A “Universal” Attrition Model

Abstract

Starting with a basic model of volley fire against a group of homogeneous passive targets, a series of discrete approximations to the expected number of surviving targets is proposed. Some of these yield quite good approximations over a reasonably wide range of parameter values. Continuous analogues of these approximations are described, and it is shown how various Lanchester-type equations arise in a natural way from these continuous analogues.