Toward a theory of combat with embedded command and control

Reports the results of collaborative efforts aimed at developing models of combat with embedded command and control (C²). The recent development of mathematical models of complex physical, chemical, biological, and ecological systems suggests that similar types of model can serve as a basis for models of military systems. The authors have developed combat models by using catastrophe theory, differential and difference equations, population- and systems-dynamics, chaotic dynamical systems theory, cellular automata, fractals, Q-analysis, Petri nets, and relativistic information theory, for example. Some of these models have been, or will be, implemented within a synthetic computer-based modelling environment called the electronic workbench. One of the most important discoveries made is that simple combat models can generate elaborate patterns of behavior and this has implications for the role that C² is playing, or should be playing, under such circumstances