The Weapons Mix Problem

📖 The Scoop

For the Army's future force, what is the appropriate mix of weapons to provide a given outcome, and how might these weapons be employed? This research offers some initial observations into the internetting of fires (IOF) process and a foundation for understanding its relationship to combat outcome. IOF is "the ability to engage a particular target using any number of potential firers who are able to engage due to being on the network which provides targeting information." A key problem with implementing the IOF concept is to determine how to allocate fires among a collection of shooters on a network. The authors describe and demonstrate an analytic tool based on a mathematical optimization to determine that allocation. The authors also describe how the project sponsor used this tool to screen for good mixes of weapons, munitions, and sensors for the Army future force.

Genre: History / Military / General (fancy, right?)