Maximizing Strike Planning Efficiency for a Given Class of Targets

Strike planning is one of the fundamental tasks of the Turkish Air Force and involves assignment of strike aircraft to targets with a maximum level of efficiency. Therefore, planning an optimal strike plan based on the preferences of the decision maker is crucial. The efficiency of the strike plan in this research implies attacking the maximum number of targets while considering target priority and the desired level of damage on each target. Another objective is to minimize the cost of the plan. This research develops an exact model that maximizes the efficiency of the strike plan using LINGO with Excel Spreadsheets. Given this efficiency, the aircraft and weapon costs plus the distance flown is minimized while maintaining efficiency. The model also takes into account the aircraft and weapon capacities for particular types at each base to avoid assigning aircraft to targets from a base where there is an insufficient resource in terms of the aircraft and weapon capacity. The results show that the model developed in this research provides a great deal of cost saving (i.e., approximately 50 %) for a strike plan compared to a strike plan which does not consider the total cost.