The ‘invisible science’: operational research for the British Armed Forces after 1945

M W Kirby () and M T Godwin
Additional contact information
M W Kirby: Lancaster University
M T Godwin: Lancaster University

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2010, vol. 61, issue 1, 68-81

Abstract: Abstract This paper presents an original account of the contribution of operational research (OR) to the formulation of tactics and strategy on behalf of the British Armed Forces in the four decades after 1945. The main focus is on the Cold War in the European theatre, where OR analysts devoted considerable time and effort to the modelling of warfare on behalf of the British Army of the Rhine. In the absence of combat data for nuclear weapons, OR analysts devised a sequence of war games which evolved in conformity with the development of NATO strategy in relation to the Warsaw Pact. Again in the context of the Cold War, the paper analyses the role of OR in relation to the early V bomber force and the introduction of ‘global war studies’ on behalf of the Royal Navy. The paper also comments on the organisational structure of British military OR following on the creation of a centralised OR facility within the Ministry of Defence in 1965. In conclusion, the paper notes the sea-change in military OR following the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the onset of a period of sustained ‘asymmetric’ military operations in the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Keywords: history of OR; military OR; Cold War; nuclear war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/jors.2009.156 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:61:y:2010:i:1:d:10.1057_jors.2009.156

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/41274

DOI: 10.1057/jors.2009.156

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Palgrave Macmillan, The OR Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().