Abstract: A comprehensive-criterion-based machine gun design evaluation method in which interval-uncertainty is considered is proposed to address the incompleteness and uncertainty related to the indices for evaluating the combat effectiveness of machine gun designs. The initial indices for evaluating the combat effectiveness of machine gun designs based on interval number are established from the technical and tactical requirements of machine guns. Based on the interval uncertainty functions of the initial evaluation indices, the combined weights of the evaluation indices are determined using interval entropy method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Based on the grey relational analysis (GRA) method and the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) in terms of interval numbers, the different machine gun designs are compared, and a gray correlation degree based on Euclidean distance is defined to characterize the similarity between the alternatives, thus effectively solving the problem of interval uncertainty. An example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Key

Key words: machinegundesign, combateffectiveness, intervalnumber, combinedweight, greyrelationalanalysis, techniquefororderpreferencebysimilaritytoanidealsolution