E. B. Vandiver, long serving head of CAA, has passed away

Christopher A. Lawrence
March 23, 2026

E. B. Vandiver, known to everyone as “Van”, passed away this last week at the age of 87. He became the director of the Concepts Analysis Agency in 1984. I first briefed him in 1987 when I was leading the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base (ACSDB). He retired from full-time work in 2012, promoted up to being “Director Emeritus.” CAA had now become the Center for Army Analysis and had moved to its own building in Fort Belvoir.

A bio: Edgar Bishop Vandiver III (born September 19, 1938), American operations research analyst | World Biographical Encyclopedia

I gather there will be services in Fairfax, VA on Wednesday, March 25.

Obituary: Edgar Bishop Vandiver III Obituary (1938-2026) | Fairfax, VA

As he was the head of the Army’s premier analytical office for almost 30 years, he had an impact on the army and its development from the 1980s, through the collapse of the Soviet Union, through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and after. The head of CAA started as a major general slot back in 1973. Vandiver filled that role for 28 years.

Past Directors:

MG Hal Hallgren January 1973 – February 1976
MG Ennis C. Whitehead Jr. April 1976 – May 1980
MG Edward B. Atkenson July 1980 – February 1982
Mr. David C. Hardison February 1982 – September 1984
Mr. E. B. Vandiver III September 1984 – November 2012
Dr. William Forrest Crain November 2012 – May 2020

Current Director: Dr. Steven Alexander Stoddard

Wikipeida article on CAA: Center for Army Analysis – Wikipedia

In his almost 30 years at CAA, he tended to make his impact through his management and direct conversation, as opposed to issuing papers and reports. I always found this oral history project done in 2005 to be of interest:

Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Oral History Project Interview of E.B. Vandiver, III, FS on JSTOR

Anyhow, we crossed paths a lot over the decades, although we did not know each other personally. The first major project I worked on, the ACSDB, was funded by CAA and regularly briefed to Van starting in 1987. The Kursk Data Base project I worked on was funded by CAA and was the source for four of my books (my fourth book on Kursk is coming out this fall). We were asked by him to do the Enemy Prisoner of Wars (EPW) studies and the three Urban Warfare studies among other projects. We ended up do the Iraq Casualty Estimate for him in 2004. That work is summarized in my book America’s Modern Wars. Certainly, half of my book War by Numbers was as a result of CAA funding. It was a productive relationship that lasted 22 years. Certainly his willingness to take me seriously when I first started working in this industry in 1987 and his willingness to continue taking me seriously after Trevor Dupuy passed away in 1995, went a long way in being able to do the work that I desired and in keeping The Dupuy Institute alive.

My last conversation with him was in 2009 or so as the budget was in decline and there was little funding left. I did acknowledge him in several of my books. In the end, without Vandiver at CAA, I would not have had the career I had and could not have done the explorations that I did. He tended to provide budget and let us work the projects as we best felt. He always supported the value of historical research and historical analysis. He had a very significant impact on the community.

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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