No abstract

No abstract

The findings of this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position, unless so designated by other authorized documents.The use of trade names or manufacturers' names in this report does not constitute indorsement of any "commercial pioduct.Ptibih 'eoo,nO bu4dfl to, this coIeclOt, Of fornation %t estn'atr to a.C'aqe I,~a iour oe sor ~ ri'ciu.ding the t."te tor , ew nst uctitttons. %errin "q Cst'fl data sources gathering and mnamflrinq the data need. and compietrio and e ,rk-ng th~e coilectliof Of lnlO,.tln Senld CO Mments regarding this burden estimate or anv othter aspect of this coltetnxon of ntntmatiofl nou.ding suggetion% tot reducino this oodden to vathngton Headquattef% Se-ces, ,rectorate to( information Operations and Reorts. 12 5 Jefferson 00,,i mtqt'ay, Suite 1204. Arleinn VA 22202-4302 and t te Officeof Managemsent and Budge!,. Paperwork Rkction Proect (004OtBB).Washnqton. DC 20503 AGENCY USE ONLY (Leave blank)2. REPORT -DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED

Beginning with World War I1 and its aftermath, the area of ballistic vulncrabilitvllethalit). (V/L) was first defined as a specific discipline within the field of ballistics. As the field dcvcloped, various practices and metrics emerged. In some cases mctrics were dcvclopcd that wcrc abstractly useful but bore no direct relationship to field observables. In the last decade, as issues concerning Live-Fire strategies have gained importance, increased attention has been focused on V/L. with the intent of bringing greater rigor and clarity to the discipline. In part this effort has taken the form of defining a VlL Taronomy, which is a method of decomposing a scncs of concatenated complex processes into separable, lesscomplex operations, each with certain spccifiable properties and relationships. Using the Taxonomy, this report describes how the most commonly used V L metrics are a function of platform aggregate donzuge, reduced platform capabiliiy, and reduced piaform military ulilify. We show that these three distinct and separable classes of metrics arc linked by operators that are multivariate, stochastic, and nonlinear. We also show that it is useful to form probability distributions with respect to initial and boundary conditions in order to chxracte+ damage. capability, and utility. Many defense community studies ignore these disrinctkxls to thc detriment of fundamental clarity. Examples are given and potential remedies descriW. 1 J 2. Paul H. DeiU ud Aham O r o h Cbmpya S i d t i o n r o f Ju AbmmsLiw-Fk Fidd TuD'ng. P&iW of thr XXVII Annual h l c t l i~ of (hr Army Operations R o u r r h Synposimu 12-13 Odobcr 1988. kut Le. VA: .Lo US Army Blrllistic Rescarch LsborpcOry hien-1. Teemtux U @. Michvl W. &arks. ud Juncr N. Wdbal. A Tkwnomyfir h e VuLumbilirylkdrPliry Anolysis Process. US Army BPIkstic R-rch L.boracOry Mcmonndum Report BRL-MR-3972, May 1992 Paul H. Dcit~, A VIL Ter0nom-y for Anolyzng Boilistic Live-Fire Evenu. Promdings o t the 46tb Annual Bomb & Warhcsd Tc~hniCpI Symposiuns 13-15 May 1996, MOIIIUC~. CA: .Is0 qpcan in Modcling Ballisdc Live-fire Events Tribgy, US Army Rcscarch Laboratory Tcch&al Report ARLTR-1274. Duxmber 1996. Throughout the V/L business chert k a seminal issuc that involves the chatactaimtion of damage. h the e x~~-~m e. the analyst can choose damage descriptors h a t ue either Bernoulli in ou(C0me (killlno-kill) a fmional (values 0.0 5 ~d o n a l Capability] S 1.0). This k u e a r k s not only with component damage at k l 2 j bui with platform capability at Level 9 as well. The Army Research Laboratory generally uses the Bernoulli method IO &scribe component dysfunction for a number of theoretical and pragmatic ~tasons. This issue is discused huther in Paul H. Kkitz. Jill H. Smith. ud John H. Suckling. Comparisonr o/FieU Zsts with Sinwlalionc Abrams Program Lessons Lcprnuj. Romdings of Or XXVlll AMMI Meeting or Ur Army Opcraliom Research Symposium. 11-12 O a k 1989. ForC Lee. VA, pp. 108-128: A~S O US AT Ballistic Research Loboratory McmDrPndum Report BRLMR-3814. March 1990. S ...

No abstract