Table of Contents: War by Numbers

Preface                                                                                                   ix

Acknowledgments                                                                                  xi

Abbreviations                                                                                         xiii

  1. Understanding War                                                                        1

  2. Force Ratios                                                                                   8
  3. Attacker versus Defender                                                             14
  4. Human Factors                                                                             16
  5. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Italy 1943-1944               19
  6. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Ardennes and Kursk       32
  7. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Modern Wars                  49
  8. Outcome of Battles                                                                       60
  9. Exchange Ratios                                                                          72
  10. The Combat Value of Superior Situational Awareness                79
  11. The Combat Value of Surprise                                                   121
  12. The Nature of Lower Levels of Combat                                      146
  13. The Effects of Dispersion on Combat                                         163
  14. Advance Rates                                                                            174
  15. Casualties                                                                                    181
  16. Urban Legends                                                                            206
  17. The Use of Case Studies                                                             265
  18. Modeling Warfare                                                                        285
  19. Validation of the TNDM                                                               299
  20. Conclusions                                                                                 325

Appendix I: Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat                                329

Appendix II: Dupuy’s Combat Advance Rate Verities                           335

Appendix III: Dupuy’s Combat Attrition Verities                                    339

Notes                                                                                                     345

Bibliography                                                                                           369

 

The book is 374 pages plus 14 pages of front matter.

 

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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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2 Comments

  1. Looks like a thorough explanation of the process for developing a quantitative model and the supporting theory. You have convinced me, so I have just ordered my copy.

  2. Well, I hope you are not disappointed. The book only has one chapter on combat modeling…. but the entire book is oriented towards quantitative analysis of combat, which is all related to combat modeling.

    Anyhow, thanks.

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