Exploratory Analysis of Village Search Operations

摘要

Following the cold war a new kind of threat emerged; terrorism became the most important threat used by individuals, organizations, and countries to reach their goals. Turkey has suffered from terrorism for years. In Turkey, the main logistic resources for the terrorist are the villages located in remote areas. A search operation is one of the techniques used to capture these terrorists. In this study, five village search operation scenarios are developed based on a previous study done for the New Zealand Army and the author's personal experiences. The agent-based model MANA (Map Aware Non-uniform Automata) is used to develop the scenarios, and state-of-the-art Near Orthogonal Latin Hypercube Designs are used to investigate the effects of 16 variables. Using a personal computer and the computational capabilities of supercomputers run by Mitre for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL), approximately 15,000 runs were completed. In comparing the five scenarios, the significant effects on the outcome of a possible skirmish in village search operations are the proficiency level of the soldiers, the employment of village guards, and the support of the local people for the terrorists. The results of this analysis suggest that the most important factor affecting Blue casualties is the initial speed and synchronization of the Blue search unit entering the village, and the most important factor affecting Red casualties is the Red Stealth. (3 tables, 26 figures, 23 refs.).