Method and apparatus for analysis of errors, accuracy, and precision of guns and direct and indirect fire control mechanisms

A simulation engine, comprising:

• a processor;
• a user interface;
• data storage;
• machine language instructions stored in the data storage and executable by the processor to perform functions comprising:
• determining a detailed-error-source description (DESD) of a weapon system, wherein the DESD comprises an error term for each of N error sources in the weapon system;
• receiving a target for the weapon system;
• receiving a number of simulated shots of the weapon system;
• and
• for each shot in the number of simulated shots:
• (i) determining an error value for each error term of the DESD,
• (ii) determining an impact location of the shot,
• (iii) storing the error value for each error term and the impact location in a system-state data structure;
• and
• determining a correlation matrix based on the system-state data structure.

A method for determining an error-weighting function of a weapon system, the method comprising:

• determining a detailed-error-source description (DESD) of the weapon system, wherein the DESD comprises a plurality of error terms, wherein at least one error term in the plurality of error terms comprises a descriptive statistics model of an error source of the weapon system;
• determining a number of shots to be simulated;
• for each shot in the number of shots to be simulated:
• (i) generating a plurality of error values using a Monte Carlo technique,
• (ii) simulating a firing of a shot by the weapon system to determine an impact location, and
• (iii) storing a system state in a system-state data structure, wherein the system state comprises the plurality of error values, a plurality of additional system parameters, and the impact location;
• determining a correlation matrix and a confidence-level matrix, based on the system-state data structure;
• comparing confidence levels for correlations in the confidence-level matrix to a confidence-level threshold;
• responsive to determining that a confidence level in the confidence-level matrix is less than the confidence-level threshold, rejecting a correlation corresponding to the confidence level as unreliable;
• determining the statistical significance of the correlations in the correlation matrix with respect to a performance parameter;
• comparing the statistical significance for the correlations in the correlation matrix to a significance threshold;
• responsive to determining that the statistical significance of a correlation in the correlation matrix is less than the significance threshold, rejecting the correlation as insignificant;
• determining a plurality of error-source weights for the performance parameter, wherein the plurality of error-source weights are based on each correlation that was not rejected;
• and
• determining an error-weighting function for the performance parameter based on the plurality of error-source weights.