The article presents the essence and main points of the methodological approach to the substantiation of the optimal combat staff of the armed forces from the perspective of the theory of prevented damage of our troops in the operation and taking into account military-economic capabilities of the state, in particular, financial constraints on the procurement and maintenance of combat means of relevant j-types. Inconsistency between tasks scope, which are entrusted to the armed forces (AF) for national security, and level of their combat capability has been and remain one of the fundamental problems that adversely affects the process of their forming, developing, preparing and using. That kind of inconsistency is caused by the impact of some factors, primarily factors characterizing economic-military capabilities of the state. Such factors also involve the capacities of the defense industrial complex in terms of development, production, modernization and providing military units (MU) with weapons and defense equipment (WME). The experience of the troops shows that current financial constraints on the procurement and maintenance of the necessary WME negatively affect the level of MU fighting potential. Thus, the problem and need for the substantiation of optimal combat staff of the AF have been and remain inherent components of the process of their forming and developing taking into account military-economic capabilities of the state. The above defines the relevance of the research under consideration and needs new scientific approaches to the justification of optimal combat staff of the AF, which would ensure guaranteed execution of national security tasks. Based on the analysis of recent research and publications related to the problems of substantiation of the AF staff as well as the assessment of the impact of CP of MU on the level of their combat capability, the paper establishes that available methodologies (methodological approaches) don’t specify some issues, including what should the optimal AF combat staff be for guaranteed execution of their intended targets, taking into account the military-economic potential of the state? One of the alternate solutions of the problem is the methodological approach, which is presented in the article, to the justification of the optimal combat staff of the armed forces from the perspective of the theory of prevented damage of our troops in the operation and taking into account military-economic capabilities of the state, in particular, financial constraints on the procurement and maintenance of fighting means of relevant j-types. To get a much better sense of the essence and content of the research subject, the authors define a range of the concepts: “military-economic factors”, “prevented damage”, “prevented damage theory”, “combat potential”, “combat capability”, “combat staff”, “effectiveness of combat use of forces”. The authors believe that compared to the available methodological approaches (methods), the methodological approach set out in the article allows: formalizing the interrelation between the level of combat capability of our forces and the desired value of their prevented damage (CP maintenance) for a defined period of operation, which is achieved by the results of counteraction (fire effect) of fighting means of j-types of our troops against the enemy. This enables us to determine the number of combat means of all j-types of our troops required at the initiation of the operation, which (taking into account losses for T days of combat activities) ensures the target level of their fighting efficiency; carrying out the differentiated approach to the determination of the role (contribution) of every kind of our forces in the execution of tasks set in the operation that makes it possible: to calculate the contribution of every j-type of combat means (military branch) to the tasks of general damages on enemy and achievement of combat actions of the required correlation of parties’ CP during T days; to define the contribution of combat means of every j- types (military branch) to reducing the predicted value of the average-daily costs of the original CP of our troops to the acceptable one, the accomplishment of the necessary absolute value of our troops and maintenance of the target level of their combat capability during the T-days operation; improving (based on the indicators of prevented damage) the mathematical model of the optimization problem and elements of the calculation process (algorithm) that allows studying the interdependence between core indicators, which evaluate the effectiveness of combat use of troops during the operation, more specifically. Prospects for future research are the detailed elaboration of mathematical models and elements of the calculation process (algorithm) for upgrading methodical apparatus, which makes it possible to substantiate the optimal combat staff of the AF required for the successful execution of state security tasks from the perspective of the theory of prevented damage of our troops and taking into account military-economic capabilities of the state.
GENERAL APPROACHES TO THE SUBSTANTIATION OF COMBAT STAFF OF THE ARMED FORCES DEPENDING ON MILITARY-ECONOMIC CAPABILITIES OF THE STATE