Bay of Biscay: Extensions into Modern Military Issues

Multi-agent simulations are finding application in an increasing number of areas over a wide spectrum of disciplines. In recent years, the application of multi-agent systems to problems in the military has received a proportional amount of interest. However, the military analysis community is in its infancy with respect to multiagent simulations, and the efforts thus far have involved relatively simple scenarios. As a result, these efforts have not been able to bring multi-agent simulations into the mainstream of the analysis community. In this paper a mission-level agent-based simulation of the U-Boat war in the Bay of Biscay between German U-Boats and Allied aircraft is presented. The results from two 6-month intervals of the operations are presented and compared to historical outcomes. The scenario is subsequently generalized to provide a basis for extension into modern military situations of significant interest. Additionally, several relevant examples are presented.