Wayne P. Hughes

A salvo model of warships in missile combat used to evaluate their staying power

A methodology is introduced with which to compare the military worth of warship capabilities. It is based on a simple salvo model for exploratory analysis of modern combat characteristics. The “fractional exchange ratio” is suggested as a robust way to compare equal‐cost configurations of naval forces, because we cannot know in advance how and where the warships will fight. To aid in exposition, definitions of all terms are included in Appendix A. The methodology is illustrated with important conclusions from parametric analysis, among which are 1 Unstable circumstances arise as the combat power of the forces grows relative to their survivability. (Stable means the persistence of victory by the side with the greater combat potential.) 2 Weak staying power is likely to be the root cause when instability is observed. 3 Staying power is the ship design element least affected by the particulars of a battle, including poor tactics. 4 Numerical superiority is the force attribute that is consistently most advantageous. For example, if As unit striking power, staying power, and defensive power are all twice that of B, nevertheless B will achieve parity of outcome if it has twice as many units as A.

Navy Operations Research

This paper emphasizes ORs utility to the U.S. Navy, as seen by its customers. Like many naval officers who subspecialized in operations research, the author was both producer and consumer of analysis toward improving fleet operations, Pentagon planning, and training effectiveness. Many of ORs unnoticed heroes are officers and Navy civilians who, then and now, could put operations analysis to best practical use. The paper reaches three conclusions, which (briefly) are: (1) The U.S. Navy could shift much analytical talent to improve fleet readiness and scarcely notice a loss of quality in Washington, (2) the benefit of Navy OR in the Pentagon was not so much in formal decision making as it was in educating a stream of future leaders about the state of the Navy and cost-constrained possible future states, and (3) the distinguishing contribution of all OR has been and still is in helping executives make better, timely decisions by applying our special art of quantitative analysis, and only incidentally in the fidelity or complexity of the models and other tools we employ.