Summation of Force Ratio Posts

I think the following posts make the cases that the three-to-one rule as presented in Army FM 6-0 and other publications is incorrect (50% chance of the defender winning at 3-to-1). If there is any historical evidence that supports this claim, then I would ask that TRADOC, which is responsible for these manuals, to produce such evidence. I strongly suspect there is no such evidence. I would hope that we will see corrective action from TRADOC.

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus 243 Battles 1600-1900

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

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus the 752 Case Division-level Data Base 1904-1991

The World War I Cases from the Division-level Database

The World War II Cases from the Division-level Database

Post-World War II Cases from the Division-level Database

The Source of the U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule

My next few blog posts are going to address the impact of “Human Factors” on these force ratios.

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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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