Professor: Dr.
Telephones: Work (703) 907-2547
E-mail: ralexander@sito.saic.com
Office Hours: Mondays
SYST 683 - 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 Agent-Based Models, simulation toolkits, and non-standard
uses for military simulations in arenas such as the Global War on Terror and
Stability and Support Operations.
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)