Previous Issues

ABSTRACT

A stochastic model is developed to describe an air battle between a fleet of aircraft sortie attempting to penetrate enemy territory with the intention of attacking separated targets and a collection of defensive weapons protecting these targets. The entire air battle is decomposed into a sequence of non overlapping stages. At any particular stage, the targets are defended by: (1) a group of interceptors, each of which is capable of destroying any aircraft, and (2) area defenders, each of which is capable of intercepting any weapon released from the aircraft. In each stage, the defense decides to optimally allocate available interceptors against the aircraft sortie that are still operating, while each active aircraft can make as attack pass at intended targets. Additionally, the defense discerns at which target each of the weapons is directed before it optimally assigns its area defenders against the incoming weapons. Positive dependence between surviving aircraft sortie is also established.

Measures of performance such as the probability distribution of the number of aircraft sortie penetrating any stage and the expected targets total survival value are derived. Analytical results of this model are presented and compared with the results of two Monte Carlo simulation models.