Professor: Dr. Robert S. Alexander

Telephones: Work (703) 907-2547

Mobile: (301) 807-3569

E-mail: [email protected]

Office Hours: Mondays 6:45-7:15pm or by appointment

 

 

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).

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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 U.S. or other military organizations.

 

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.

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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 Caldwell, US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA, 1992, unpublished; available on SYST683 website.

RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENTAL READING:

(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)