A Game-Theory Analysis of Tactical Air War

Abstract

An important problem in tactical air war is concerned with the allocation at each strike of the tactical forces among such competing air tasks as counter-air, air-defense, and support of ground operations. We formulate a two-person multimove game in which the allocation decisions of the combatants represent the moves of the game. In this game model we assume that counter-air missions destroy enemy forces, air-defense missions reduce the enemy's counter-air operations, and support of ground operations contribute to the payoff. We describe the optimal allocations derived from the game-theoretic analysis of this model. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible implications of our results for operational gaming.