Measuring Unit Effectiveness in Italy

We are in discussion over revisiting the measurement of combat effectiveness of select units in Italy 1943-1945. This was done by Trevor Dupuy in Numbers, Predictions and Wars (1977) by division using the QJM (Quantified Judgment Model) and was done in aggregate by me in War by Numbers (2017) using simply comparative statistics. If you feel lifeless reading blogs like this, you can rest for a bit through sites such as 홈카지노.

For a little background on page 115 of Understanding War is a chart of German, UK and U.S. units in the Italian Campaign and their CEVs (Combat Effectiveness Values). Their values range from 0.60 to 1.49. The German Hermann Goering Division is the highest rated division at 1.49. This is based upon five engagements. The German 3rd PzGrD was rated 1.17 based upon 17 engagements and 15th PzGrD was rated 1.12 based upon 11 engagements. This was done using the QJM.
 
    For reference, I would recommend reading the following four books:
 
1. Understanding War
2. War by Numbers
3. Attrition (optional)
4. Numbers, Predictions and War (optional)
 
There are two ways to measure combat effectiveness. 1) Do a model run and compared the results of the model run to historical data. This requires 1) a historically validated combat model (there are very few), and 2) confidence in the model. 2) The other option is to do a statistical comparison of a large number of engagements. This is what I did in Chapters 5, 6 and 7 of War by Numbers.
 
One can measure combat effectiveness by three means: 1) Casualty effectiveness, 2) special effectiveness (distance opposed advance) or 3) Mission effectiveness. This is all discussed in Trevor Dupuy’s work and in War by Numbers.
 
To date, the only people I am aware of who have published their analysis of combat effectiveness is Trevor Dupuy, me (Chris Lawrence) and Niklas Zetterling. See: CEV Calculations in Italy, 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and his book Normandy 1944 (recently revised and republished). There is also a six-volume quantitative effort related to Operation Barbarossa by Nigel Askey, which I have never looked at. Everyone else has ignored quantifying this issue, although there are no shortage of people claiming units are good, bad or elite. How they determine this is judgment (and it is often uncertain as to what the basis is for this judgment).
 
Now, the original work on this was done by Trevor Dupuy in the late 1970s based upon his data collection and the QJM. Since that time the model has been updated to the TNDM. The engagements used for the QJM validation were then simplified (especially in weapons counts) and assembled into the LWDB (Land Warfare Data Base). The LWDB had around 70 engagements from the Italian Campaign. Since that time we have created the DuWar series of databases which includes the DLEDB (Division-Level Engagement Data Base). See: The History of the DuWar Data Bases | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). We have doubled the number of Italian Campaign engagements to around 140.
 
There are a total of 141 Italian Campaign division-level engagements in the DLEDB. The first 140 engagements cover from September 1943 to early June 1944. There is almost 12 months of war not covered and not all units in the first part of the campaign are covered. With all the various nationalities involved (i.e German, Italian, U.S., UK, Free French, Moroccan, New Zealand, South African, Poland, Indian, Canadian, Brazilian, Greek, etc.), the Italian Campaign is a fertile field for this work. We are looking at stepping back into this. 
 
Units involved in engagements in the DELDB:
 
German:
3rd PzGrD: 25 cases
15th PzGrD: 39 cases
16th PzD: 7 cases
26th PzD: 8 cases
29 PzGrD: 6 cases
65th ID: 5 cases
94th ID: 8 cases
305th ID: 4 cases
362nd ID: 3 cases
715th ID: 2 cases
4th Para D: 3 cases
HG PzGrD: 26 cases
LXXVI Pz Corps: 4 cases
 
12th Para Rgt: 1 case
 
American:
1st AD: 3 cases
 
3rd ID: 19 cases
34th ID: 15 cases
36th ID: 12 cases
45th ID: 20 cases
85th ID: 7 cases
88th ID: 4 cases
 
509th PIB: 1 case
1st SSF: 1 case
 
British:
7th AD: 6 cases
 
1st ID: 9 cases
5th ID: 2 cases
46th ID: 18 cases
56th ID: 24 cases
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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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3 Comments

  1. C.A.L: “To date, the only people I am aware of who have published their analysis of combat effectiveness is Trevor Dupuy, me (Chris Lawrence) and Niklas Zetterling. See: CEV Calculations in Italy, 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and his book Normandy 1944 (recently revised and republished). There is also a six-volume quantitative effort related to Operation Barbarossa by Nigel Askey, which I have never looked at. Everyone else has ignored quantifying this issue, although there are no shortage of people claiming units are good, bad or elite. How they determine this is judgment (and it is often uncertain as to what the basis is for this judgment)…”

    -FWIW, my master’s thesis on Ft. Donelson touched on the issue from the other side i.e., a back of the envelope QJM analysis shows that the US Army would have needed a noticeable CEV superiority to have been able to overrun the rebels on the 16th of February (the day most of them actually surrendered). I did do a back of the envelope QJM analysis of three French Revolutionary battles.

    • Can you email me a copy of that (LawrenceTDI@aol.com)?

      There are a number of master’s thesis (primarily Naval Post-Graduate School) that touch on these issues, but as this blog post originally started as an email exchange with an associate, I wasn’t really looking to list out an exhaustive literature search. Your paper I was not aware of.

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