Durbin Eugene P. TARLOG: A Differential Ground Combat Model

Santa Monica, California: RAND Corp., 1966. — 17 p.Tarlog operates on combat units, altering their composition and location as battle proceeds. Units are initially described by name, number of personnel, and number of each of sixty weapon types. Units are assigned one of five missions which determine their behavior. These are attack, prepared defense, hasty defense, counter-attack, and delay to an objective. Four proportionality constants are required as input data. These control the rate of attrition caused by incoming fire, suppression of firepower output due to incoming fire, reduction in unit firepower output due to unit movement, and reduction in unit speed (or ability to hold) due to incoming fire. The model uses five matrices of numbers which describe the relative effectiveness of each ground weapon class against each other ground weapon class for each of the five missions of the firing unit, and two matrices of numbers which perform the same function for air weapons. The Tarlog model determines the number of personnel casualties from the number of weapons lost.