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

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

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Defence Special Interest Group of the Operational Research Society for comments and advice on their work. Thanks are also due to Nigel Beard, Geoffrey Beare, Paul Sutcliffe, David Daniel, Graham Jordan, David Faddy, Geoffrey Hawkins and George Rose. The authors are indebted to the Leverhulme Trust and the Ministry of Defence for funding support. Errors of fact and/or interpretation are the sole responsibility of the authors.