The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus 49 U.S. Civil War battles

From 1st Alabama Cavalry, USV website (www.1stalabamacavalryusv.com). Alexander Lawrence was from Fayette County, Alabama and fought for the Union with the 1st Alabama Cavalry

As the three-to-one rule of thumb appears to have evolved out of the American Civil War (although not as published in FM 6-0), then we should probably look at just our Civil War battles in our database.

Among those 243 cases are 49 cases from the American Civil War. As the three-to-one rule may have evolved from that experience, let us looking at just those cases:

 Force Ratio……………………Percent Attacker Wins……………….Number of Cases

0.44 to 0.48-to-1…………………0%………………………………………………3

0.53 to 0.97-to-1………………..18……………………………………………….11

1.00 to 1.47-to-1………………..36……………………………………………….14

1.53 to 1.96-to-1………………..25……………………………………………….12

2.10 to 2.31-to-1………………..50…………………………………………………6

3.00-to-1……………………….100…………………………………………………1

5.00-to-1……………………….100…………………………………………………1

15.05-to-1……………………..100…………………………………………………1

 

The American Civil War is a very good test case for such an examination. Both officer corps were primarily trained at West Point (the U.S. military academy); both armies fought in the same style and doctrine; they used most of the same weapons, including the same muskets and same artillery; they were similar in culture; and they were similar in training, doctrine, background and capability. While some historical mythology has tried to make the southern Americans better fighters, it is hard to accept the argument that a farmer from North Carolina is a different, more motivated or a more capable fighter than a farmer from Pennsylvania. Most of the United States was rural. There wre also units raised to fight for the north from all of the southern states. This is about an equal comparison between two opponents that one is going to find.

The end results from these two tests are that the three-to-one rule as recorded in FM 6-0 clearly does not apply. In the case of the Civil War data at 2.10 to 2.31-to-1 odds the attacker is winning half the time. Where does one get the notion that at 3.00-to-1 odds the defender will win half the time? What historical data established that?

So the U.S. Army version of the three-to-one (meaning defender wins half the time) does not show up in the almost 400 years of history that we are examining here and does not show up in the American Civil War.

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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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