Katz Distributions and Minefield Clearance
Alan R. Washburn · Military Operations Research · 2006
The principal uncertainties in clearing a minefield are about the number and type of mines that have not yet been removed. In this paper, we take the point of view that the number of mines should be thought of as a random variable M, and our main object is to show the advantages of a particular "Katz" class of probability distributions for M. We assume throughout that the result of clearance effort is to remove every mine with a known "clearance level" p, independently of all other mines. If p=1, we have the case of exhaustive clearance. A theory is hardly required when clearance is exhaustive, and the methods outlined below will be of no use, so we assume p<1.