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Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st-Century Force Volume 9: Modeling and Simulation (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix I
Pages 226-232

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From page 226...
... Although our examples pertain mostly to ground combat, the principles involved apply also to naval and air warfare. MAJOR OBSERVATIONS Lanchester Equations as Red Herrings Despite the hundreds of papers written about them, Lanchester equations (as most people understand this term)
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From page 227...
... . It is then true that the close-combat ground-force attrition in a given time step is sometimes approximated by a local use of some Lanchester equation, but the "coefficients" used can be highly situation dependent, that is, dependent on many other state variables that change over time (Allen, 1992, 1995~.
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From page 228...
... That is in contrast with a maneuver perspective in which campaigns consist of the sides maneuvering their forces in an attempt to create favorable circumstances of battle and to extricate themselves from unfavorable circumstances. Sometimes, a maneuver strategy can achieve victory without an extended attrition battle because one of the sides finds itself hopelessly outpositioned and perhaps weakened by loss of critical assets or a collapse of command and control and unit coherence (possible objectives of information warfare)
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From page 229...
... One version of the RSAS included a network model to improve the representation of flanking attacks, noncontiguous axes of advance, and critical nodes.6 An improved version of the network model is incorporated in the JICM model, which has been used for extensive study of warfare in Korea, including warfare involving counteroffensives, flanking attacks, and asymmetric strategies involving weapons of mass destruction.7 Another maneuver-oriented model was RAND's TLC/NLC, which was developed to a prototype stage using object-oriented programming and advanced graphics (Hillestad and Moore, 1996~. Among other features, it included a rich network structure and reflected the Soviet correlation-of-force methodology for planning operational maneuver.
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From page 230...
... The major problems include their being overaggregated; having primitive or no representation of C4ISR, command-and-control, and information warfare; being almost exclusively deterministic; having too little representation of operational concepts, plans, and command; and having little ability to characterize the fluid and highly nonlinear combat operations anticipated for the future. Even many of the advanced features described above in connection with the RSAS and TLC efforts (notably those associated with decision models)
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From page 231...
... One important spinoff of this could be DOD's emerging with integrated or semi-integrated families of mutually calibrated models appropriate for the full over, the usual claim that the validity of Lanchester equations depends on assumptions of homogeneous static forces with perfect local command and control is fallacious the result of the classic blunder of confusing sufficient and necessary conditions. Lanchester equations are often motivated by simplistic models of combat, but the equations may be valid as aggregate-level descriptions in combat circumstances having none of the simplistic features said to be assumed.
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From page 232...
... The traditional approach of developing models separately for the various levels of resolution is fatally flawed when it means working with blinders on, which it often does. Those working exclusively at low resolutions are unlikely to understand the underlying phenomena and are therefore likely to misrepresent the aggregate phenomena.
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Key Terms

  • lanchester models
  • combat modeling
  • time step
  • combat models
  • flanking attacks

  • operational maneuver
  • jicm model
  • network model
  • force employment
  • terrain factors

  • information warfare
  • mutually calibrated
  • red herrings
  • dod simulations
  • state variables

  • close battle
  • draw broad
  • nonattrition factors
  • little ability
  • fighting performance

  • lanchester equation
  • issues regarding
  • models appropriate
  • elastic billiard
  • configural effects

  • includes historical
  • modeling relates
  • planning operational
  • critical assets
  • human players


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