Adapting the Dynamic Allocation of Fires and Sensors (DAFS) Model for Use in Maritime Combat Analysis

The U.S. Navy employs several models of maritime combat to provide analytical rigor to force structure and weapon system procurement policies. All of the models currently used are high resolution and deterministic, providing very detailed results but without any measurement of variance or any statistical manner of evaluating risk. This thesis provides the initial groundwork for a low resolution stochastic maritime combat model that may provide an initial evaluation and shape future detailed studies. The framework for the model is a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) Model fed by Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) input and output modules. The simulation loads scenario inputs from XML files forming the baseline values of entities, the rules employed for movement and combat, and the general concept of the scenario. During simulation run, the model makes intermittent calls to an optimization package to allocate weapons based on a multidimensional knapsack problem simulating a networked force. Upon completion of the simulation run, the model generates an XML output that can be later read for statistical analysis and data mining. Because of the stochastic nature of the model, it provides an increased level of analytical quality to its results as well as the ability to calculate the risk involved with the force structure and units employed.