A verification study of the stochastic salvo combat model

Abstract

When the stochastic version of the salvo combat model was designed, several assumptions and approximations were made to keep its mathematical structure relatively simple. This paper examines the impact of those simplifications by comparing the outputs of the stochastic model to those from a Monte Carlo simulation across 486 scenarios. The model generally performed very well, even where the battle size was relatively small or the damage inflicted by each missile was not normally distributed. The model’s accuracy did decrease where missiles were positively correlated instead of independent.