Category Conventional warfare

Status of Books

War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat: For some reason, Amazon.com does not have a Kindle edition available at the moment (I recall that they did). I have talked to the publisher and they are looking into it. The paperback edition is for sale on Amazon.com and of course, University of Nebraska Press. I have heard that some people overseas have gotten copies, but other people are having a problem. I also have the publisher looking into that. There is one 5-star review of the book on Amazon.com. I don’t know the reviewer (meaning it is not a planted review).

Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka: The book has been selling at a consistent rate this year, and at that rate, it will be out of stock in the second half of 2018. If you are thinking about getting it, you probably don’t want to tarry too long. There are currently no plans for a re-print.

America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam: I do consider this the most significant of my three books, and of course, it is the one with the worse sales. I guess the study and analysis of insurgencies is passé, as we have done such a great job of winning these type of wars.

 

Against the Panzers

The book that came out of the A2/D2 Study (Anti-Armor Defense Data Study) was Against the Panzers, by Allyn R. Vannoy and Jay Karamales: Against the Panzers: United States Infantry Versus German Tanks, 1944-1945

The graphics person for of my three books and the images for this website is Jay Karamales. Jay is a multi-talented person whose primary occupation is a programmer. Unfortunately, there was never an Against the Panzers II, although I gathered he did some work on it.

For a taste of Mr. Karamales’ book, I recommend you take a look at his article in the TNDM Newsletter: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/v1n6.pdf

A2/D2 Study

A2/D2 Study = Anti-armor defense data study.

In the last days of the Soviet Union—before anyone realized they *were* the last days—the NATO nations were still doing all they could to prepare for a possible Soviet onslaught into Western Europe. They had spent decades developing combat models to help them predict where the blow would fall, where defense would be critical, where logistics would make the difference, what mix of forces could survive. Their main problem was that they didn’t know how far they could trust those models. How could they validate them? Maybe if they could reverse-engineer the past, they could be relied upon to predict the future.

To that end, the American Department of Defense (DoD) and (particularly) the British Defence Operational Analysis Establishment (DOAE) undertook to collect data about historical battles that resembled the battles they expected to be fighting, with the aim of feeding that data into their models and seeing how much the models’ results resembled the historical outcomes of those battles. The thinking went that if the models could produce a result similar to history, they could be confident that feeding in modern data would produce a realistic result and teach them how to adjust their dispositions for optimal results.

One of the battles that NATO expected to fight was a Soviet armored drive through the Fulda Gap, a relatively flat corridor through otherwise rough terrain in south-central West Germany. The battle that most resembled such an operation, in the minds of the planners, was the December 1944 surprise attack by the German Army into the Ardennes Forest region along the German/Luxembourg/Belgian border, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge for the wedge-shaped salient it drove into American lines. As the British involvement in this epic battle—what Churchill called the greatest battle in the history of the U.S. Army—was minor, consisting of a minor holding action by XXX Corps, the DOAE delegated collecting the relevant data for this battle to the DoD. The responsible element of the DoD was the Army’s Concepts Analysis Agency (CAA), which in turn hired defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to perform the data collection and study. In late 1990 SAIC began in-depth research, consisting of archival reviews and interviews of surviving veterans, for the project which hoped to identify engagements down to vehicle-on-vehicle action, with rounds expended, ammunition types, ranges, and other quantitative data which could be fed into models. Ultimately the study team, led by former HERO researcher and Trevor Dupuy protégé Jay Karamales, identified and recorded details for 56 combat actions from the ETO in 1944-1945, most from the Battle of the Bulge; and the detailed data from these engagements was used in the validation efforts for various combat models. This quantitative data, along with a copious amount of anecdotal information, was used as the basis for Karamales’ 1996 book with his co-author Allyn Vannoy titled Against the Panzers: United States Infantry versus German Tanks, 1944-1945: A History of Eight Battles Told through Diaries, Unit Histories and Interviews.

Copies of this study are available at DTIC. If you put “saic a2d2” into a search engine you should find all the volumes in PDF format on the DTIC website. As an example, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a232910.pdf or http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA284378

 

$600 Book

I do note on Amazon that they are selling a copy of Trevor Dupuy’s Understanding War for $599: $600 book

This is not even the original edition, but the NOVA Publications reprint. I still have around 438 of these in stock at The Dupuy Institute for $24.95: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm

That is $600 for a new book. They have two used ones for sale for $810.08 and $810.10. One wonders how they determined the two cents difference in price.

Anyhow, I do consider Understanding War to be the best of Trevor Dupuy’s 90+ books that he authored or co-authored. My book War by Numbers was heavily influenced by it.

 

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.

War By Numbers Published

Christopher A. Lawrence, War by Numbers Understanding Conventional Combat (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2017) 390 pages, $39.95

War by Numbers assesses the nature of conventional warfare through the analysis of historical combat. Christopher A. Lawrence (President and Executive Director of The Dupuy Institute) establishes what we know about conventional combat and why we know it. By demonstrating the impact a variety of factors have on combat he moves such analysis beyond the work of Carl von Clausewitz and into modern data and interpretation.

Using vast data sets, Lawrence examines force ratios, the human factor in case studies from World War II and beyond, the combat value of superior situational awareness, and the effects of dispersion, among other elements. Lawrence challenges existing interpretations of conventional warfare and shows how such combat should be conducted in the future, simultaneously broadening our understanding of what it means to fight wars by the numbers.

The book is available in paperback directly from Potomac Books and in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.

Table of Contents: War by Numbers

Preface                                                                                                   ix

Acknowledgments                                                                                  xi

Abbreviations                                                                                         xiii

  1. Understanding War                                                                        1

  2. Force Ratios                                                                                   8
  3. Attacker versus Defender                                                             14
  4. Human Factors                                                                             16
  5. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Italy 1943-1944               19
  6. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Ardennes and Kursk       32
  7. Measuring Human Factors in Combat: Modern Wars                  49
  8. Outcome of Battles                                                                       60
  9. Exchange Ratios                                                                          72
  10. The Combat Value of Superior Situational Awareness                79
  11. The Combat Value of Surprise                                                   121
  12. The Nature of Lower Levels of Combat                                      146
  13. The Effects of Dispersion on Combat                                         163
  14. Advance Rates                                                                            174
  15. Casualties                                                                                    181
  16. Urban Legends                                                                            206
  17. The Use of Case Studies                                                             265
  18. Modeling Warfare                                                                        285
  19. Validation of the TNDM                                                               299
  20. Conclusions                                                                                 325

Appendix I: Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat                                329

Appendix II: Dupuy’s Combat Advance Rate Verities                           335

Appendix III: Dupuy’s Combat Attrition Verities                                    339

Notes                                                                                                     345

Bibliography                                                                                           369

 

The book is 374 pages plus 14 pages of front matter.

 

15 Books Received !!!

I just received my 15 author copies of War by Numbers. So it is now available for $39.95 from Potomac Books (University of Nebraska Press): War by Numbers

This means it should be available from Amazon.com next week: War by Numbers

I don’t how quickly the foreign book sellers will receive them, but expect them to have  copies available in the next couple of weeks.

I did not order 200 copies for The Dupuy Institute to sell, unlike I did with America’s Modern Wars, so it will not be directly available from us: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm

This figure is on page 175 of the book, Chapter 14: Advance Rates:

 

 

Aussie OR

Over the years I have run across a number of Australian Operations Research and Historical Analysis efforts. Overall, I have been impressed with what I have seen. Below is one of their papers written by Nigel Perry. He is not otherwise known to me. It is dated December 2011: Applications of Historical Analyses in Combat Modeling

It does address the value of Lanchester equations in force-on-force combat models, which in my mind is already a settled argument (see: Lanchester Equations Have Been Weighed). His is the latest argument that I gather reinforces this point.

The author of this paper references the work of Robert Helmbold and Dean Hartley (see page 14). He does favorably reference the work of Trevor Dupuy but does not seem to be completely aware of the extent or full nature of it (pages 14, 16, 17, 24 and 53). He does not seem to aware that the work of Helmbold and Hartley was both built from a database that was created by Trevor Dupuy’s companies HERO & DMSI. Without Dupuy, Helmbold and Hartley would not have had data to work from.

Specifically, Helmbold was using the Chase database, which was programmed by the government from the original paper version provided by Dupuy. I think it consisted of 597-599 battles (working from memory here). It also included a number of coding errors when they programmed it and did not include the battle narratives. Hartley had Oakridge National Laboratories purchase a computerized copy from Dupuy of what was now called the Land Warfare Data Base (LWDB). It consisted of 603 or 605 engagements (and did not have the coding errors but still did not include the narratives). As such, they both worked from almost the same databases.

Dr. Perrty does take a copy of Hartley’s  database and expands it to create more engagements. He says he expanded it from 750 battles (except the database we sold to Harley had 603 or 605 cases) to around 1600. It was estimated in the 1980s by Curt Johnson (Director and VP of HERO) to take three man-days to create a battle. If this estimate is valid (actually I think it is low), then to get to 1600 engagements the Australian researchers either invested something like 10 man-years of research, or relied heavily on secondary sources without any systematic research, or only partly developed each engagement (for example, only who won and lost). I suspect the latter.

Dr. Perry shows on page 25:

Data-segment……..Start…….End……Number of……Attacker…….Defender

Epoch…………………Year…….Year……..Battles………Victories……Victories

Ancient………………- 490…….1598………….63………………36……………..27

17th Century……….1600…….1692………….93………………67……………..26

18th Century……….1700…….1798………..147…………….100……………..47

Revolution…………..1792……1800…………238…………….168…………….70

Empire……………….1805……1815…………327……………..203…………..124

ACW………………….1861……1865…………143……………….75…………….68

19th Century……….1803…….1905…………126……………….81…………….45

WWI………………….1914…….1918…………129……………….83…………….46

WWII…………………1920…….1945…………233……………..165…………….68

Korea………………..1950…….1950…………..20……………….20………………0

Post WWII………….1950……..2008…………118……………….86…………….32

 

We, of course, did something very similar. We took the Land Warfare Data Base (the 605 engagement version), expanded in considerably with WWII and post-WWII data, proofed and revised a number of engagements using more primarily source data, divided it into levels of combat (army-level, division-level, battalion-level, company-level) and conducted analysis with the 1280 or so engagements we had. This was a much more powerful and better organized tool. We also looked at winner and loser, but used the 605 engagement version (as we did the analysis in 1996). An example of this, from pages 16 and 17 of my manuscript for War by Numbers shows:

Attacker Won:

 

                        Force Ratio                Force Ratio    Percent Attack Wins:

                        Greater than or         less than          Force Ratio Greater Than

                        equal to 1-to-1            1-to1                or equal to 1-to-1

1600-1699        16                              18                         47%

1700-1799        25                              16                         61%

1800-1899        47                              17                         73%

1900-1920        69                              13                         84%

1937-1945      104                                8                         93%

1967-1973        17                              17                         50%

Total               278                              89                         76%

 

Defender Won:

 

                        Force Ratio                Force Ratio    Percent Defense Wins:

                        Greater than or         less than          Force Ratio Greater Than

                        equal to 1-to-1            1-to1                or equal to 1-to-1

1600-1699           7                                6                       54%

1700-1799         11                              13                       46%

1800-1899         38                              20                       66%

1900-1920         30                              13                       70%

1937-1945         33                              10                       77%

1967-1973         11                                5                       69%

Total                130                              67                       66%

 

Anyhow, from there (pages 26-59) the report heads into an extended discussion of the analysis done by Helmbold and Hartley (which I am not that enamored with). My book heads in a different direction: War by Numbers III (Table of Contents)