An Illustrative Reduced-Form Application of the Hughes Salvo Combat Model Salvo-Threshold Sensitivity for an Indigenous Maritime Strike Architecture

This supplementary methodological annex documents the reduced-form salvo-threshold analysis used in the manuscript, “Atmanirbhar Bharat and India’s Maritime Strike Capability: Strategic Evidence from Indigenous Missile Systems in the Andaman & Nicobar Command.” It provides the analytical assumptions, equations, scenario construction, sensitivity analysis, interpretive boundaries, and reproducibility protocol underlying the paper’s illustrative application of the Hughes salvo-combat framework. The annex adapts the logic of Wayne P. Hughes’ 1995 salvo model to a deliberately simplified setting in which assumed offensive striking capacity is compared with an assumed defensive interception threshold. The purpose is to illuminate threshold behaviour: when assumed offensive capacity is equal to or below the assumed defensive threshold, the reduced-form model yields no residual offensive power; once the threshold is exceeded, residual offensive power emerges. The core relationship is expressed as L = max(0, S − D), where S represents assumed effective offensive striking power, D represents assumed effective defensive interception capacity, and L represents residual offensive power after interception. For an additional staying-power illustration, the annex defines an illustrative staying-power ratio, L/W, using W as a notional target staying-power parameter expressed in effective-hit-equivalent units. This is explicitly a stylised sensitivity measure. It is not a probability of penetration, hit, kill, or mission kill, and it does not estimate the actual defensive capacity, magazine depth, electronic-warfare conditions, engagement geometry, or damage tolerance of a PLAN combatant. The annex therefore does not claim that a particular Indian missile salvo would defeat a particular Chinese ship. The scenarios use illustrative values for offensive salvo size and defensive capacity and employ BrahMos-family/LR-AShM and Type 055 references only to connect the analytical framework to the strategic case developed in the main study. These references are not intended to establish a current joint operational configuration or to infer classified operational parameters. The sensitivity matrix demonstrates how the reduced-form output changes as offensive salvo size and defensive capacity vary, while the staying-power analysis shows why residual “leaker” counts cannot, by themselves, be translated into mission kill.