Author Description

Today's decreasing defense budget has forced the military to reduce its spending on operational testing of new equipment, among many other areas. Reduced testing has forced evaluators to focus their attention on possible sensitive issues prior to and during testing of new equipment. The Simulation, Test, and Evaluation Process implemented in 1995 to help reduce testing costs has been an integral part of the test and evaluation process. This thesis develops stochastic simulations to suggest the sensitive aspects of operating and maintaining a system of mobile reconnaissance platforms, specifically a helicopter force, (more specifically the RAH-66 Comanche) prior to and during actual testing. The simulation can also be implemented to compare the effectiveness of different mobile reconnaissance platforms to augment the conduct of side by side field testing of actual platforms. This simple, stochastic, event driven simulation may be used to conduct sensitivity analysis on system design and operational issues, including attrition, for mobile reconnaissance platforms in order to focus the attention of the testers and evaluators on influential parameters during testing. It may also be used to inform force design decision makers.