SIMULATION OF CASUALTY SUSTAINMENT DURING NAVAL COMBAT OPERATIONS

Medical resource planning for military operations requires estimates o f the average daily patient flows as well as maximum and minimum daily patient loads. To this end, a medical casualty projection system for shipboard forces (SHIPCAS) has been developed. The SHIPCAS simulation system provides estimates of the numbers of ships that may be attacked in a given scenario, and then yields numbers of expected casualties. The basis of the projections are eighty naval engagements which took p lace during the Second World War. The statistical distributions of shi p hit rates, wounded-in-action, killed-in-action, and disease and non- battle injuries incidence were analyzed by battle intensity, weapon sy stem, and ship type. Simulated data reflect the salient characteristic s of empirical data in terms of number and distributions of ship attac ks, ship type hit distributions, and weapon-specific casualty sustainm ent. The casualty estimates from the simulation results may be used as input for medical resource planning projections.