Pre-Development Work for a Theory of Combat (1980)

Well, as my page proofs for War by Numbers have been sent back to the publisher, I decided to do a little office clean-up before I rolled my sleeves up and continued work on my other books. I have a couple of boxes marked “trash?” Just opened one up and flipped through it, and it was actually pretty damn interesting collection of material. The earliest is a report dated June 13, 1980 done by Dr. Janice Fain called a “Pre-Development Work for a Theory of Combat.” It was done by CACI for the Defense Nuclear Agency.

I gather Dr. Fain was one of the earliest members of CACI (my memory says “one of the founders” but I have not been able to confirm this. She was list as a senior associate of CACI in an article on Lanchester equations in 1977: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/Fain.pdf). She worked with Trevor Dupuy as a friend and consultant in the 1980s. In particular, she took over and ran the Breakpoints Project (1987) after the contract was awarded to us. I wrote the proposal for the effort, but was busy heading up Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, so they gave the project to her to manage.

Anyhow, this draft final report of 92 pages has three chapters: 1) What is a Theory of Combat, 2) Theory Development of Combat Processes, and 3) A General Structure for Combat Theory.

Just flipping through it (as there is never time to read all this) I see that Trevor Dupuy is referenced extensively. Also referenced is Donald S. Marshall (one of the other founders of The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI)) and James Taylor (Naval Post-Graduate School). They are both associates of Trevor Dupuy.

If someone wants to take a look at this, contact me.  I don’t think I will be throwing this away.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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4 Comments

  1. I downloaded the Numbers, History and War PDF and skimmed through it. Really fascinating, I had not read it before.

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