Mystics & Statistics

Trevor Dupuy and Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality

There appears to be renewed interest in U.S. Army circles in Trevor Dupuy’s theory of a historical relationship between increasing weapon lethality, declining casualty rates, and greater dispersion on the battlefield. A recent article by Army officer and strategist Aaron Bazin, “Seven Charts That Help Explain American War” at The Strategy Bridge, used a composite version of two of Dupuy’s charts to explain the American military’s attraction to technology. (The graphic in Bazin’s article originated in a 2009 Australian Army doctrinal white paper, “Army’s Future Land Operating Concept,” which evidently did not cite Dupuy as the original source for the charts or the associated concepts.)

John McRea, like Bazin a U.S. Army officer, and a founding member of The Military Writer’s Guild, reposted Dupuy’s graphic in a blog post entitled “Outrageous Fortune: Spears and Arrows,” examining tactical and economic considerations in the use of asymmetrical technologies in warfare.

Dr. Conrad Crane, Chief of Historical Services for the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center at the Army War College, also referenced Dupuy’s concepts in his look at human performance requirements, “The Future Soldier: Alone in a Crowd,” at War on the Rocks.

Dupuy originally developed his theory based on research and analysis undertaken by the Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO) in 1964, for a study he directed, “Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality.” (Annex I, Annex II, Annex III). HERO had been contracted by the Advanced Tactics Project (AVTAC) of the U.S. Army Combat Developments Command, to provide unclassified support for Project OREGON TRAIL, a series of 45 classified studies of tactical nuclear weapons, tactics, and organization, which took 18 months to complete.

AVTAC asked HERO “to identify and analyze critical relationships and the cause-effect aspects of major advances in the lethality of weapons and associated changes in tactics and organization” from the Roman Era to the present. HERO’s study itself was a group project, incorporating 58 case studies from 21 authors, including such scholars as Gunther E. Rothenberg, Samuel P. Huntington, S.L.A. Marshall, R. Ernest Dupuy, Grace P. Hayes, Louis Morton, Peter Paret, Stefan T. Possony, and Theodore Ropp.

Dupuy synthesized and analyzed these case studies for the HERO study’s final report. He described what he was seeking to establish in his 1979 book, Numbers, Predictions and War: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles.

If the numbers of military history mean anything, it appears self-evident that there must be some kind of relationship between the quantities of weapons employed by opposing forces in combat, and the number of casualties suffered by each side. It also seems fairly obvious that some weapons are likely to cause more casualties than others, and that the effectiveness of weapons will depend upon their ability to reach their targets. So it becomes clear that the relationship of weapons to casualties is not quite the simple matter of comparing numbers to numbers. To compare weapons to casualties it is necessary to know not only the numbers of weapons, but also how many there are of each different type, and how effective or lethal each of these is.

The historical relationship between lethality, casualties, and dispersion that Dupuy deduced in this study provided the basis for his subsequent quest to establish an empirically-based, overarching theory of combat, which he articulated through his Quantified Judgement Model. Dupuy refined and updated the analysis from the 1964 HERO study in his 1980 book, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare.

Gas Wars

By the way, there is still a very complex conflict in Ukraine. This article does a nice job of summarizing the problem: Russia is Hoping to Freeze Ukraine into Submission

Some major points:

  1. Ukraine has avoided using Russian natural gas for the last two years
  2. It is now a particularly cold winter there and it appears that they will run out of their own gas by the end of February or mid-March.
  3. Therefore, they will probably have to buy from Russia…but….
  4. They owe Russia $3 Billion that Russia loaned to the ousted Yanukovich regime.
  5. Also Gazprom is claiming from Ukraine:
    1. $32 billion for breach of contract lawsuit.
    2. $5.3 billion owed for a take-or-pay clause in their contract.
    3. Bills for sending gas to the separatist regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.
  6. Ukraine is paid $2 billion a year for the transit of Russian natural gas to the EU.

Russia is trying to bill Ukraine for gas delivered to a separatist movement that Russia supported. I am surprised they are not charging them for building the bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea (expected to be operational in 2019).

Daesh Claims First Combat Kill Of A Russian T-90 Tank

Russian-made T-90A allegedly destroyed by Daesh in northwest Syria, January 2017.

Earlier this week, Björn Stritzel, a journalist who covers the conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa for the German newspaper Bild, reported via Twitter that Daesh claimed to have destroyed a Russian T-90A tank near the town of Khanaser in northwest Syria. The claim, which has not been officially confirmed, was made through the release of a Daesh propaganda video which shows what appears to be a T-90A with a fire steadily burning from the commander’s cuppola and machine gun ammunition “cooking off” in the flames. (Video at the link below.)

The tank was alleged to have been struck by an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), though by which type of missile and the circumstances are as yet unknown.T-90s are equipped with the latest generation of reactive armor and active protection systems.

The vehicle is flying a flag attributed to the Fatima Brigade (Liwa Fatemiyoun), a unit recruited from Afghan Shi’a but trained and equipped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The Fatima Brigade was alleged to have been sent to fight in Syria in 2014, although Iran denies this. It is believed that Russia and Iran have equipped non-Syrian loyalist fighters with their latest generation of weapons, including the T-90A.

UPDATE: Twitter user Jonh pointed out that the T-90A is not the same as the newer T-14 Armata. Jonh is correct and the post has been edited to correct the mistake. I regret any confusion. — Shawn Woodford

U.S. Defense Budget

By the way, the defense budget is supposed to be going up (maybe). Now, it has been in decline a while. We were told by a U.S. Army director back in 2009 not to expect continued support because of upcoming budget cuts. This was before sequestration. Sequestration basically shrunk the Army’s budget by 5% or so every year for three years running (2013-2015). It was “lifted” for 2016, but this only meant that the budget did not decline further. The U.S. Army went from a high of around 570,000 troops in 2010 to around 475,000 troops now. They were preparing to continue drawing down to around 450,000 troops.

Now, budget is supposed to be increasing. The Army is supposed to grow to 540,000 troops, the navy from a 275-ship navy to a 355-ship navy and our nuclear forces are supposed to be upgraded. So far the only thing slated for reduction is the F-35 (maybe). The U.S. is still running a deficit and certainly tax increases are not on the horizon; in fact they are talking about tax cuts. Hard to know how this is going to all balance out.

The defense budget authorized for FY2017 is 618.7 billion. We are already four months into that fiscal year. It was 604.2 authorized in 2016.

The nominated head of OMB (Office of Management and Budget) is a tea-party fiscal conservative: mulvaney-defense-budget

…

P.S. The defense budget basically increased every year from 1996 to 2008, going from 266 billion (16.8% of the total government budget) to 696 billion (20.9% of total government budget). In was 698 in 2009, 721 in 2010, 717 in 2001, 681 in 2012, 610 in 2013, 614 in 2014 and 637 in 2015 (16.0% of total government budget). This is not inflation adjust dollars: Military_budget_of_the_United_States

P.P.S.: According to one source the size of the United States Army in 2010 was 566,045 in 2010: us-military-personnel-1954-2014

 

South China Sea

The South China Sea has moved front-and-center as a major issue (along with the one China policy): prevent-china-taking-over-territory

Just a few notes:

  1. Tillerson’s statement on Jan. 11 during confirmation hearings was “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”
  2. Presidential spokesman Sean Spicer said yesterday “The U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there.”
  3. And from the article: “Aides have said that Trump plans a major naval build-up in East Asia to counter China’s rise.”

Not sure what the “clear signal” is and how confrontational this will be. Right now, it is just talk. But, does this mean that the Trump administration is intending to expand the navy?

East Mosul Taken

By the way, amid all the discussion in the news on crowd sizes, Eastern Mosul fell, sort of. Article here: Iraqi-forces-complete-control-eastern-mosul

Highlights:

  1. “The deputy parliament speaker [of Iraq] announced the capture of the east of the city.”
  2. “Mopping-up operations were still under way on Monday….”
  3. “The west side of Mosul could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.”
  4. “Iraq forces estimated the number of militants inside the city at 5,000 to 6,000 at the start of operations three months ago, and says 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.”
  5. Took 100 days from the start of the campaign. Two weeks to get there and twelve weeks to clear the east side of the city.

An Additional Comment on the Link Between Operations, Strategy, and Policy In Russian Hybrid Warfare

A conclusion that Fox alluded to in his article, but did not state explicitly, is that in a sense, the Russians “held back” in the design of their operations against the Ukrainians. It appears quite clear that the force multipliers derived from the battalion tactical groups, drone-enabled recon-strike model, and cyber and information operations capabilities generated more than enough combat power for the Russians to decisively defeat the Ukrainian Army in a larger “blitzkrieg”-style invasion and occupy most, if not all, of the country, if they had chosen to do so.

This clearly is not the desired political goal of the Russian government, however. Instead, the Russian General Staff carefully crafted a military strategy to fulfill more limited political goals, and creatively designed their operations to make full use of their tactical capabilities in support of that strategy.

This successful Clausewitizan calibration of policy, strategy, operations, and tactics by the Russians in Ukraine and Syria should give the U.S. real concern, since itself does not currently seem capable of a similar level of coordination or finesse. Now, the Russian achievements against the relatively hapless Ukrainians, or in Syria, where the ultimate outcome remains very much indeterminate, are no guarantee of future success against more capable and well-resourced opponents. However, it does demonstrate what can be achieved with a relatively weak strategic hand to play through a clear unity of political purpose and military means. This has not been the U.S.’s strong suit historically, and it is unclear at this juncture whether that will change under the incoming Trump administration.

Linking Operations, Strategy, and Policy In Russian Hybrid Warfare

Map depicting the encirclement and withdrawal of Ukrainian forces in the Debaltseve area, 14 January – 20 February 2015 [Map by Goran tek-en (Wikipedia)]

U.S. Army Major Amos Fox, who is quickly establishing himself as one of the brighter sparks analyzing the contemporary Russian way of land warfare, has a new article, “The Russian–Ukrainian War: Understanding the Dust Clouds on the Battlefield,” published by West Point’s Modern War Institute. In it he assesses the linkage between Russian land warfare operations, strategy, and policy.

In Fox’s analysis, despite the decisive advantages afforded to the Russian Army and their Ukrainian Separatist proxies through “the employment of the semi-autonomous battalion tactical group, and a reconnaissance-strike model that tightly couples drones to strike assets, hastening the speed at which overwhelming firepower is available to support tactical commanders,” the actual operations executed by these forces should be characterized as classic sieges, as opposed to decisive operational maneuver.

Fox details three operations employing this approach – tactical combat overmatch enabling envelopment and the subsequent application of steady pressure – that produced military success leading directly to political results advantageous to the Russian government.

According to Fox, the military strategy of siege operations effectively enabled the limited political goals of the Russian government.

What explains Russia’s evident preference for the siege? Would it not make more sense to quickly annihilate the Ukrainians? Perhaps. However, the siege’s benefit is its ability to transfer military power into political progress, while obfuscating the associated costs. A rapid, violent, decisive victory in which hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are killed in a matter of days is counterproductive to Russia’s political goals, whereas the incremental use of violence over time accomplishes the same objectives with less disturbance to the international community.

Fox believes that this same operational concept was applied by the Syrian Army and its Russian enablers to capture the city of Aleppo last month, albeit with somewhat different tactics, such as substituting airstrikes for long-range artillery and rockets.

He advises that the U.S. would be prudent to plan for and prepare to face the new Russian land warfare capabilities.

These new features of Russian warfare—and an understanding of them in the context of that warfare’s very conventional character—should inform US planning. The contemporary Russian army is combat-experienced in combined arms maneuver at all echelons of command, a skill that the US Army is still working to recover after well over a decade of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This fact could prove troublesome if Russia elects to push further in Europe, infringing upon NATO partners, or if US and Russian interests continue to collide in areas like Syria. Preparing to combat Russian cyber threats or hybrid tactics is important. But the lesson from Ukraine is clear: It is equally vital to train and equip US forces to counter the type of conventional capabilities Russia has demonstrated in Ukraine.

UPDATE: An Additional Comment on the Link Between Operations, Strategy, and Policy In Russian Hybrid Warfare

Economics of Warfare 10

Examining the tenth lecture from Professor Michael Spagat’s Economics of Warfare course that he gives at Royal Holloway University. It is posted on his blog Wars, Numbers and Human Losses at: https://mikespagat.wordpress.com/

This lecture starts with a discussion of coups and assassinations, specifically focusing on a study of “CIA-supported coups.” There are five of them: Iran (1953), Chile (1973), Guatemala (1954), Congo (DRC) (1960) and Cuba (1961). All of these are over 40 years ago.  The chart on page 4, listing some of our nefarious operations is worth a glance. I find it curious that “Project Camelot” is listed, which was simply a research project done being done by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) that got bad press. A timeline for the five coups are provided on slide 6. Of course, being economists, they tie all these events to stock prices. Still, it is worth looking at slide 8, discussing some points related to the Guatemala coup, as is the following slide, listing expropriated companies. They then look at the effects of secret coup authorizations on stock returns (hey, I thought they were secret !!!). The kicker is slide 16 “The results suggest that US foreign policy was operating as a tool of a handful of private companies and the individuals involved were profiteering off their influence on the US government.” Having never really analyzed this issue myself, I am hesitant to comment on it.

On slide 17 they switch to a study on assassinations. On slide 19 it is stated they came up with 298 assassination attempts since 1875 (to 2002) of which 59 were successful and 47 were not “serious attempts.” So, 23.5% of serious attempts succeed? How many times did they try to assassinate French president Charles De Gualle? Oh, and 55% of them were done by gun, 31% by explosive device (slide 20). Guns succeeded 31% of time, while explosive devices only succeeded 7% of the time. The “other category,” which apparently includes “stoning” succeeded 44% of the time! Slide 23 provides assassination attempts (and successes) over time, with World War II (1939-1945) being a particularly peaceful period of time (as far as assassinations go). The presentation then goes into a long discussion on the impact of assassinations on war, with their conclusions presented on slide 33. Basically it is 1) “There is some evidence that having a successful assassination attempt rather than a failed one increase the probability that an intense war will end.” and 2) “There is evidence that having a successful assassination attempt rather than a failed one increases the probability that a moderate war will turn into an intense war.” So….might work for you, might work against you?

In my book America’s Modern Wars, we do briefly discuss decapitating insurgencies (page 151-153). We also did not come up with a clear answer. We only had about dozen cases to look at, and of the four we examined in depth, in all cases the insurgency still won. Our conclusions were (page 153): “Now this is not to say we should not go after insurgent leadership when we have the chance. We obviously should. But, it is to stress that you should be careful about giving ‘decapitation’ too much importance as a strategic answer to your counterinsurgent problem.” and “Still, if you have the means to try decapitation, it is important to do so in such a way that you do not kill civilians or give them propaganda tools that they can use. In the end, if you are losing the propaganda war while you are trying to decapitate, then you are working against yourself.”  

The link to the lecture is here: http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Economics%20of%20Warfare/Lecture%2010.pdf

Turkish Army Tanks Proving Vulnerable In Syria

Turkish Army Leopard 2A3 main battle tank struck by suspected Daesh Kornet anti-tank missile. [Photo: YouTube / Turkish Military Portal Turk Silahli Kuvvetleri]

The Turkish Army, conducting Operation EUPHRATES SHIELD in northern Syria since 24 August 2016, has reportedly lost at least 15 German-made, Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks (MBTs) to man-portable anti-tank systems (MANPATs) in combat with Daesh fighters. Five were lost in December 2016 after the Turks deployed several of its 354 Leopard 2A4’s to buttress its offensive, which initially employed mainly older, upgraded American-made M60A3 MBTs. 10 more Leopard 2’s were knocked out in subsequent fighting in urban terrain around the town of al-Bab in northern Syria, 15 miles south of the Turkish-Syrian border.

Daesh fighters have used a variety of anti-tank missiles against the Turkish Army vehicles, including U.S.-made BGM 71 TOW-2s, and Soviet/Russian-produced 9K111 Fagots (“Basoon”) and 9M133 Kornets, all reportedly captured from Syrian and Iraqi Army stocks. The 60-ton Leopard 2, a mainstay of NATO armored forces, earned a reputation for invulnerability after surviving Taliban improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Afghanistan. However, the A3 version used by the Turks does not have explosive reactive armor or active protection systems, which are used by the many modern MBTs to defeat the new generation of MANPATs.

There is also some evidence that Turkish tank losses are at least partly due to faulty tactical employment. Some of the M60s destroyed in the initial fighting were observed firing from open positions when hit, rather then from less vulnerable hull down locations. The Leopard 2A3’s, with heavy frontal armor, but thinner protection on the sides and rear, were designed for long-range tank v. tank fighting, and are notably unsuited for combat in urban terrain. Successful urban combat places a premium on combined arms tactics, particularly the use of dismounted infantry to clear out potential enemy MANPAT flanking fire positions.