Category Kursk Data Bases

Historical Demonstrations?

Photo from the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers

Continuing my comments on the article in the December 2018 issue of the Phalanx by Alt, Morey and Larimer (this is part 5 of 7; see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4).

The authors of the Phalanx article then make the snarky statement that:

Combat simulations have been successfully used to replicate historical battles as a demonstration, but this is not a requirement or their primary intended use.

So, they say in three sentences that combat models using human factors are difficult to validate, they then say that physics-based models are validated, and then they say that running a battle through a model is a demonstration. Really?

Does such a demonstration show that the model works or does not work? Does such a demonstration show that they can get a reasonable outcome when using real-world data? The definition of validation that they gave on the first page of their article is:

The process of determining the degree to which a model or simulation with its associated data is an accurate representation of the real world from the perspective of its intended use is referred to as validation.

This is a perfectly good definition of validation. So where does one get that real-world data? If you are using the model to measure combat effects (as opposed to physical affects) then you probably need to validate it to real-world combat data. This means historical combat data, whether it is from 3,400 years ago or 1 second ago. You need to assemble the data from a (preferably recent) combat situation and run it through the model.

This has been done. The Dupuy Institute does not exist in a vacuum. We have assembled four sets of combat data bases for use in validation. They are:

  1. The Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base
  2.  The Kursk Data Base
  3. The Battle of Britain Data Base
  4. Our various division-level, battalion-level and company-level engagement database bases.

Now, the reason we have mostly used World War II data is that you can get detailed data from the unit records of both sides. To date….this is not possible for almost any war since 1945. But, if your high-tech model cannot predict lower-tech combat….then you probably also have a problem modeling high-tech combat. So, it is certainly a good starting point.

More to the point, this was work that was funded in part by the Center for Army Analysis, the Deputy Secretary of the Army (Operations Research) and Office of Secretary of Defense, Planning, Analysis and Evaluation. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent developing some of these databases. This was not done just for “demonstration.” This was not done as a hobby. If their sentence was meant to be-little the work of TDI, which is how I do interpret that sentence, then is also belittles the work of CAA, DUSA(OR) and OSD PA&E. I am not sure that is the three author’s intent.

Validating Attrition

Continuing to comment on the article in the December 2018 issue of the Phalanx by Alt, Morey and Larimer (this is part 3 of 7; see Part 1, Part 2)

On the first page (page 28) in the third column they make the statement that:

Models of complex systems, especially those that incorporate human behavior, such as that demonstrated in combat, do not often lend themselves to empirical validation of output measures, such as attrition.

Really? Why can’t you? If fact, isn’t that exactly the model you should be validating?

More to the point, people have validated attrition models. Let me list a few cases (this list is not exhaustive):

1. Done by Center for Army Analysis (CAA) for the CEM (Concepts Evaluation Model) using Ardennes Campaign Simulation Study (ARCAS) data. Take a look at this study done for Stochastic CEM (STOCEM): https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a489349.pdf

2. Done in 2005 by The Dupuy Institute for six different casualty estimation methodologies as part of Casualty Estimation Methodologies Studies. This was work done for the Army Medical Department and funded by DUSA (OR). It is listed here as report CE-1: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/tdipub3.htm

3. Done in 2006 by The Dupuy Institute for the TNDM (Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model) using Corps and Division-level data. This effort was funded by Boeing, not the U.S. government. This is discussed in depth in Chapter 19 of my book War by Numbers (pages 299-324) where we show 20 charts from such an effort. Let me show you one from page 315:

 

So, this is something that multiple people have done on multiple occasions. It is not so difficult that The Dupuy Institute was not able to do it. TRADOC is an organization with around 38,000 military and civilian employees, plus who knows how many contractors. I think this is something they could also do if they had the desire.

 

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943 – II

This is a follow-up to this posting:

Panzer Battalions in LSSAH in July 1943

The LSSAH Panzer Grenadier Division usually had two panzer battalions. Before July the I Panzer Battalion had been sent back to Germany to arm up with Panther tanks. This had lead some authors to conclude that in July 1943, the LSSAH had only the II Panzer Battalion. Yet the unit’s tank strength is so high that this is hard to justify. Either the LSSAH Division in July 1943 had:

  1. Over-strength tank companies
  2. A 4th company in the II Panzer Battalion
  3. A temporary I Panzer Battalion

I have found nothing in the last four months to establish with certainly what was the case, but additional evidence does indicate that they had a temporary I Panzer Battalion.

The first piece of evidence is drawn from a division history book, called Liebstandarte III, by Rudolf Lehmann, who was the chief of staff of the Panzer Regiment. It states that they had around 33 tanks at hill 252.2 on the afternoon or evening of the 11th. It has been reported that the entire II Panzer Battalion moved up there on the 11th, and then pulled back their 5th and 7th companies, leaving the 6th company in the area of hill 252.2. The 6th Panzer Company was reported to have only 7 tanks operational on the morning of the 12th. So, II Panzer Battalion may have had three companies of 7-12 tanks each, and the battalion staff, and maybe some or all of the regimental staff there. The LSSAH Division according to the Kursk Data Base had as of the end of the day on 11 July 1943: 2 Panzer Is, 4 Panzer IIs, 1 Panzer III short, 4 Panzer III longs, 7 Panzer III Command tanks, 47 Panzer IV longs and 4 Panzer VIs for a total of 69 tanks in the panzer regiment. Ignoring the 4 Tiger tanks, this leaves 32 tanks unaccounted for. This could well be the complement of a temporary I Panzer Battalion.

The second unresolved issue is that the Soviet XVIIII Tank Corps is reported to have encountered dug-in tanks as they tried to push beyond Vasilyevka along the Psel River. They reported that their advance was halted by tank fire from the western outskirts of Vasilyevka. They also report at 1400 (Moscow time) repulsing a German counterattack by 50 tanks from the Bogoroditskoye area (just west of Vasilyevka, south of the Psel).

With the II Panzer Battalion being opposite the XXIX Tank Corps, then one wonders who and where those “dug-in tanks” were from. It is reported in some sources that the Tiger company, which was in the rear when the fighting started, moved to the left flank, but most likely there was another tank formation there. If the II Panzer Battalion was covering the right half of the LSSAH’s front, then it would appear that the rest of the front would have been covered by a temporary I Panzer Battalion of at least three companies.

This leads to me lean even more so to the conclusion that the LSSAH had a temporary I Panzer Battalion of at least three companies, the II Panzer Battalion of three companies, and the Tiger company, which was assigned to the II Panzer Battalion.

Soviet Tank Repairs at Kursk (part 2 of 2)

This first blog post on this subject strongly made the point that the Russian armor repair effort was not at the same level as the German efforts, which is what I observed when assembling the Kursk Data Base (KDB). But, Zamulin, Demolishing the Myth, continued on pages 448-449, touting what a great job the repair people did. I figured for completeness, I needed to post this.

To continue P. A. Rotmistrov’s (Fifth Guards Tank Army commander) quote from the previous posting:

The mechanics’ profile was diverse. The 83rd Army-level Repair-Recovery Battalion and the corps’ mobile repair depots were staffed with qualified workers from the tank industry (the Stalingrad and Khar’kov factories), but who lacked work experience in field conditions. The tank brigade equipment companies, on the other hand, were staffed primarily with specialists on the repair of armored vehicles under combat conditions. Such a combination of cadres on the whole produced satisfactory results.

Major overhauls, like engine, gun, and turret replacements, were performed at the mobile repair depots of the tank corps. Each tank corps had two of these repair depots, each staffed with 70 to 80 men. For urgent repairs just 8-10 kilometers from the front lines, two army-level, three corps-level and nine brigade collection points for disabled vehicles were set up, which shared all the repair-recovery resources.

On the night of 12 July, as the 5th Guard Tank Army commander later remembered:

The repair workers faced the task of restoring and repairing parts and components, stripped from irreparably damaged tanks from those tanks that needed major overhauls. We had to get hold of 45 engines, 20 gear boxes and several engine and steering clutches. All of the recover and repair units and teams of the separate regiments, brigades, and corps and the army were mobilized to accomplish this task.

To what Rotmistrov said I will add that in order to hasten the repair of the 5th Guard Tank Army’s damaged armored vehicles, the Front’s Armored and Mechanized Forces commander transferred 167 field repair depots from the 38th Army to the 5th Guards Tank Army on 14 July. The truly heroic effort produced results. Of the 420 damaged tanks in its brigades and regiments after the fighting of 12 July, 112 requiring minor or moderate repairs were restored to operation in the very first days after the battle. In addition, the Front command took other steps to assist the army. Already by 15 July, just three days after the engagement, the 5th Guards Tank Army began to receive new tanks. The 29th Tank Corps was the first to begin to received the new vehicles. The 31st Tank Brigade’s war diary notes, “15 July….An order arrived to pick up 16 T-34 tanks at Solntesevo Station. A procurement team had been sent.”

Wargaming Thread on Combat Results Tables

Thanks to a comment made on one of our posts, I recently became aware of a 17 page discussion thread on combat results tables (CRT) that is worth reading. It is here:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1344914/crts-101/page/1

By default, much of their discussion of data centers around analysis based upon Trevor Dupuy’s writing, the CBD90 database, the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base (ACSDB), the Kursk Data Base (KDB)  and my book War by Numbers. I was not aware of this discussion until yesterday even though the thread was started in 2015 and continues to this year (War by Numbers was published in 2017 so does not appear until the end of page 5 of the thread).

The CBD90 was developed from a Dupuy research effort in the 1980s eventually codified as the Land Warfare Data Base (LWDB). Dupuy’s research was programmed with errors by the government to create the CBD90. A lot of the analysis in my book was based upon a greatly expanded and corrected version of the LWDB. I was the program manager for both the ACSDB and the KDB, and of course, the updated versions of our DuWar suite of combat databases.

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/dbases.htm

There are about a hundred comments I could make to this thread, some in agreement and some in disagreement, but then I would not get my next book finished, so I will refrain. This does not stop me from posting a link:

Lanchester equations have been weighed….

 

Das Reich Tank Losses on 6 July, 1943

On 6 July 1943, we estimate that the Das Reich SS Division lost 30 tanks damaged and destroyed. We have them starting the battle on the evening of 4 July with the following:

Pz I Command:                1

Pz II:                                 0 (and 1 in repair)

Pz III short (Command):   8

Pz III short:                       1

Pz III long:                       52 (and 11 in repair)

Pz III Observation:            9 (not counted)

Pz III Command:               1

Pz IV long:                       30 (and 2 in repair)

Pz VI:                               12 (and 2 in repair)

StuG III:                            33

Marder II:                           2 (and one in repair)

Marder III 76.2mm:            8

T-34:                                18 (and 9 in repair)

Total                               166 (and 26 in repair)

 

This is from the Kursk Data Base (KDB).

Tank status report for 5 July from 4th PzA files (T313, R366, page 2209), no time given. It records:

Pz III short: 1

Pz III long: 45

Pz IV: 27

Pz VI: 12

Command: Not reported

StuG: 32

 

This file was not used. There are some errors in other parts of this report. The file we did use was 5.7.43 19:40 hours from the army files (T313, R368. page 4282), which states:

Pz III short: 1

Pz III long: 52

Pz IV long: 27

Pz VI: 11

T-34: 16

Command: 8

StuG: 21

 

It took me a while to find all these files, which is why this blog post was so late today.

The next report from Das Reich is at 0235 on 7 July. Not sure why the delay, as the other division’s in the corps were submitting daily reports. They report:

Pz III short: 1

Pz III long: 47

Pz IV: 16

Pz VI: 7

Command: 6

StuG: 14

Total losses: 1 Pz IV.

 

We assume that this report at 0235 on 7 July is the end of the day report for July 6. That gives us a count of at least 47-48 tanks lost since the start of the offensive. One will note that they claim only one tank completely lost, yet there are six tanks listed destroyed in the gully SSW of Luchki. Is this an indication that they may have been lost on subsequent days and towed there?

The Kursk Data Base records 19 tanks damaged/destroyed on the 5th and 30 tanks damaged/destroyed in the 6th. These counts include T-34 losses. On the 6th this includes 2 Pz III short (Command), 5 Pz III longs, 11 Pz IV longs (one listed as destroyed), 4 Pz VIs, 7 StuG IIIs, and 1 T-34.

The status report for 7 July is probably in the message of 8 July dated at 0830, which list tank status from 6.7.43. This could be a 7 July report and was used as such in the Kursk Data Base. It is from 4th Panzer Army files (T313, R366, page 2251):

Pz III: 43

Pz IV: 25

Pz VI: 6

Command tank: 7

T-34: 14

Stug: 7 (!)

 

Status report for 8 July (from 4th Panzer Army files, T313, R366, page 2247):

Pz III long: 31

Pz IV long: 14

Pz VI: 0  (hard to read)

Command Tank: 7

T-34: 12

StuG: 21

 

Report does have a handwritten figure of 45 next to it (31+14 = 45)

The next report of tank status we have for Das Reich is for 9 July. They report:

                           Division      Corps (1830)     Corps (1905)   4th PzA Report (2300)

Pz III short:            0

Pz III long:           31                   33                   31                      38 (31)

Pz IV:                  13                   15                    13                     13

 Pz VI:                   1                     1                      1                       1

Command tank:    7                     7                      7                            (7)

T-34:                     7                     7                      7

Stug:                   26                   26                    26                       26

 

For the Kursk Data Base, these were the nuts and bolt calculations we did for all nine German panzer and panzer grenadier divisions for all 15 days of the operation. We also did the same for all 10 Soviet tank and mechanized corps. While we may have made a error here and there on a given day, we did try to count and track tank strengths and losses for every single day, even when the records were not cooperating. I believe the KDB is the most accurate accounting of tank losses at the Battle of Kursk.

Anyhow, this is related to this previous post, as I am still trying to sort out what might of occurred near the village of Luchki on 6 July, 1943:

The Das Reich Valley of Death?

With six tanks reported destroyed to the SSW of Luchki, perhaps all on 6 July, and the Das Reich SS Division losing around 30 tanks on 6 July, there may have been a major fight there that is not otherwise documented.

The Tank Repair and Replacement Efforts of II Guards Tank Corps compared to Totenkopf SS Division

As I result of a discussion I am having about Kursk with Niklas Zetterling, I have decided to compare the actual repair and replacement efforts of the Soviet II Guards Tank Corps to the German Totenkopf (Death’s Head) SS Panzer Grenadier Division. The II Guard Tank Corps was selected as it has some of the more complete records and it maintained its position in the “Donets triangle” from the beginning of the battle on 5 July 1943 until the 15th of July 1943. Its headquarters at Kosukhin on 4 July (can’t locate), it was at Kalinin on 6 July (305455?), and it was at Sazhnoye (3734)  by 0700 7 July, moved to Kleimenovo (4037) by 0700 10 July, moved to Plota (4345) by 0700 11 July, moved to Zhilomostnoye (4048) by 0700 12 July, and moved to Bereznik (490555), 3 km east of Krasnoye by 0700 15 July. The unit was never overrun or forced back by an attack, so it was in a decent position to repair and replace tanks.

The Totenkopf was selected as it was the German armor unit nearest to it and engaged with it. The Totenkopf SS Division ended up holding down the SS Panzer Corps right flank until the 9th, when it then moved up to cross the Psel River and try to take Prokhorovka from the north-northwest.

So lets look at Totenkopf for a moment (this is data from the Kursk Data Base):

Date       Tank Strength*     Destroyed     Damaged   In Repair    Returned to Duty

7/04        165                         0                      0                11

7/05        150                         1                    14

7/06        139                         3                      8

7/07        133                         1                      7                               2

7/08        122                         2                      9                               0

7/09        105                         4                    15                               2

7/10        116                         0                      0                             11

7/11        134                         0                      3                             21

7/12        106                         3                    25                               0

7/13          77                         2                    27                               0

7/14          76                         2                     6                                7

7/15          80                         0                     1                                5

7/16          97                         0                     0                              17

7/17          98                         0                     2                                3

7/18          96                         0                     2                                0

Total                                    18                 119                              68

* On 4 July this tank strength consisted of 59 Pz III long, 8 Pz III Command, 7 Pz IV short, 40 Pz IV long, 11 Pz VI, 1 Pz VI Command, 28 SuG III and 11 Marder IIs. AFVs not included in this count are 5 Pz III Observation, 5 Hummel, 12 Wespe, 36 armored cars, 56 light halftracks (including 3 250/10 with 37mm AT) and 69 medium halftracks (including 2 251/9 with 75mm lt IG and 7 251/10 with 37mm AT).

Strength figures are nominally as of 1800 on that day.

It appears that around 13% of the tanks destroyed/damaged/broken-down were written-off as destroyed. The Totenkopf SS Division appears to have repaired 57% of the damaged tanks during this time (and they may have repaired more later).

Now, let us look at the II Guards Tank Corps (also data from the Kursk Data Base)

Date       Tank Strength     Destroyed     Damaged    In repair    Returned to Duty

7/04        187  *                   0                   0                30  **           0

7/05        187                      0                    0                30               0

7/06        159                    17                  11                41               0

7/07        171                      0                    7                29  **        19 T-34s **

7/08        155                      6                  10                39               0

7/09        133                      7                  23                54               5-8 Churchills ***

7/10        139                      0                    2                48               8

7/11        140                      3                    2                44               6 (4 Churchills)

7/12          82                    24                  35                78               0-1 Churchill

7/13          80                      1                    4                                   3

7/14          59                    13                    8                                   0

7/15          57                      2                  14                                 14 T-34s ****

7/16          63                      0                    0                                   6 ****

7/17          63                      0                    0                                   0

7/18          31                      9                  25                                   2

Total                                 82                141                                 63-67

    Less tanks that were probably not repaired:                         – 19

    Less the confusing Churchill reports:                                    –   9 – 13

Total returned to duty (RTD) was probably around:                    35

* On 4 July this tank strength consisted of 99 T-34s, 72 T-70s and 16 Churchills. The unit also had 28 BA-64 (armored cars) and 20 Bren Gun Carriers. Note that there is another report that records the corps on 4 July as having 121 T-34s, 75 T-70s, 21 Churchills (Fond: 2nds GTC, Opis: 1, Delo: 23, pages 4-9). We believe this is total tanks, not just tanks ready-for-action.

It appears that around 37% of the tanks destroyed/damaged/broken-down were written-off as destroyed. The II Guards Tank Corps appeared to repair 45% of the damaged tanks during this time (and they may have repaired more later), but as 28 of these repairs were probably not repaired tanks (see the ** and *** remarks below), then it appears that they repaired around 25% of the damaged tanks during this time.

So, compared to the Germans, the Soviet unit wrote off a higher percentage of tanks written off as destroyed (13% versus 37%) and a lower percentage of damaged tanks repaired (57% repaired versus 25% repaired). This is pretty typical for all the German panzer and panzer grenadier divisions compared to Soviet tank and mechanized corps at Kursk. Also, most of the Soviet repaired arrived on the 15th and 16th, after the battle was winding down.

 

——————————————————————————————————————–

P.S. The map is of the II Guards Tank Corps operation on 6 July 1943 from page 475 of my book. It is the II Guards Tank Corps map for 1800, 6 July 1943.

P.P.S.: The remaining notes are here:

** These tanks almost certainly are reserve T-34s, vice recently repaired ones. In operational report #181, dated 0700 8 July, they list a corps reserve of 20 T-34s and 10 T-70s. They state that “the 20 tanks in corps reserve are located in Bubnovo.” I have yet to locate Bubnovo on a map.The keeping of 20 or 30 spared tanks was a normal practice at Kursk at this time. The difference between the ready-for-action reports and other tank counts on 4 July do indicate that there was a spare 22 T-34s, 3 T-70s, and 5 Churchills with the unit (see the * remark). The 19 RTD tanks are certainly the 20 spare tanks activated. This is the only mention of the “corps reserve’ in the II Guards Tank Corps records we have.

*** These are all Churchills. From 7/09 through 7/12 we have 9-13 Churchills RTD. The actual report of Churchill strength and losses from 7/08 – 7/13 is confusing:

0700 7/08: 1. 5 Churchills at 2400 July 7

                  2. Combat ready tanks: 5 Churchills (from 2 reports)

0700 7/09: 1. 5 Churchills.

                  2. Losses on July 8: 2 Churchills burned, 3 Churchills knocked out.

0700 7/10: 1. “The regiment suffered losses, including 2 Churchills burned, out of 5 combat-ready.”

                   2. “47ths Gds Heavy Tank Rgt, with 3 Churchills is in the area of Khokhlovo….”

                   3. On July 9 the corps lost 1 Churchill burned and 1 Churchill knocked out.

                   4. Combat ready tanks: 3 Churchills (2 reports)

                   5. Corps lost 5 Mk-4s on 9 July (from a different report)

0700 7/11: Combat ready tanks: 3 Churchills (2 reports)

0700 7/12: 1. “47th Gds Heavy Tank Rgt, with 6 Churchills…”

                  2. At 2400 on July 11…..47th Gds Heavy tank Rgt, consisting of 2 Churchills, is in the corps commander reserve north of Leski.

                  3. Corps losses for July 11: 3 Churchills burned, 2 Churchills knocked out.

                  4. Combat Ready Tanks: 2 Churchills (2 reports)

0700 7/13: Report is missing

0700 7/14: Combat Ready Tanks: 2 Churchills

The unit, the 47th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, was operating independent of the corps, having gotten separated on the 7th and moved over to face the III Panzer Corps.  It appear unlikely over these three days that 16-19 Churchills were damaged or broken down, and that 13-16 of them were repaired, but this is the only way to get totals to work. It is either that assumption, or one has to dismiss some parts of the records as in error, and it is hard to know what to dismiss. This is most likely anomalous data in the II GTC records.

**** These 14 tanks we believe are repaired. they reported at 0700 15 July to have combat-ready 30 T-34s, 12 T-70s, and 2 Churchills, they report losses for 15 July of 6 T-34s knocked out, 1 T-34 burned, 2 T-70s knocked out, 1 burned (10 tanks total) and they reported on 0700 16 July combat-ready 45 T-34s, 18 T-70s. Another report for the 16th states that “following repairs, the corps had the following tanks in line: 38 T-34s and 15 T-70s.”

P.P.P.S. The Totenkopf SS Division lost around 57 tanks on 12th and 13th of July (and we don’t know how many were actually lost on what given day). Some authors, in their accounts of Prokhorovka seem to ignore its efforts and its losses, even though it was engaged with elements of Rotmistrov’s Fifth Guards Tank Army and its objective was Prokhorovka (which it did not achieve).

Cost of Creating a Data Base

Invariably, especially with a new book coming out (War by Numbers), I expected to get requests for copies of our data bases. In fact, I already have.

Back around 1987 or so, a very wise man (Curt Johnson, VP of HERO) estimated that for the LWDB (Land Warfare Data Base) that it took 3 man-days to create an engagement. The LWDB was the basis for creating many of our later data bases, including the DLEDB (Division Level Engagement Data Base). My experience over time is that this estimate is low, especially if your are working with primary sources (unit records) for both sides. I think it may average more like 6 man-days an engagement if based upon unit records (this includes the time to conduct research).

But going with Curt’s estimate, let’s take the DLEDB of 752 cases and re-create it. This would take 3 man-days times 752 engagements = 2,256 man-days. This is 9 man-years of effort. Now 9 man-years times a loaded professional rate. A loaded man-year is the cost of a person’s labor times indirect costs (vacation, SS and Medicare contributions, health insurance, illness, office space, etc.), general and administrative costs (corporate expenses not included in the indirect costs, including senior management and marketing), and any fee or profit. Loaded rate is invariably at least 60% of the direct costs and usually closer to 100% of direct costs (and I worked at one company where it was 200% of direct costs). So a loaded man-year may be as low at $120,000 a year but for people like RAND or CNA, it is certainly much higher. Nine man-years times $120,000 = $1,080,000.

Would it really cost more than a million dollars to re-created the DLEDB? If one started from scratch, certainly. Probably (much) more, because of all the research into the Ardennes and Kursk that we did as part of those database projects. The data bases were created incrementally over the course of more than 30 years as part of various on-going contracts and efforts. We also had a core group of very experienced personnel who were doing this.

Needless to say, if any part of the data base is given away, loaned out, or otherwise not protected, we loose control of the “proprietary” aspect of these data bases. This includes the programming and formatting. Right now, they are unique to The Dupuy Institute, and for obvious business reasons, need to remain so unless proper compensation is arranged.

Sorry.

 

P.S. The image used is from the old Dbase IV version of the Kursk Data Base. We have re-programmed it in Access.

 

Dupuy Institute Data Bases

Yes, I still use data base as two words, much to the annoyance of Jay Karamales.

Anyhow, War by Numbers does rely extensively on a group of combat data bases that were developed over several decades. The earliest versions were developed in the 1970s and they were assembled into a large data base of around 600 cases in the 1980s. They were then computerized (they were originally a paper data base), re-organized, re-programed in Access, and greatly expanded. The data bases we currently have include:

Conventional Combat Data Bases:

LADB = Large Action Data Bases of 55 cases

DLEDB = Division Level Engagement Data Base of 752 cases

BLODB = Battalion Level Operations Data Base of 127 cases

CLEDB = Company Level Engagement Data Base of 98 cases

SADB = Small Action Data Base of 5 cases

BaDB = Battles Data Base of 243 cases from 1600-1900

 

We also have:

CaDB = Campaign Data Base of 196 cases. While the other data bases address battles, or engagements of no more than a few days in length, this one summarizes campaigns, often extending for months.

Finally we have three databases tracking campaigns from day-to-day. They are all programmed in Access:

ACSDB = Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base (meaning Battle of the Bulge)

KDB = Kursk Data Base

Battle of Britain Data Base

These were primarily intended for model validation efforts.

We also have three insurgency/peaceeping/intervention/OOTW (Operations Other than War) data bases. They are:

WACCO = Warfare and Armed Conflict Data Base of 793 cases

SSCO = Small Scale Operations Data Base of 203 cases

DISS = Dupuy Insurgency Spread Sheets of 109 cases.

 

The DISS data base was the one that America’s Modern Wars is based upon. The other two were earlier efforts.

These links provides some snap shots of the data base content: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/dbases.htm

These are all company proprietary, although some have been released publicly in earlier forms or different forms (including the CHASE data base of 599 cases, the ACSDB in Dbase III and the KDB in Dbase IV). Our versions have been updated, including revisions to content.

Economics of Warfare 15-1

Moving onto the fifteenth 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 addresses the impact of global warming on armed conflict over time. If you happen to be one of those who believes that global warming is pseudo-science/a scientific hoax/an excuse to troll for research $$$/an invention of Al Gore/a liberal plot/a religion/a Chinese plot/obviously false because it was cold yesterday/and so forth…..then probably best to stop reading. On the other hand, we have done some proposals on measuring the impact of climate change on violence and consider this a legitimate area of study. Our attention was drawn to the subject over a decade ago when a CNA (Center for Naval Analysis) paper came out that postulated that global warming could result in more violence. This conclusion does not appear to have been based upon any analysis of data, just the assumption that as things get worse (in the environment) then things are going to get worse (with armed conflict). Of course, going back to Feierabend & Feierabend (and I do go back to them a lot)….poorer counties had less political violence than developing countries. Therefore, it does not necessarily follow that worse environmental and economics conditions results in more violence. The effect may be the reverse, which is that declining conditions may actually result in a reduction of violence. We really don’t know. Trying to examine these effects analytically was the gist of my proposals on the subject, but sequestration happened and budget for anything seemed to disappear.

So….first two sentences of Dr. Spagat’s slides are

“There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is getting warmer over time.”

“It is reasonable to imagine that a side effect of global warming could be an increase in armed conflict over time.”

Slide 2 looks at possible channels that could lead to conflict

  1. Dwindling food supply
  2. Dwindling water supply
  3. Sea Level changes causing migration.

On slide 3 he then addresses a study by Burke and others that attempt to address these concerns using a cross-country regression approach and linear probability model.

On slide 5 the results are summarized as “…an increase of 1 degree centigrade for a  particularly country in a particular year is associated with a 0.0447 increase in the probability of there being an ongoing civil war….”

and on slide 11 as: “This means that Burke et al. predict that 15.8-17.1% of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2030 will suffer from big civil wars rather than the 11% that would occur without the warming climate.”

and on slide 16 as: “Burke et al. go on to predict 393,000 excess battle deaths caused by climate change…” (my bolding). Dr. Spagat then examines this number in the next two slides. It doesn’t sound like he fully accepts it.

Now, Burke based his study on the period from 1981-2002. One of Dr. Spagat’s TAs then used the model to make predictions from the period 2003-2013. There is nothing like trying to use a model to predict the past. It sort of shows whether it really works or not. This was the reasoning because the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base and the Kursk Data Base that we did (they were model validation data bases). It is related in concept to what I did in America’s Modern War, pages 65-68 when I tested my logistics probability model back to the 68 cases used to create the model and tried to figure out for each case why the model was predicting wrong. Once you have a model, there are lots of things to test it to in the past. If you can’t predict the past, you may not be able to predict the future.

Anyhow, the results are on slide 19 and summarized in slide 20 as

  1. “There are 414 “no war” predictions…A war actually happens in 11 out of these 414 cases.”
  2. “There are 37 predictions of “war”. War actually happens in 7 out of these 37 cases.”

Not sure I am any smarter at this point, but I am certainly amused.

His final point is “The Burke et al. model seems to be of some use in predicting wars although it seems have a general tendency to predict war too often.”

And then Dr. Spagat TA test how important the temperature variable is for making these predictions, so takes the temperature variable out of the model !!! This produces a table (slide 21) that is almost identical to his original table. The impact of removing the temperature from the model is that it produced five more false positives (predicted wars that did not happen). I am even more amused.

Spagat’s conclusion (slide 22) is “…They mean that temperature is not very useful for predicting civil war….”

This is a good point to stop…I will pick up the rest of this lecture in another post. The link to the lecture is here: http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Economics%20of%20Warfare/Lecture%2015.pdf