Development of methodical provisions regarding the substantiation of the combat structure of forces for activities in the airspace

• Main Authors: Oleksii Zahorka, Pavlo Shchipanskyi, Anatolii Pavlikovskyi, Oleksandr Oksiiuk, Vira Vialkova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: PC Technology Center 2019-04-01
• Series: Eastern-European Journal of Enterprise Technologies
• Subjects: effectives; balance of power; systems analysis; air supremacy
• Online Access: http://journals.uran.ua/eejet/article/view/163082

The determining factor for success during modern warfare is the struggle for supremacy in the air. The main task for a defending side is to prevent the enemy's superiority in the air. Various means of destruction are used for this purpose. A criterion to avoid enemy's superiority in the air is considered to be the assigned balance of aviation by parties, which is determined by their fighting capabilities. To substantiate the required fighting strength for activities in the airspace, this article proposes appropriate methodological provisions. In this case, the combination of various means that are used when fighting for superiority in the air is treated as a system aimed at destroying troops and enemy targets. Four tasks have been solved in the study. When addressing the first task, we decomposed the system into components, the scientific result being a morphological pattern of the system. That made it possible to determine the joint effect from the activities of the system's components at inflicting losses to combat capabilities of the warring parties. The second task of the study addressed the development of a methodological approach to the substantiation of combat forces to fight in the airspace, which is based on calculating the saved combat capabilities in the components of the warring parties. We have constructed a structural scheme for the technique of substantiation the required combat forces to prevent superiority or strengthening the enemy's advantages in the airspace. The force required is determined based on the criterion of the ratio of aviation forces by parties to ending fighting operations using an iteration method. The result of solving the third task is the derived mathematical expressions for calculating the saved combat capabilities of parties' components to end the hostilities, which form the basis of the devised procedure. While addressing the fourth task, we considered the sequence of application of the devised procedure using an example of determining the structure of strike aircraft to prevent enemy's superiority in the air. The devised methodological positions could prove useful when developing appropriate mathematical software to be used by military administrative bodies