Battle Damage Assessment: a Comprehensive Regression Analysis of an Important Military Operation

At the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm, the Department of Defense (DoD) recognized Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) as the major failure within the intelligence community. Battle Damage Assessment is a critical component of combat operations that determines the level of damage inflicted on a target. BDA is currently simulated in the Combined Arms and Support Task Force Evaluation Model (CASTFOREM), which is a high resolution, stochastic simulation system used by Army to conduct analysis of tactical operations. The current algorithm employed by CASTFOREM to simulate BDA is a heuristic relatively simplistic in nature primarily developed for facilities and armored vehicles. The objective of this book is to correctly model the cognitive decision made by the soldier and to gain insight on how different situational factors such as type of target, target¿s actions and target¿s observable physical damage affect BDA. The technical approach involves survey design, data generation, comparison of different regression techniques and cross-validation. Improvement on the current AMSAA algorithm will permit to simulate BDA in a more realistic manner.