Firepower concentration in cellular automaton combat models - an alternative to Lanchester

Authored by MK Lauren

Date Published: 2002-06

DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601355

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

One of a new generation of combat models is examined to determine how its behaviour differs from older approaches based on first-order linear differential equations. This new methodology, which uses `cellular automaton' or `agent-based' models, has been around for a decade, prompting closer scrutiny. The method gives entities within a combat simulation the autonomy to react to circumstances in their local area. The reaction is determined by each entity's `personality', It is found that the automata tend to either fight as a massed force. or form dispersed patterns of clusters 1 within clusters. Such a pattern is known as a `fractal'. By adopting this pattern, a non-intuitive relationship between the kill probability of the automata and the force attrition rate develops, This provides a compelling example of how the result presented by earlier worker-that automaton models may evolve into fractal distributions-can have significance for operational researchers.

Tags

Simulation Complexity automata combat defence fractals