If you scroll down the right hand side of the blog (depending on what device you are using to read this) you will see a section called categories. Click on “Air Power” and there have been 14 posts on the subject made in this blog, starting with my post “Defeating an Insurgency by Air.” These posts have resulted in two articles, one in the History News Network: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161601 and one in the Small Wars Journal: http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/airpower-just-part-of-the-counterinsurgency-equation
Anyhow, these categories often lump together a series of related discussion that is otherwise scattered across the blog. It is probably worthwhile to occasionally check out the posts by category and peruse the whole collection of blogs under that particular category.
I am not familiar with the author, but one of his statements towards the end of the articles is:
Despite the sorry results delivered by air power over the last 65 years, the U.S. military continues to invest heavily in it…..Dismissing the frustratingly mixed and often destabilizing results that come from air strikes, disregarding the jaw-dropping prices of the latest fighters and bombers, America’s leaders continue to clamor for yet more warplanes and yet more bombing.
In 1987 DMSI (Trevor Dupuy’s old company) was giving a week-long course on the fundamentals of the U.S. military at a government agency. The final day was a board discussion that included Trevor Dupuy. The subject came up about whether the U.S. Army could use a general staff system similar to what the Germans had (and which Trevor wrote about in his book Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945)
During the discussion Trevor stated that the United States Armed Forces actually has nine general staffs. He proceeded to list them: 1) the army staff, 2) the staff of the secretary of the army, the same for the air force (+2), the same for the navy (+2), and of course, 7) the Joint Staff and 8) the Office of Secretary of Defense. That makes eight. “What is the ninth staff?” a student asked. “The GAO” Trevor responded.
This article just appeared this morning in the Boston Globe. It starts: “Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s.” That sounds like a familiar stat.
The claim in the first article that Russia is the world’s tenth largest economy is probably no longer correct. In 2014, according to World Bank and the United Nations, it was the tenth largest economy with a GDP of 1,860,598 or 1,849,940 million U.S. dollars (two different sets of figures). This put it behind India and ahead of Canada ($1,785,387 in both sets of figures). In 2015 the IMF figures put the Russian economy at $1,324,734, which put it twelfth on the list, behind Canada (1,552,386) and South Korea (1,376,868). Hard to say if these figures factored in all the drama of 2015 (ruble dropping by more than half and the economy shrinking by 3.7%). Pretty certain Russia is no longer among the ten largest economies in 2016. Just for comparison, according to the IMF the United States economy was $17,947,000 in 2015.
An interesting contribution by Philip McCarty examined the creation of a committee by the War Office, chaired by retired general Sir George Bartholomew, to assess the lessons of British defeat in France in 1940. This quick and dirty effort resulted in a series of recommendations that varied in military validity, as well as acceptability within the British Army establishment. This is an interesting case study of the actual mechanics of evolution in warfare and how military establishments evaluate military experience. Implications of tactical success or failure are not necessarily readily apparent, nor is it always possible to act immediately on them when identified. Sometimes the right conclusions can still produce wrong solutions.
Trevor N. Dupuy argued that “the application of sound, imaginative thinking to the problems of warfare (on either an individual or an institutional basis) has been more significant than any new weapon.” The preconditions for successfully assimilating changes required:
Imaginative, competent, knowledgeable leadership.
Effective coordination of a nation’s economic, technological-scientific, and military resources.
Opportunity for evaluation and analysis of battlefield experience.[1]
Successful change and innovation is both difficult and rare. It is seldom a smooth process.
I find the conclusion toward the end the article interesting:
“My analysis found that on the largest scale – casualty rates from battles grouped by underlying geology – all of these limestone-related factors appear to balance. That is, it didn’t really matter if a soldier was attacking across limestone, igneous and sedimentary rock, or terrain underlain by sand and clay, the casualty rates were consistently between 12 and 15 percent.”
Office of Medical History, U.S. Army Medical Department
Trevor N. Dupuy developed some hypotheses about casualty rates in combat in the process of quantifying the effects of surprise and relative combat effectiveness.[1] After testing these hypotheses against historical combat data, Col. Dupuy believed them valid enough to be considered verities. His confidence in them ranged from absolute for most to reasonable certainty for a few. The first two points are statements of combat experience, but they are directly relevant to the nature of battle attrition. As with his verities of combat, these will be discussed in more detail in subsequent posts.
Personnel Attrition Verities
In the average battle, the attack’s numerical strength is about double the defender’s.
In the average modern battle the attacker is more often successful than the defender.
Casualty rates of winners are lower than those of losers.
Small forces casualty rates are higher than those of large forces.
More effective forces inflict casualties at a higher rate than less effective opponents.
There is no direct relationship between force ratios and casualty rates.
In most modern battles, the numerical losses of attacker and defender are often similar.
Casualty rates for defenders vary inversely with strength of fortifications.
Casualty rates of a surprising force are lower than those of a surprised force.
In the average modern battle, attacker casualty rates are somewhat lower than defender casualty rates.
In bad weather, casualty rates for both sides decline markedly.
In difficult terrain, casualty rates for both sides decline markedly.
The casualty-inflicting capability of a force declines after each successive day in combat.
Casualty rates are lower at night than in daytime.
Casualty rates are higher in summer than in winter.
The faster the front line moves, the lower the casualty rates for both sides.
Casualty rates seem to decline during river crossings.
An “all-out” effort by one side raises loss rates for both sides.
A force with greater overall combat power inflicts casualties at a greater rate than the opponent.
The killed-to-wounded distribution of personnel casualties in twentieth century warfare is consistent.
Average World War II division engagement casualty rates in Western Europe were 1% to 3% per day.
Attrition rates in the 1973 October War were comparable to World War II.
Casualty rates for major power forces in minor hostilities after 1945 are about half those experienced in World War II.
Material Attrition Verities
Material loss rates are related to personnel casualty rates.
Tank loss rates are five to seven times higher than personnel casualty rates.
Attacker tank loss rates are generally higher than defender tank loss rates.
Artillery material loss rates are generally about one-tenth personnel casualty rates.
Self-propelled artillery loss rates are two-to-three times greater than for towed guns.
The loss rates of light, to medium, to heavy artillery weapons are in the proportion: 2.2/1.8/1.0.
![British Mark III Tank in ditch, 1917 [Wikimedia Commons]](https://i0.wp.com/dupuyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/British-Mark-III-Tank-in-ditch-1917.jpg?resize=727%2C454&ssl=1)
