Chief Modeller for Kosovo Air Campaign

In 1999, the Canadian Air Force joined the other NATO nations in an air campaign versus Bosnian Forces who invaded Kosovo.  The CF-18s were deployed and conducted air to ground missions over Kosovo. 

The Center for Operational Research and Analysis formed a study team around the War Game to help analyze the effectiveness of the air campaign.  There were 13 military officers and six defence scientists on the team.  The military officers collected battle damage data.  The defence scientists analyzed the data and I was in charge of modelling the air campaign.  The goal was to use a System Dynamics simulation to project the battle damage into the future and thereby determine when the point of diminishing returns was reached in the air campaign.  At that point, NATO would need to bring in ground forces.

I made three projections each day: an optimistic, an expected and an pessimistic.   

Every week, the team leader briefed the Chief of Defence Staff (a four star General) and Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (a three star General) on the projections.  The team leader told me that the Chief of Defence Staff would hold my graphs up to the light to see where the projection lines flattened out.