Mystics & Statistics

Validating A Combat Model (Part IV)

[The article below is reprinted from April 1997 edition of The International TNDM Newsletter.]

The First Test of the TNDM Battalion-Level Validations: Predicting the Winners
by Christopher A. Lawrence

Part I

In the basic concept of the TNDM battalion-level validation, we decided to collect data from battles from three periods: WWI, WWII, and post-WWII. We then made a TNDM run for each battle exactly as the battle was laid out, with both sides having the same CEV [Combat Effectiveness Value]. The results of that run indicated what the CEV should have been for the battle, and we then made a second run using that CEV. That was all we did. We wanted to make sure that there was no “tweaking” of the model for the validation, so we stuck rigidly to this procedure. We then evaluated each run for its fit in three areas:

  1. Predicting the winner/loser
  2. Predicting the casualties
  3. Predicting the advance rate

We did end up changing two engagements around. We had a similar situation with one WWII engagement (Tenaru River) and one modern period engagement (Bir Gifgafa), where the defender received reinforcements part-way through the battle and counterattacked. In both cases we decided to run them as two separate battles (adding two more battles to our database), with the conditions from the first engagement being the starting strength, plus the reinforcements, for the second engagement. Based on our previous experience with running Goose Green, for all the Falklands Island battles we counted the Milans and Carl Gustavs as infantry weapons. That is the only “tweaking” we did that affected the battle outcome in the model. We also put in a casualty multiplier of 4 for WWI engagements, but that is discussed in the article on casualties.

This is the analysis of the first test, predicting the winner/loser. Basically, if the attacker won historically, we assigned it a value of 1, a draw was 0, and a defender win was -1. In the TNDM results summary, it has a column called “winner” which records either an attacker win, a draw, or a defender win. We compared these two results. If they were the same, this is a “correct” result. If they are “off by one,” this means the model predicted an attacker win or loss, where the actual result was a draw, or the model predicted a draw, where the actual result was a win or loss. If they are “off by two” then the model simply missed and predicted the wrong winner.

The results are (the envelope please….):

It is hard to determine a good predictability from a bad one. Obviously, the initial WWI prediction of 57% right is not very good, while the Modern second run result of 97% is quite good. What l would really like to do is compare these outputs to some other model (like TACWAR) to see if they get a closer fit. I have reason to believe that they will not do better.

Most cases in which the model was “off by 1″ were easily correctable by accounting for the different personnel capabilities of the army. Therefore, just to look where the model really failed. let‘s just look at where it simply got the wrong winner:

The TNDM is not designed or tested for WWI battles. It is basically designed to predict combat between 1939 and the present. The total percentages without the WWI data in it are:

Overall, based upon this data I would be willing to claim that the model can predict the correct winner 75% of the time without accounting for human factors and 90% of the time if it does.

CEVs: Quite simply a user of the TNDM must develop a CEV to get a good prediction. In this particular case, the CEVs were developed from the first run. This means that in the second run, the numbers have been juggled (by changing the CEV) to get a better result. This would make this effort meaningless if the CEVs were not fairly consistent over several engagements for one side versus its other side. Therefore, they are listed below in broad groupings so that the reader can determine if the CEVs appear to be basically valid or are simply being used as a “tweak.”

Now, let’s look where it went wrong. The following battles were not predicted correctly:

There are 19 night engagements in the data base, five from WWI, three from WWII, and 11 modern. We looked at whether the miss prediction was clustered among night engagements and that did not seem to be the case. Unable to find a pattern, we examined each engagement to see what the problem was. See the attachments at the end of this article for details.

We did obtain CEVs that showed some consistency. These are shown below. The Marines in World War l record the following CEVs in these WWI battles:

Compare those figures to the performance of the US Army:

In the above two and in all following cases, the italicized battles are the ones with which we had prediction problems.

For comparison purposes, the CEVs were recorded in the battles in World War II between the US and Japan:

For comparison purposes, the following CEVs were recorded in Operation Veritable:

These are the other engagements versus Germans for which CEVs were recorded:

For comparison purposes, the following CEVs were recorded in the post-WWII battles between Vietnamese forces and their opponents:

Note that the Americans have an average CEV advantage of 1 .6 over the NVA (only three cases) while having a 1.8 advantage over the VC (6 cases).

For comparison purposes, the following CEVs were recorded in the battles between the British and Argentine’s:

Next: Part II: Conclusions

The Best and The Brightest

One of seminal works coming out of the Vietnam war was David Halberstam’s book The Best and the Brightest about the highly intelligent, highly educated “whiz kids” that were brought into our national security structure in the 1950s and 1960s and ended up tangled up in the unsolvable Vietnam War. This tendency for the foreign policy team to include highly educated specialists was reinforced by Nixon hiring the scholar Henry Kissinger as his National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State. This has become somewhat of a tradition, where the National Security Advisor is often a reputable academic like Rostow (PhD, Yale), Kissinger (PhD Harvard) or Brzezinski (PhD, Harvard). Even Trump’s second national security advisor, the legendary three-star general H. R. McMaster, had a PhD and had published one book.

So the tradition, for better or worse, is that the U.S. national security team consists a smattering of “whiz kids”, academics and some of the “Best and the Brightest.” This tradition does not appear to be closely adhered to now. The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is a lawyer (although from Harvard) and career politician. The newly nominated National Security Advisor is Robert O’Brien, also a lawyer. The previous holder of that office, the infamous John Bolton, was also a lawyer. The head of the Defense Department is Mark Esper, who has a PhD in Public Policy.

I will leave it to the reader as to whether having a bunch of Harvard academics with a background in International Relations results in better foreign policy. I just note that this is now no longer the tradition. It is mostly lawyers now.

 

 

P.S. A few related posts:

Secretary of the Army, take 3

Secretary of Defense – 3

H. R. McMaster

McMaster vs Spector on Vietnam

Validating A Combat Model (Part III)

[The article below is reprinted from April 1997 edition of The International TNDM Newsletter.]

Numerical Adjustment of CEV Results: Averages and Means
by Christopher A. Lawrence and David L. Bongard

As part of the battalion-level validation effort, we made two runs with the model for each test case—one without CEV [Combat Effectiveness Value] incorporated and one with the CEV incorporated. The printout of a TNDM [Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model] run has three CEV figures for each side: CEVt CEVl and CEVad. CEVt shows the CEV as calculated on the basis of battlefield results as a ratio of the performance of side a versus side b. It measures performance based upon three factors: mission accomplishment, advance, and casualty effectiveness. CEVt is calculated according to the following formula:

P′ = Refined Combat Power Ratio (sum of the modified OLls). The ′ in P′ indicates that this ratio has been “refined” (modified) by two behavioral values already: the factor for Surprise and the Set Piece Factor.

CEVd = 1/CEVa (the reciprocal)

In effect the formula is relative results multiplied by the modified combat power ratio. This is basically the formulation that was used for the QJM [Quantified Judgement Model].

In the TNDM Manual, there is an alternate CEV method based upon comparative effective lethality. This methodology has the advantage that the user doesn’t have to evaluate mission accomplishment on a ten point scale. The CEVI calculated according to the following formula:

In effect, CEVt is a measurement of the difference in results predicted by the model from actual historical results based upon assessment for three different factors (mission success, advance rates, and casualties), while CEVl is a measurement of the difference in predicted casualties from actual casualties. The CEVt and the CEVl of the defender is the reciprocal of the one for the attacker.

Now the problem comes in when one creates the CEVad, which is the average of the two CEVs above. l simply do not know why it was decided to create an alternate CEV calculation from the old QJM method, and then average the two, but this is what is currently being done in the model. This averaging results in a revised CEV for the attacker and for the defender that are not reciprocals of each other, unless the CEVt and the CEVl were the same. We even have some cases where both sides had a CEVad of greater than one. Also, by averaging the two, we have heavily weighted casualty effectiveness relative to mission effectiveness and mission accomplishment.

What was done in these cases (again based more on TDI tradition or habit, and not on any specific rule) was:

(1.) If CEVad are reciprocals, then use as is.

(2.) If one CEV is greater than one while the other is less than 1,  then add the higher CEV to the value of the reciprocal of the lower CEV (1/x) and divide by two. This result is the CEV for the superior force, and its reciprocal is the CEV for the inferior force.

(3.) If both CEVs are above zero, then we divide the larger CEVad value by the smaller, and use its result as the superior force’s CEV.

In the case of (3.) above, this methodology usually results in a slightly higher CEV for the attacker side than if we used the average of the reciprocal (usually 0.1 or 0.2 higher). While the mathematical and logical consistency of the procedure bothered me, the logic for the different procedure in (3.) was that the model was clearly having a problem with predicting the engagement to start with, but that in most cases when this happened before (meaning before the validation), a higher CEV usually produced a better fit than a lower one. As this is what was done before. I accepted it as is, especially if one looks at the example of Mediah Farm. If one averages the reciprocal with the US’s CEV of 8.065, one would get a CEV of 4.13. By the methodology in (3.), one comes up with a more reasonable US CEV of 1.58.

The interesting aspect is that the TNDM rules manual explains how CEVt, CEVl and CEVad are calculated, but never is it explained which CEVad (attacker or defender) should be used. This is the first explanation of this process, and was based upon the “traditions” used at TDI. There is a strong argument to merge the two CEVs into one formulation. I am open to another methodology for calculating CEV. I am not satisfied with how CEV is calculated in the TNDM and intend to look into this further. Expect another article on this subject in the next issue.

Losses of the 32nd and 31st Tank Brigades at Prokhorovka

Dr. Wheatley requested me to list out the losses for the 32nd and 31st Tank Brigades on 12 July 1943. They were the two attacking tank brigades on the right flank of the XXIX Tank Corps, with the 32nd Tank Brigade in the first echelon and the 31st in the second echelon. Next to the 32nd Tank Brigade was the 25th Tank Brigade and they were supported by the 53rd Motorized Rifle Brigade. Here are their reports (the text in italics are the direct translations of the reports, done by Dr. Richard Harrison):

Operational Report #90, 0800 July 11, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

Corps material and supply situation:

25th TBde: 32 T-34s, 39 T-70s, 103 cars, 4 45mm guns, 3 37mm guns, 6 82mm mortars

31st TBde: 31 T-34s, 39 T-70s, 103 cars, 4 45mm guns, 2 37mm guns, 6 82mm mortars

32nd TBde: 63-T34s, 102 cars, 4 45mm guns, 2 25mm guns, and 6 82mm mortars

53rd MotRBde: 293 cars, 17 BA-64 armored cars, 12 76mm guns, 12 45mm guns, 30 82mm mortars and 6 120mm mortars.

271st Mortar Rgt: 69 cars and 36 120mm mortars

1446th Self-Propelled ArtRgt: 28 cars, 9 76mm SP guns, 12 122mm howitzers

108th ATArtRgt: 37 cars, 12 76mm guns and 8 45mm guns

75th Motorcycle Bn: 10 BA-64s, 13 cars, 72 motorcycles, and 4 82mm mortars

38th Armored Bn: 7 T-70s, 12 BA-10s, 10 BA-64s and 12 cars

363rd Ind Communications Bn: 74 cars, 10 BA-64s, and 3 T-34s.

193rd Sapper Bn: 31 cars

69th (?) Reconnaissance Bn: 15 cars

72nd (?) Reconnaissance Bn: 10 cars

1st (?) Co: 45 cars

7th (?): 6 cars

Combat Report #73, 1600, July 11, 1943, HQ: 29th TC:

Type……………………….25th TBde…..31st TBde…..32nd TBde…..1446th SP Art Rgt

T-34…………………………31………………29……………….60………………-

T-34 (in repair)…………..1……………….3…………………..4……………….-

T-70………………………..36……………….38………………..-………………..-

T-70 (in repair)…………..3………………..1…………………-…………………-

KV……………………………1………………………………………………………..-

122mm SAU………………1……………………………………………………….11

76mm SAU………………..1………………………………………………………….8

Corps Strength 123 T-34s, 81 T-70s, 11 122mm SAUs, and 8 76mm SAU.

Note that this Corps Strength list does not match the list above in any category. In part because there were 7 T-70s with the 38th Armored Bn and 3 T-34s with the 363rd Ind Communications Bn.

Combat Report #75, 2400, July 12, 1943, HQ 29th TC:

25th Tank Brigade losses: 140 men killed, 180 wounded. 13 T-34s and 10 T-70s were irretrievably lost; 11 T-34s and 10 T-70s were knocked out or hit mines; 7 T-34s and 4 T-70s are out of action due to technical breakdowns.

32nd Tank Brigade losses: 100 men killed and 130 wounded. Overall, 54 T-34s were either burned, knocked out, or are in need of repair.

31st Tank Brigade losses: 20 T-34s and 18 T-70s knocked out and burned. Tanks in line: 3, with the location and condition of the remainder being investigated.

During the night 3 T-34s and 1 122mm SAU were repaired.

The evacuation of knocked-out tanks is being carried out by 3 turretless T-34s and a single M-3 “Grant”. Four brigades are working to restore damaged equipment, with one working to repair self-propelled guns; 2 brigades working to repair 32nd TBdes equipment, and 1 working for 31st TBde.

Note the reference to evacuation of tanks, which does have some definite impact on the photo reconnaissance pictures taken on 16 July and 7 August 1943.

Operational Report #2, 0700, July 13, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Losses: 95 T-34s, 38 T-70s, 8 self-propelled platforms, 240 men killed and 610 wounded.

Combat Report #76, 1300, July 13, 1943, HQ 29th TC:

31st Tank Bde: Material Supply and condition: 8 T-34s and 20 T-70s in line; during the night 8 T-34s were evacuated from the field.

Losses for 12 July: 14 men killed, 27 wounded, and 15 missing. 1 45mm guns wrecked, 1 heavy MG, 2 SMGs and 1 rifle.

25th Tank Bde, consisting of 50th MotRBn, 11 T-70s and 2 guns from an antitank battalion, are defending 1 km east of Storzhevoye.

32nd Tk Bde: Tanks in line: 12 T-34s

1529th Self-Propelled Art Rgt is in Prokhorovka.

Operational Report #91, 0400 July 14, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

25th TBde losses: 40 men killed, 87 wounded, 2 T-70s burns, and 1 knocked out.

53rd MotRBde: Losses for July 12: 517 men killed and missing, and 572 wounded; 16 heavy MGS, 25 AT rifles, 2 45mm guns, 13 light MGs, and 2 cars.

1446th Self-Propelled ArtRgt turned over 2 guns to 25th TBde and 6 to 32nd TBde. Losses for July 12: 19 men killed, 14 wounded; 8 122mm SAUs and 3 76mm SAUs destroyed.

108th ATArtRgt is the corps commander’s reserve without losses

271st Mortar Rgt has been subordinated to 53rd MotRBde. Losses for July 12: 5 men killed and missing, with 4 wounded.

On July 12 1 man was killed and another wounded.

Material Condition:

On hand: 31 T-34s, 40 T-70s, 3 122mm SAUs, and 5 76mm SAUs

Losses: 58 T-34s, 23 T-70s, 8 122mm SAUs, and 3 76mm SAUs

Undetermined location: 18 T-34s and 9 T-70s

Needing major repairs: 11 T-34s and 5 T-70s

Needing lesser repairs: 13 T-34s and 8 T-70s

 

Operational Report #4, 0700, July 14, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Losses: 3 T-70s, of which 2 were irreplaceable; 40 men killed and 87 wounded. Tanks on hand: 31 T-34s, 40 T-70s.

Operational Report #92, 1600 July 14, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

25th TBde losses: 1 T-70 burns, 1 man killed and 5 wounded.

Equipment Strength:

On hand: 33 T-34s, 39 T-70s, 3 122mm SAUs, and 5 76mm SAUs.

 

Combat Report #77, 1900, July 14, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

25th TBde: Losses 1 T-70 burned, 1 man killed and 5 wounded.

Operational Report #5, 1900, July 14, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Losses: 1 T-70 burned, 1 man killed and 5 wounded. Tanks on hand: 33 T-34s and 39 T-70s.

Operational Report #6, 0700, July 15, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Tanks in line: 35 T-34s and 40 T-70s

Operational Report #94, 1600 July 15, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

31st TBde: Tanks on hand: 15 T-34s and 20 T-70s. Losses: 1 man killed.

53rd MotRBde: Losses 1 man killed, 17 wounded.

25th TBde: Tanks on hand: 5 T-34s and 19 T-70s. Loses: 1 T-70 knocked out, 1 man killed.

32nd TBde: Tanks on hand: 15 T-34s.

Operational Report #7, 0400, July 16, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Losses: 1 T-70 knocked out, 1 man killed. Tanks in line: 40 T-34s and 45 T-70s.

Combat Report #80, 1900 July 16, 1943 HQ 29th TC:

25th TBde: Losses: none. Material Status: 5 T-34s and 17 T-70s in the line; 4 antitank guns; 5 82mm mortars; 3 37mm AA guns.

31st TBde: Material Status: 16 T-34s and 21 T-70s in the line; 3 45mm guns, 2 37mm guns, 2 MBGs, and 3 82mm guns [probably mortars]

32nd TBde: Losses for July 16: 5 men killed, 5 wounded, 1 T-34. Enemy aircraft, in groups of up to 60 planes, bombed the brigade’s positions 4 times.

One notes that in most wargames, attacking a tank brigade with 120 or more Ju-87s and Fw-190s would probably result in more than 13 casualties (see below).

53rd MotRBde: Losses 2 men wounded. Material status: 11 76mm guns; 7 45mm guns; 51 AT rifles; 19 HMGs, 41 LMGs.

1446th Self-Propelled ArtRgt: Equipment on hand: 4 122mm SAUs and 6 76mm SAUs.

271st Mortar Rgt: Losses: 3 men wounded due to bombing and 3 cars damaged. Material condition: 33 120mm mortars.

108th ATArtRgt: Material status: 12 76mm and 8 45mm guns.

38th Armored Bn: Material status: 7 T-70s, 12 Ba-10s and 10 Ba-64s.

75th Motorcycle Bn: 9 BA-64s and 60 motorcycles.

Operational Report #95, 2400 July 16, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

Losses for July 16: 6 men killed and 19 wounded, 1 T-34, 3 cars knocked out and 3 damaged.’

Material Condition: 42 T-34s, 47 T-70s, 1 KV, 4 122mm SAUs, 6 76mm SAUs, 23 76mm guns, 26 45mm guns, 5 37mm guns, 3 25mm guns, 39 120mm mortars, 44 82mm mortars. By 0600 on July 17 5 T-34s and 3 T-70s will be restored.

Operational Report #96, 2400 July 16, 1943. HQ 29th TC:

Material Status: 42 T-34s, 50 T-70s, 1 KV, 4 122mm SAUs, 6 76mm SAUs, 23 76mm guns, 26 45mm guns, 5 47mm guns, 3 25mm guns, and 44 82mm mortars.

Operational Report #8, 0400, July 17, 1943. HQ 5th Gds Tank Army:

29th TC: Losses: 1 T-34, 5 men killed and 10 wounded. 6 cars smashed or knocked out. Tanks in line: 39 T-34s and 45 T-70s.

XXIX Tank Corps (Fond 332, Opis: 1943, Delo: 80, Pages 2-3):

Information on Equipment Loses and Strengths, July 12-16

Equipment Strength: July 12-16

T-34s: 56

T-70: 52

KV: 1

SU-122: 4

SU-76: 6

Irreplaceable loses (burned)

T-34: 60

T-70: 31

SU-122: 8

SU-76: 3

Transportation Equipment Strength

1.5 tons: 572

2.5-3 tons: 205

Irreplaceable Losses:

1.5 tons: 15

2.5-3 tons: 8

Jeeps: 2

Artillery Strength:

76mm: 23

45mm: 26

37mm AA: 5

25mm AA: 3

120mm Mortar: 39

82mm Mortar: 44

Irreplaceable Artillery Losses:

76mm gun: 1

45mm gun: 1

120mm mortar: 3

82mm mortar: 5

Readiness of Rifle Companies:

25th TBde: 50%

31st TBde: 55%

32nd TBde: 85%

53rd MotRBde: 40%

 

Note that I had to retype all these entries, and I am ham-fisted, so there might be typo  or two in them.

By the way, reviewing this just reinforces my opinion that the 31st Tank Brigade was in a second echelon position and used as such. May not have ever gotten past Oktyabrskii Sovkhoz.

Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran

Saudi Fires From Outerspace (picture from NASA)

There are four countries have been in the news lately, intertwined in a complex little dance that had resulted in the temporary shutting down of 5% of the world oil production. Lets us look at the four countries for a moment:

………………………………………Iran……….Iraq……….Saudia Arabia……..Yemen
Population (millions)……………….83…………37……………..33………………….28
GDP (billions)……………………..484………..250……………762………………….28
Per Capita Income……………..5,820………6,116………..23,566………………..925
% Shiite……………………………..90+…………60…………10-15%…………….35-40%

Now, there are also five other states in and around the Persian/Arabian Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Oman. The most populous and richest of these is UAE with 9.6 million people and a nominal GDP of 433 billion. Some of these states, like Bahrain, are majority Shiite.

While there might be some retaliatory strikes in response, this simple comparison shows that:

  1. Iran is the big guy in the region.
  2. Saudia Arabia is probably not in position to wage war against Iran. It may conduct a military response, but nothing pushing towards something that looks like full-scale war.
    1. Especially as they do not have a common border except over the Gulf.

P.S. Based upon Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

………………………………………Iran………..Iraq…………Saudia Arabia……..Yemen
GDP (billions)……………………….484…………250…………..762……………………28

Per Capita Income………………..5,820………6,116……….23,566………………….925

GDP PPP………………………….1,540…………734………..1,924……………………73

Per Capita Income………………18,504……..17,952………56,817………………..2,380

 

P.P.S. A related relevant earlier blog post:

Air Forces in the Persian/Arabian Gulf

 

Did the 170th Tank Brigade get to Ivanovskii Vyiselok?

In Valeri’s Zamulin’s book, the map on the page before page 385 shows the 170th Tank Brigade (XVIII Tank Corps) and the 1/32 Tank Brigade (XXIX Tank Corps) driving all the way to the village of Ivanovskii Vyiselok. I am not sure either of those units got that far. It shows their attack being halted by the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment, which is the Panzer Regiment of the neighboring Das Reich SS Division.

The records I have from the XVIII Tank Corps records has the 170th Tank Brigade by 1200 losing 60% of its equipment, taking Okyabrskii Sovkhoz “despite these losses” and 1200 are fighting along the line “the ravine southeast of Mikhailovka.” As of the Corps’ 1400 daily report the 170th Tank Brigade is still fighting along the line of the ravine southeast of Mikhailovka. ” The records then state that: “the corp’s units, continuing to carry out their mission, by the end of the day had reached the line 200 meters east of the Bororodiskoye church–southern outskirts of Vasilevka-Andreyevka-two windmills at Prelsstnoye–further along the northern slopes of the ravine southeast of Andreyevka–the Okyabrskii Sovkhoz.“

Some of the quotes from those records are in this post:

Where were the 181st and 170th Tank Brigades on 12 July 1943?

In the XXIX Tank Corps records I have, there is no mention of this either. For the 1900 report from the corps, they report that the 32nd Tank Brigade “…is attacking the enemy along the line Okyabrskii Sovkhoz, where it was halted by enemy artillery and tank fire, and by his aircraft.” and from the 2400 report they reported that “32nd Tank Brigade, having encountered stubborn enemy resistance, at 1300 forced to go over to the defensive along the line of the Oktyabrskii Sovkhoz.”

The Fifth Guards Tank Army 1900 daily report shows a little more forward movement, with the XVIII Tank Corps reported to have captured Mikhailovka by 1400. It notes that “The Corps’ further advance was contained by the enemy’s powerful artillery and mortar fire from the Greznoye area, and by tank fire from the Bogoroditskoye area.” That same report has the XXIX TAnk Corps by 1400 taking the Komsomolets Sovkhoz and then notes: “…having encountered an enemy counterattack supported by 200 tanks from the Yar Zoslonnyi-Komsomolets Sokhoz, the corps abandoned the Sovkhoz. Units fell back to the line Oktyabrskii Sovkhoz–Storozhevoye, repelling enemy tank counterattacks.”

The Fifth Guards Tank Army’s 0700 13 July report has the XVIII Tank Corps taking the eastern outskirts of Vasilevka by the end of the 12 July, “…but its further advance was halted by the enemy’s artillery and tank fire from the area of the western outskirts of Vasilevka.” The report has the XXIX Tank Corps “…on the line Oktyabrskii Sovkhoz (excl.) Storozhevoye and is repelling enemy counterattacks by a large group of tanks from the Komsomolets Sovkhoz area.”

The Fifth Guards Tank Army’s summary report for 12-24 July has “the 170th and 181st Tank Brigade “…by 1430, after fierce fighting, had taken the Okyabrskii Sovkhoz and had reached Andreyevka and Vasilevka, an advance of 6-7 kilometers (which is putting a good face on a disastrous attack). This is also the report that states “In Andreyevka 181st Tank Brigade met a large column of enemy tanks.” For the XXIX Tank Corps they have “At 1300 32nd and 31st Tank Brigades, following a fiece meeting engagement with enemy tanks along the approaches to the road south of the Oktyabrskii Sovkhoz, were halted by strong enemy tank and AT fire, as well as by aerial bombardment; the brigades went over to the defensive along this line and repulsed four strong tank counterattacks, which resulted in heavy enemy losses.”

So there is simply no mention of such an advance all the way to Ivanovskii Vyiselok in the XVIII Tank Corps records we have, nor in the XXIX Tank Corps records, nor in the Fifth Guards Tank Army records.

I don’t recall the SS records (which are very sparse this day) ever mentioning this.

The Germans have one intelligence map which shows two penetrations. One, probably by the 181st Tank Brigade, on the left flank of the LSSAH Division, and one, probably by the 32nd Motorized Rifle Brigade later in the day at the Storozhevoye woods. I don’t have a convenient version of this map that I can put at the top of this post, but it is on page 950 in my original Kursk book and page 343 in the Prokhorovka book.

I do have a contemporary II Guards Tank Corps map that shows Ivanokskii Vyiselok on 12 July. It shows no action there, although this is not particularly meaningful. As the attacking units were with the XVIII and XXIX Tank Corps, it is not surprising that their operations were not shown on the II Guards Tank Corps maps.

So, where does this claimed attack come from? Well, the only description I know of such an effort is in Zamulin’s book, page 351. He says:

At the same time [1430 or 1600 Moscow time], the forces of the left wing of Bakharov’s corps (the 170th Tank Brigade, part of the 181st Tank Brigade, several tanks from the 31st Tank Brigade mounting infantry from the 32nd Motorized Rifle Brigade) struck out along the gully leading from Andreevka to the southwest in the direction of Hill 241.6. The group attacked resolutely. Taking advantage of the terrain and the dense smoke of the battlefield, the tanks broke through the line of the Leibstandarte’s reconnaissance battalion and unexpectedly burst into the firing positions of the division’s artillery regiment….Within a short time, the 170th Tank Brigade was already fighting in the area of Ivanovskii Vyselok….Hausser immediately concentrated panzer elements from both SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte and SS Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich against both our tank groups at Komsomolets State Farm and Ivanovskii Vyselok.

So this does put elements of the 170th Tank Brigade at Ivanovskii Vyiselok sometime after 1430. There are a few problems here: First, there are no footnotes on this page. So not sure of the source of this account. Second, it not quite match his map. The map shows the 1/32 Tank Brigade also there, whereas the text on page 351 clearly leaves them stuck in Komsomolets Sovkhoz (“At this moment, the crews of Major Ivanov’s 1st Tank Battalion and the motorized riflemen of Lieutenant Colonel Lipichev’s 53rd Motorized Rifle Brigade from the 29th Tank Corps were still fighting for their lives on the State Farm.”). Third this is a late afternoon attack and a late afternoon penetration of the LSSAH position. This does differ in time from other accounts (as does his putting the Soviet T-34s hitting the tank ditch story after 1300).

Not sure what to make of this account. I assume it is based upon some evidence, but I have no idea what that evidence is.

Validating A Combat Model (Part II)

[The article below is reprinted from October 1996 edition of The International TNDM Newsletter.]

Validation of the TNDM at Battalion Level
by Christopher A. Lawrence

The original QJM (Quantified Judgement Model) was created and validated using primarily division-level engagements from WWII and the 1967 and 1973 Mid-East Wars. For a number of reasons, we are now using the TNDM (Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model) for analyzing lower-level engagements. We expect, with the changed environment in the world, this trend to continue.

The model, while designed to handle battalion-level engagements, was never validated for those size engagements. There were only 16 engagements in the original QJM Database with less than 5,000 people on one side, and only one with less than 2,000 people on a side. The sixteen smallest engagements are:

While it is not unusual in the operations research community to use unvalidated models of combat, it is a very poor practice. As TDI is starting to use this model for battalion-level engagements, it is time it was formally validated for that use. A model that is validated at one level of combat is not validated to represent sizes, types and forms of combat to which it has not been tested. TDI is undertaking a battalion-level validation effort for the TNDM. We intend to publish the material used and the results of the validation in the International TNDM Newsletter. As part of this battalion-level validation we will also be looking at a number of company-level engagements. Right now, my intention is to simply just throw all the engagements into the same hopper and see what comes out.

By battalion-level, I mean any operation consisting of the equivalent of two or less reinforced battalions on one side. Three or more battalions imply a regiment or brigade—level operation. A battalion in combat can range widely in strength, but that usually does not have an authorized strength in excess of 900. Therefore, the upper limit for a battalion—level engagement is 2,000 people, while its lower limit can easily go below 500 people. Only one engagement in the original OJM Database fits that definition of a battalion-level engagement. HERO, DMSI, TND & Associates, and TDI (all companies founded by Trevor N. Dupuy) examined a number of small engagements over the years. HERO assembled 23 WWI engagements for the Land Warfare Database (LWDB), TDI has done 15 WWII small unit actions for the Suppression contract and Dave Bongard has assembled four others from that period for the Pacific, DMSI did 14 battalion-level engagements from Vietnam for a study on low intensity conflict 10 years ago, and Dave Bongard has been independently looking into the Falkland Islands War and other post-WWII sources to locate 10 more engagements, and we have three engagements that Trevor N. Dupuy did for South Africa. We added two other World War II engagements and the three smallest engagements from the list to the left (those marked with an asterisk). This gives us a list of 74 additional engagements that can be used to test the TNDM.

The smallest of these engagements is 220 people on both sides (100 vs I20), while the largest engagement on this list is 5,336 versus 3,270 or 8,679 vs 725. These 74 engagements consist of 23 engagements from WWI, 22 from WWII, and 29 post-1945 engagements. There are three engagements where both sides have over 3,000 men and 3 more where both sides are above 2,000 men. In the other 68 engagements, at least one side is below 2,000, while in 50 of the engagements, both sides are below 2,000.

This leaves the following force sizes to be tested:

These engagements have been “randomly” selected in the sense that the researchers grabbed whatever had been done and whatever else was conveniently available. It is not a proper random selection, in the sense that every war in this century was analyzed and a representative number of engagements was taken from each conflict. This is not practical, so we settle for less than perfect data selection.

Furthermore, as many of these conflicts are with countries that do not have open archives (and in many cases limited unit records) some of the opposing forces strength and losses had to be estimated. This is especially true with the Viet Nam engagements. It is hoped that the errors in estimation deviate equally on both sides of the norm, but there is no way of knowing that until countries like the People’s Republic of China and Vietnam open up their archives for free independent research.

TDI intends to continue to look for battalion-level and smaller engagements for analysis, and may add to this data base over time. If some of our readers have any other data assembled, we would be interested in seeing it. In the next issue we will publish the preliminary results of our validation.

Note that in the above table, for World War II, German, Japanese, and Axis forces are listed in italics, while US, British, and Allied forces are listed in regular typeface, Also, in the VERITABLE engagements, the 5/7th Gordons’ action continues the assault of the 7th Black Watch, and that the 9th Cameronians assumed the attack begun by the 2d Gordon Highlanders.

Tu-Vu is described in some detail in Fall’s Street Without Joy (pp. 51-53). The remaining Indochina/SE Asia engagements listed here are drawn from a QJM-based analysis of low-intensity operations (HERO Report 124, Feb 1988).

The coding for source and validation status, on the extreme right of each engagement line in the D Cas column, is as follows:

  • n indicates an engagement which has not been employed for validation, but for which good data exists for both sides (35 total).
  • Q indicates an engagement which was part of the original QJM database (3 total).
  • Q+ indicates an engagement which was analyzed as part of the QJM low-intensity combat study in 1988 (14 total).
  • T indicates an engagement analyzed with the TNDM (20 total).

A Single Four-Company Panzer Battalion in LSSAH?

The LSSAH Tank Regiment on 1 October 1943 (courtesy of Niklas Zetterling)

I am still trying to imagine the composition for a single four medium panzer company and one heavy company panzer battalion in LSSAH on 4 July 1943. The division had 173 tanks, more than the other two SS divisions in the corps. These other two divisions both had two panzer battalions, one created from an antitank battalion. Das Reich had its 166 tanks deployed in 7 medium and light companies and one heavy tank company; while Totenkopf had it 165 tanks in 6 medium and light companies and one heavy tank company. LSSAH may have only had four medium panzer companies (the heavy panzer companies with 12 Tigers and 5 Panzer IIIs are ignored for this discussion).

A German panzer company’s maximum authorized strength was 22 tanks. Rarely do you see overstrength panzer companies. Rarely did you actually see a panzer company at full strength. For example, the Das Reich SS Division with its 7 medium and light panzer companies would have averaged around 14 tanks per company at the start of the offensive. The Totenkopf SS Division with it 6 medium and light panzer companies would have averaged around 17 tanks per company at the start of the offensive. For the four panzer company construct to work the LSSAH, they pretty much have to be at authorized strength. So 4 tank companies = 88 tanks.

The LSSAH had on 4 July: 79 Pz IVs, 9 Pz III Command, 9 Pz III long, 2 Pz III short, 4 Pz IIs and 3 Pz Is.

So 66 Pz IVs in companies 5, 6 and 7 (22 each) and 13 Pz IVs, 3 Pz III Command, 4 Pz III longs and 2 Pz III short in company 8 (22 tanks). This leaves 3 Pz III Command for the battalion command and for the regiment headquarters 3 Pz III Command, 4 Pz IIs and 3 Pz I (and the other 5 Pz III longs are with the Tiger company).

It works. Not sure this is what was done. The problem is that come the evening of 11 July we have LSSAH with 47 Pz IVs, 7 Pz III Command, 4 Pz III long, 1 Pz III short, 4 Pz II and 2 Pz I. Ribbentrop says his 6th company had 7 Pz IVs. So:

Company 5: 18 Pz IVs (guess)

Company 6: 7 Pz IVs

Company 7: 18 Pz IVs (guess)

Company 8: 4 Pz IVs, 1 Pz III Command, 1 Pz III short (guess…with Pz IV losses being proportional to the Pz III losses)

Bn HQ: 3 Pz III Command

Rgt HQ: 3 Pz III Command, 4 Pz II and 2 Pz I

Tiger Company: 4 Pz IIIs (guess) and 4 Pz VIs

I have two issues with this:

  1. Why would you put the weakened 6th company forward (7 tanks) and hold the healthy 5th and 7th companies in the rear?
  2. The division’s Pz IV strength had declined around 40% from 79 to 47.
    1. This means that 6th company lost 70% of its tanks while company 5 and 7 lost 20% or less. This seems odd.
    2. It also appears to put the 8th company with very high losses also (as they lost 4 of their 6 Pz IIIs and I assume a proportional number of Pz IVs).

It is also possible that they had removed all the tanks from the 8th panzer company and put them in the 5th and 7th. I believe this is Ben Wheatley’s claim. This would leave these two companies with 21 tanks and the 6th panzer company with 7.

On the other hand, if the 6th panzer companies losses were in equal proportion to the division’s losses, then a company of 7 tanks started with 12 tanks (79/47 = 1.68 x 7 = 12). If LSSAH had two battalions of 3 panzer companies each with 12-13 tanks then this equal 72-78 tanks. The 9 command tanks are split equally between two battalions and the regiment HQ. This is an organizational arrangement more in line with other two SS divisions.

So, we are back to the construct that either LSSAH had one battalion of four medium panzer companies or two panzer battalions of around six medium panzer companies. But regardless, it does not appear that the LSSAH had just one battalion of three medium panzer companies. It is debatable that there were only three medium panzer companies at Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943.

Validating A Combat Model

The question of validating combat models—“To confirm or prove that the output or outputs of a model are consistent with the real-world functioning or operation of the process, procedure, or activity which the model is intended to represent or replicate”—as Trevor Dupuy put it, has taken up a lot of space on the TDI blog this year. What this discussion did not address is what an effort to validate a combat model actually looks like. This will be the first in a series of posts that will do exactly that.

Under the guidance of Christopher A. Lawrence, TDI undertook a battalion-level validation of Dupuy’s Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model (TNDM) in late 1996. This effort tested the model against 76 engagements from World War I, World War II, and the post-1945 world including Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Falklands War, Angola, Nicaragua, etc. It was probably one of the more independent and better-documented validations of a casualty estimation methodology that has ever been conducted to date, in that:

  • The data was independently assembled (assembled for other purposes before the validation) by a number of different historians.
  • There were no calibration runs or adjustments made to the model before the test.
  • The data included a wide range of material from different conflicts and times (from 1918 to 1983).
  • The validation runs were conducted independently (Susan Rich conducted the validation runs, while Christopher A. Lawrence evaluated them).
  • The results of the validation were fully published.
  • The people conducting the validation were independent, in the sense that:

a) there was no contract, management, or agency requesting the validation;
b) none of the validators had previously been involved in designing the model, and had only very limited experience in using it; and
c) the original model designer was not able to oversee or influence the validation. (Dupuy passed away in July 1995 and the validation was conducted in 1996 and 1997.)

The validation was not truly independent, as the model tested was a commercial product of TDI, and the person conducting the test was an employee of the Institute. On the other hand, this was an independent effort in the sense that the effort was employee-initiated and not requested or reviewed by the management of the Institute.

Descriptions and outcomes of this validation effort were first reported in The International TNDM Newsletter. Chris Lawrence also addressed validation of the TNDM in Chapter 19 of War by Numbers (2017).