Understanding how soil systems respond to atmospheric forcing is critical not only for environmental science but also for defence operations requiring accurate terrain assessment. This study quantifies depth‑dependent and delayed soil responses to meteorological drivers using lag‑correlation analysis across six operational military monitoring stations (2022–2024). The results demonstrate that soil–atmosphere coupling exhibits strong station‑specific variability, with response times ranging from hours to several weeks depending on soil type and depth.
The analysis reveals weak instantaneous (lag 0) correlations but significantly delayed relationships, particularly in deeper soil layers, confirming that terrain conditions relevant for military mobility cannot be reliably inferred from current weather alone. Instead, cumulative and lagged atmospheric effects govern soil bearing capacity, trafficability, and subsurface stability.
These findings directly support defence applications, including terrain trafficability forecasting, planning of off‑road operations, sensor deployment optimization, and decision‑support systems. The proposed lag‑correlation framework provides a practical analytical tool to enhance situational awareness and operational readiness under dynamically changing meteorological conditions.
This paper presents a simulation-based decision support approach for artillery target engagement, focusing on the integration of stochastic modelling and reliability-based evaluation into fire planning. Traditional artillery methods rely on deterministic models and consumption norms, which provide limited insight into the variability of fire effectiveness. The proposed approach employs Monte Carlo simulation to model firing accuracy and munition effects, producing probabilistic distributions of target damage. These outputs are evaluated using reliability-based criteria, enabling comparison of firing methods in terms of effectiveness, probability of success, and ammunition consumption. Results demonstrate that optimized firing methods can achieve the required effect (≥30% target damage) with the desired reliability (84%) while significantly reducing ammunition expenditure and exposure time compared to traditional approaches. The study highlights the potential of simulation-based decision support to improve efficiency and decision-making in artillery fire planning.
The construction of water crossings constitutes one of the fundamental tasks of military engineering units. Under combat conditions, such operations are frequently required to be executed within timelines measured in hours. This tempo is enabled by ribbon pontoon bridge systems. Four main structural design concepts can be distinguished among these systems. This paper presents the results of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis applied to the problem of selecting among this four design concepts, taking into account two distinct profiles of water obstacles.