Modeling warfare between enhanced artillery and tanks with dynamic fire allocation

Modern warfare often involves a combination of artillery and tanks, each exhibiting distinct combat dynamics. Traditional Lanchester (Lanchester, F. W. (1916). Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm. Tiptree Constable and Co. Ltd., London) models describe artillery warfare as unaimed (linear law) and tanks warfare as aimed (square law). However, these models typically consider these forces in isolation, rather than in combined-arms engagements. This study advances the Lanchester (Citation1916) framework by incorporating both artillery and tanks within a unified model, exploring the impact of Course Correction Fuzes (CCFs), a technology that enhances artillery accuracy, shifting its effectiveness toward aimed warfare. The analysis considers different battlefield conditions, including one group lacking tanks, one group lacking artillery, and both groups possessing only one type of weapon system. The results demonstrate that unaimed artillery alone cannot win in finite time, but introducing CCF-enhanced artillery can counterbalance numerical disadvantages and pose a significant threat to tank-dominant forces. The study further explores dynamic fire allocation and separable kill rates, revealing critical stability conditions for force survivability. Phase diagrams illustrate how battlefield outcomes shift under different strategic conditions. By extending Lanchester’s (Citation1916) classical models to modern combined-arms warfare, this research provides new insights into the evolving balance of power in contemporary conflicts.