Urban / City Warfare (merged thread)

[pcmfr]

You would be surpised at how well computer models can simulate social situations. Basically, any knowledge that can be put in a book, such as how a population would react to certain military or civil-military actions, can be simulated in an expert system. I'm not suggesting that JFCOM's model is perfect -- far from it, in my experience working with them. I do think that any exercise, in the field, or in a computer model, that gets senior military leadership thinking about COIN is a good thing.

Then again, rereading it, does the press release actually say they are trying to simulate a COIN scenario, or does are they just trying to simulate combat in an urban environment? Having worked with JFCOM's simulations in the past, I'd guess it would be the latter.

[SWJED]

You would be surpised at how well computer models can simulate social situations. Basically, any knowledge that can be put in a book, such as how a population would react to certain military or civil-military actions, can be simulated in an expert system. I'm not suggesting that JFCOM's model is perfect -- far from it, in my experience working with them. I do think that any exercise, in the field, or in a computer model, that gets senior military leadership thinking about COIN is a good thing.

Then again, rereading it, does the press release actually say they are trying to simulate a COIN scenario, or does are they just trying to simulate combat in an urban environment? Having worked with JFCOM's simulations in the past, I'd guess it would be the latter.

My take-away is that you believe that the real value of COIN / Small Wars M&S is "getting senior leadership thinking about COIN." I would submit that if our senior leadership has not been seriously thinking about this in light of current and projected operations then they need to find a new line of work. Should we really invest millions in M&S when the real experimental venue is happening every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, HOA, PI and elsewhere?

[slapout9]

Dave, I don't know if this helps, but since I retired from LE I am now a security manager at a large hospital. This is how LE has adapted the CARVER targeting process. It is now called CARVER+SHOCK. It talks of agents and
2ND and 3RD order effects, but most importantly it is designed to get you think like the enemy. the attached pdf link shows it being applied to a food a processing plant.


At the hospital we have an infection control nurse who monitors out breaks of strange illnesses all over the country/world. As you recently saw Spinach was in the news, it is not yet known if this was an accident, a failed attack or a test run to judge our response capabilities. One scenario is that it was an attack by migrant workers because of immigration and border control.

Link http://www.ngfa.org/pdfs/Carver_Shock_Primer.pdf

[SWJED]

I will take a look at the doc and you caught my attention with the "spinach scenario" - but that might be a different thread in the "2 Shop" section. Interesting stuff, and scary, to say the least.

That said, M&S seems to be great for phenomena that has a “signature” – either “tech” or say biological as in the out-break and spread of an infectious disease. The first, “tech”, can be modeled for intentions because parameters are often known. The second, biological, also can (more like monitored) because many parameters are also known.

When it comes to COIN the parameters of human behavior of the insurgents (and terrorists) as well as the local populace are not known in such a detail as to be of any value in an automated system – M&S won't solve our problems here.