR) emerged in an effort to improve the effectiveness of newly inducted weapons and equipment during World War II. While rapid growth ofOR led to its becoming an important aid to decision making in all sectors including defense, its contribution in defense remained largely confined to classified reports. Very few books dealing with applications of quantitative decision making techniques in military have been published presumably due to limited availability ofrelevant information. The situation changed rapidly during the last few years. The recognition of the subject of Military Operations Research (MOR) gave tremendous boost to its development. Books and journals on MOR started appearing. The number of sessions on MOR at national and international conferences also registered an increase. The volume of teaching, training and research activities in the field of MOR at military schools and non-military schools enhanced considerably. Military executives and commanders started taking increasing interest in getting scientific answers to questions pertaining to weapon acquisition, threat perception and quantification, assessment of damage or casualties, evaluation of chance of winning a battle, force mix, deployment and targeting of weapons against enemy targets, war games and scenario evaluation. Most of these problems were being tackled on the basis of intuition, judgment and experience or analysis under very simple assumptions. In an increasingly sophisticated and complex defense scenario resulting in advances in equipment and communications, the need for supplementing these practices by scientific research in MOR became imperative.

1 Operations Research in Defense. - 1. 1 The Need for Operations Research in Defense. - 1. 2 The Birth of OR. - 1. 3 Military OR. - 1. 4 Methodology of OR Analysis. - 1. 5 Success of a Military OR Study. - 2 Search, Detection and Damage Assessment. - 2. 1 Target Acquisition, Engagement and Damage Assessment. - 2. 2 Detection Theory. - 2. 3 Search Models. - 2. 4 Hit Probability. - 2. 5 Damage Assessment. - 2. 6 Salvo and Pattern Firing. - 2. 7 Single Vs. Multiple Aiming Point. - 2. 9 Shooting Tactics Based on Damage Information. - 3 Simulation of Military Systems. - 3. 1 System, Model and Simulation. - 3. 2 Monte Carlo Sampling Procedure. - 3. 3 Continuous System Simulation. - 3. 4 Discrete System Simulation. - 3. 5 Weapon System Simulation Vs. Combat Simulation. - 3. 6 Simulation Packages. - 4 War Games. - 4. 1 Combat Simulations, War Games and Theory of Games. - 4. 2 History of War Games. - 4. 3 Classification of War Games. - 4. 4 Development of War Games. - 4. 5 Land War Games. - 4. 6 Naval War Games. - 4. 7 Air War Games. - 4. 8 Other War Games. - 5 Cost Effectiveness Analysis. - 5. 1 Effectiveness and System Cost. - 5. 2 Cost Effectiveness Using Fixed Effectiveness Approach. - 5. 3 Cost Effectiveness Using Figure of Merit. - 5. 4 Fallacies of Cost Effectiveness Analysis. - 5. 5 Cost and Operational Effectiveness Analysis (COEA). - 6 Optimization Problems. - 6. 1 Resource Allocation Problems. - 6. 2 Linear Programming. - 6. 3 The Transportation Problem. - 6. 4 The Assignment Problem. - 6. 5 Integer Programming. - 6. 6 Multiobjective Programming. - 6. 7 Dynamic Programming. - 6. 8 Nonlinear Programming. - 6. 9 Applications of Optimization Techniques in Gulf War. - 7 Heuristic Optimization. - 7. 1 Heuristic Optimization Algorithms. - 7. 2 Weapon Target Allocation Problem in Multiple Layer Defense. - 7. 3 Simulated Annealing. - 7. 4 Genetic Algorithm. - 7. 5 Artificial Neural Networks. - 7. 6 Salient Features of the Three Heuristic Optimization Techniques. - 8 The Analytic Hierarchy Process. - 8. 1 Multicriteria Decision Making. - 8. 2 Delphi Method. - 8. 3 Decision Matrix Approach. - 8. 4 Forced Decision Matrix Approach. - 8. 5 Analytic Hierarchy Process. - 8. 6 Problems and Modifications of AHP. - 9 Homogeneous Combat Models. - 9. 1 Lanchester Equations of Warfare. - 9. 2 Other Attrition Laws. - 9. 3 Combat Termination Rules. - 9. 4 Measure of Combat Success. - 9. 5 Combat Modeling with Spatial Effects. - 9. 6 Stochastic Duels. - 9. 7 Stochastic Combat Models. - 9. 8 Combat Models with Nonlinear Effects. - 9. 9 Air and Naval Combat Models. - 10 Heterogeneous Combat Models. - 10. 1 The (m, n) model. - 10. 2 Aggregation. - 10. 3 Scaling Methods. - 10. 4 An Alternative Approach to Aggregation. - 10. 5 Variable Resolution Models. - 10. 6 Optimization Models. - 11 Threat Assessment: Static and Dynamic Analyses. - 11. 1 Threat Assessment. - 11. 2 Static Analysis. - 11. 3 Dynamic Analysis. - 12 Analysis of Strategic Stability Issues. - 12. 1 Concept of Stability. - 12. 2 Measure of Military Stability. - 12. 3 Linear Defense Models of Stability. - 12. 4 Stable Regional Force Ratio Model. - 12. 5 Methods for Enhancing Stability in the Region. - Author Index.