Professor: Dr.
Telephones: Work (703) 907-2547
Home: (301) 540-0363 (
E-mail: ralexander@sito.saic.com
Office Hours: Thursdays
SYST 683/ OR 649 - MODELS,
GAMING, AND SIMULATION
Course Syllabus
COURSE OVERVIEW: This course will focus on the use and
characteristics of combat simulations as aids to decision-making. Principles of good analysis using combat
models will provide the overall theme of the course. It will include discussion of techniques to
model attrition, acquisition, movement, battlefield environment, command and
control, communications, intelligence, air-to-air combat, and
decision-making. The future of combat
simulations will be discussed, including Advanced Distributed Simulation
(Distributed Interactive Simulation and High-Level Architecture).
COURSE GOAL: The overall goal of the course is to
prepare students to be good “consumers” of military simulation products, for
example, as military decision-makers, advisors to decision-makers, or as
critical observers of the acquisition, research, or operational planning
processes within the
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. Students
will be familiar with the definitions and taxonomies of models, simulations, and wargames.
2.
Students will understand the purposes of combat models as aids to
decision-making, including principles of proper use, formulation of measures of
effectiveness, analysis of results, and common pitfalls and abuses in the construction
and application of combat models.
3.
Students will understand strategies for representing combat such as stochastic
versus deterministic modeling, event-based versus time-stepped simulation,
aggregation, distributed versus standalone simulation, and closed versus
human-in-the-loop simulation.
4.
Students will understand techniques for representing acquisition, attrition,
movement, battlefield environment, command and control, communications,
intelligence, air-to-air combat, and decision-making.
5.
Students will be familiar with the functions of major components of
air-land combat simulations, using as examples algorithms employed by Eagle, a
US Army corps-level combat simulation, and THUNDER, a USAF theater-level air
combat simulation. These components will include command and control, direct
fire, indirect fire, acquisition, sensors and intelligence fusion, terrain,
mobility/countermobility, air and air defense, logistics support, and possibly
others based on student interest.
6.
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the use of combat models by
conducting an analysis of the impact on force effectiveness of a modernized
(notional) tank.
7.
Students will be familiar with the concept of Advanced Distributed Simulation,
including Distributed Interactive Simulation and High-Level Architecture.
8.
Students will be familiar with composable, object-oriented, parallel, and
distributed approaches in combat simulations.
SCHEDULE:
Day 1 (Session 1): Introduction;
purposes of combat models; the scientific basis of combat models; definitions,
taxonomies, and examples; aggregation; stochastic versus deterministic
modeling; discrete-event simulation, event-based versus time-stepped control;
closed versus man-in-the-loop simulation.
Example: overview of Eagle corps-level combat simulation.
Day 2 (Session 2): Principles of good analysis using
combat models; common pitfalls and abuses in practice; measures of
effectiveness; example analytical studies using combat models; simulation
control concepts. Introduce project.
Review statistical techniques for hypothesis testing*. (Project Part I
assigned.)
Day 3 (Session 3): Attrition algorithms for
High-Resolution models: Physical models
of attrition.
Day 4 (Session 4): Attrition algorithms for Aggregated
models: Lanchester attrition model.
Day 5 (Session 5): Attrition algorithms for Aggregated
models: Stochastic models of Lanchester
attrition; Attrition as a Markov chain; attrition coefficient generation.
Day 6 (Session 6): Attrition algorithms for Aggregated
models: Non-Lanchester attrition
algorithms; Fire-power scores/correlation-of-forces method;
potential/anti-potential method; ATCAL method.
Day 7 Midterm Exam.
Day 8: (Session 7): Target detection algorithms: glimpse,
continuous-observation, DYNTACS, and ACQUIRE models; Line-of-sight models
(explicit and implicit). Review for Midterm. (Project Part I due at start of
class.)
Day 9 (Session 8): Battlefield environment
representations: Terrain mobility models (hex, sector, patch, homogeneous,
network); Mobility algorithms: route planning and movement. Weather-and-obscuration models. Combat
Engineers, Countermobility - barriers and other terrain features. Review
Midterm Exam.
Day 10 (Session 9 & 10): Command-and-control: definition;
decision tables versus rule-based reasoning; a comprehensive C2 example.
Modeling intelligence fusion. Communications. Modeling Other Battlefield
Functions: Force representation, Fire Support,
Air Defense, Air Combat models, Logistics. (Project Part II assigned).
Day 11 (Session 11): The future of combat models:
Object-oriented design, parallelism, and distributed combat simulations.
Distributed Interactive Simulation and High-Level Architecture. Current issues
in military simulation. Student Presentations
Day 12 (Session 12): High-Level Architecture overview.
Student Presentations
Day 13 (Session 13): High-Level Architecture case studies.
Student Presentations
Day 14: Review. Student Presentations (Project
Part II due at start of class.)
Day 15: Final Exam.
*For use in Project Part I
PROJECT:
Concept:
Each student will use combat models to analyze
a notional modernized tank to determine its impact on force effectiveness.
Given:
1. A high-resolution
tank-on-tank combat simulation. This
model will be provided by the instructor. It is written in Pascal, and will run
on an IBM-compatible PC.
2. Attrition and
acquisition data to describe the modernized tank and the tank it would replace,
and data for a set of other friendly and threat weapon systems.
3. A simple
Lanchester-based low-resolution model.
This model will be implemented by each student in a spreadsheet or other
format as desired.
4. Statistical tools as
available in Excel or other spreadsheets.
Requirement: Students will develop attrition rates for
Blue (friendly) and Red (threat) weapons using a high-resolution simulation and
statistical techniques (Part I). They
will then build a Lanchester-based spreadsheet model of aggregated combat and
use the attrition rates developed in Part I to assess the overall contribution
of the modernized tank to force effectiveness (Part II).
Optional Alternative to Part II: Student will present a topic based on
his/her own experience or research relevant to Military Modeling and Simulation,
but not covered in the course.
GRADING:
Project: 40% (Part I: 20%; Part II: 20%)
Midterm Exam: 20%
Final: 40%
TEXT:
(1)
High
Resolution Combat Models and Aggregated
Combat Models, Hartman, Parry, and
RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENTAL
(1)
Warfare
Modeling, Ed. Bracken,
Kress, and Rosenthal, Military Operations Research Society, John Wiley &
Sons, 1995.
(2)
Simulation
Modeling and Analysis, Averill
M. Law and W. David Kelton, 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1991.
(3) Virtual Combat, David L. Neyland, Stackpole Books,
1997.
(4) “Introduction to Military Training
Simulation: A Guide for Discrete Event Simulationists,” Ernest H. Page and Roger Smith,
Proceedings of
the 1998 Winter Simulation Conference. (http://www.wintersim.org/prog98.htm)