Category Historical Analysis Annual Conference

Presentations from HAAC – Estimating War Deaths (in Iraq)

The third presentation of the second day was by Dr. Michael Spagat, an American scholar that teaches at the Royal Holloway University of London. It is called “Estimating War Deaths (in Iraq):” Iraq Deaths

Dr. Spagat has been focused on examining all casualties in war, and sometimes this has led him to publicly question some of the estimates that other people have provided. It is not unusual to see estimates of combat casualties inflated by an order of magnitude, and by the same token, sometimes civilian casualties get estimated at an order of magnitude higher than what they probably are. Getting a better estimate does not diminish the tragedy nor change the story. I do feel that inflated estimates actually undermine the authenticity of the story; but more to the point, facts-are-facts and data-is-data and this stuff is actually important. Anyhow, I am a big fan of Dr. Spagat’s work as demonstrated by this series of threads I posted in 2017 that I think all readers of this blog should take a look at: TDI Friday Read: Mike Spagat’s Economics of Warfare Lectures & Commentaries | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The first presentation of the day was my monstrosity, Iraq, Data, Hypotheses and Afghanistan (which I later turned into the book America’s Modern Wars): NIC Compilation 3.1

The second presentation of the day was Lessons Learned from Haiti 1915-1934 by Dr. Christopher Davis of UNCG: History as an Enemy and Instructor

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We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The nine presentations given on the first day are all here: Presentations from HAAC – Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front in 1944-45 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Presentations from HAAC – Lessons Learned from Haiti 1915-1934

The second presentation on the second day was by Dr. Christopher Davis of UNCG (University of North Carolina, Greensboro) called “History as an Enemy and an Instructor: Lessons Learned from Haiti 1915-1934. It is here: History as an Enemy and Instructor

Now, in all my insurgency and counter insurgency work I drew all my cases from post-World War II data. It not because I did not think that data before WWII was not relevant, I just knew it would be a harder sale. People often high-handedly dismiss history as irrelevant when it gives them an answer they do not like. The older the history, the easier it is to off-handedly dismiss it. Therefore, for the sake of not having to have that argument, I kept all my insurgency work post-WWII. Even that did not protect me, with people complaining about me referencing insurgencies in Chad they had never heard of and using too many “wars of national liberation” in my data set, which supposedly biased my results. Apparently, if you do not have the data to dispute the result of our research, you just dismiss our data; which apparently is enough to establish your opposing viewpoint. Anyhow, I felt that Haiti is in fact a perfectly representative example to learn from so when Dr. Davis offered to brief on it, I immediately agreed.

The first presentation of the day was my monstrosity, Iraq, Data, Hypotheses and Afghanistan (which I later turned into the book America’s Modern Wars): NIC Compilation 3.1

———–

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The nine presentations given on the first day are all here: Presentations from HAAC – Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front in 1944-45 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Presentations from HAAC – Iraq, Data, Hypotheses and Afghanistan

Attached is the first presentation for the second day of the conference. It was an old presentation that I gave at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) back in 2008. It was still relevant: NIC Compilation 3.1. Most of this is discussed in my book America’s Modern Wars.

————-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

The nine presentations given on the first day are all here: Presentations from HAAC – Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front in 1944-45 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

Presentations from HAAC – Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front in 1944-45

We did have two conference rooms operating and were running parallel briefings for part of the afternoon. The second briefing in the Einstein Conference room of the first day was given by the author Daniel Horvath. It is “Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front in 1944-45” (21 slides): Air Combat Analysis on the Eastern Front 1944 45_DH_2022.pptx

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data

The fourth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. David Kirkpatrick of the University College of London (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

The fifth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Niall MacKay, University of York (161 slides): HAAC2022MacKay 

The sixth presentation of the first day was given by Jim Storr (32 slides): HA Conference DC Sep 22 V1.2

The seventh and final presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Shawn Woodford (10 slides): 20220927 HAAC-Understanding Dupuy

The first briefing in the Einstein Conference room of the first day was given by Dr. Michael Johnson (CNA) (64 slides): Main brief

Presentations from HAAC – Midway and the Aleutians

We did have two conference rooms operating and were running parallel briefings for part of the afternoon. The first briefing in the Einstein Conference room of the first day was given by Dr. Michael Johnson (CNA). It is “Midway and the Aleutians” (64 slides): Main brief

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data

The fourth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. David Kirkpatrick of the University College of London (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

The fifth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Niall MacKay, University of York (161 slides): HAAC2022MacKay 

The sixth presentation of the first day was given by Jim Storr (32 slides): HA Conference DC Sep 22 V1.2

The seventh and final presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Shawn Woodford (10 slides): 20220927 HAAC-Understanding Dupuy

Presentations from HAAC – TND’s Theory of Combat

The seventh and final presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Shawn Woodford. It is “Understanding Dupuy: Trevor N. Dupuy’s Theory of Combat” (10 slides): 20220927 HAAC-Understanding Dupuy

We then went to dinner.

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data

The fourth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. David Kirkpatrick of the University College of London (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

The fifth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Niall MacKay, University of York (161 slides): HAAC2022MacKay 

The sixth presentation of the first day was given by Jim Storr (32 slides): HA Conference DC Sep 22 V1.2

Response to Question on Dupuy’s Combat Attrition Verities

Someone just sent an email asking about a particular single line on slide 44 of my Data for Wargames briefing I gave at HAAC: “Self-propelled artillery loss rates are about three times greater than for towed guns”. The briefing is here: Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2

I noted that this from Trevor Dupuy combat attrition verities. He specifically states on page 179 of Understanding War that:

“Self-propelled artillery loss rates are about three times greater than for towed guns. This is due to a combination of factors. larger exposed target; presence of fuel and ammunition in the self-propelled guns carriages; and vulnerability of engines to damage even when the weapon is still able to fire effectively. They are also more likely to be committed under more immediately lethal combat circumstances than are towed artillery pieces. It should be noted, however, that crew loss rates are slightly lower for self-propelled guns than for towed guns.”

This is clearly taken from one of his earlier studies in the 1970s or 19780s. See: TDI – The Dupuy Institute Publications or TDI – The Dupuy Institute Publications or TDI – The Dupuy Institute Publications. Off the top of my head, I do not recall which study it was from.

Trevor Dupuy also made the comment in private conversation that one other advantage to towed artillery is that after you deployed the piece, you then had a truck available to go get more ammunition.

Presentations from HAAC – Weaponizing Historical Analysis: A Case Study of the Introduction of HA Into Doctrine

The sixth presentation of the first day was given by Jim Storr. It is “Weaponizing Historical Analysis: A Case Study of the Introduction of HA Into Doctrine” (32 slides): HA Conference DC Sep 22 V1.2

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data

The fourth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. David Kirkpatrick of the University College of London (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

The fifth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Niall MacKay, University of York (161 slides): HAAC2022MacKay 

Presentations from HAAC – Killing Captain Hindsight: Quantifying Chance in Military History

The fifth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Niall MacKay, University of York. It is “Killing Captain Hindsight: Quantifying Chance in Military History” (161 slides): HAAC2022MacKay 

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data

The fourth presentation of the first day was given by Dr. David Kirkpatrick of the University College of London (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

Presentations from HAAC – How important are superior numbers?

The fourth presentation of the first day was given virtually by Dr. David Kirkpatrick, Emeritus Professor, University College London. It is “How important are superior numbers?” (25 slides):  DKirkpatrick Presentation 19 Jan 22 v2

———-

We had a total of 30 presentations given at the first Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC). We have the briefing slides from most of these presentations. Over the next few weeks, we are going to present the briefing slides on this blog, maybe twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursday). In all cases, this is done with the permission of the briefer. We may later also post the videos of the presentations, but these are clearly going to have to go to another medium (Youtube.com). We will announce when and if these are posted.

The briefings will be posted in the order given at the conference. The conference schedule is here: Schedule for the Historical Analysis Annual Conference (HAAC), 27-29 September 2022 – update 16 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

The conference opened with a brief set of introductory remarks by me. The seven supporting slides are here: Opening Presentation

It was then followed by a briefing by Dr. Shawn Woodford on Studying Combat; The “Base of Sand” Problem: 20220927 HAAC-Studying Combat

The second presentation of the first day was given by me. It is here (45 slides): Data for Wargames (Summary) – 2. 

The third presentation of the first day was given by Dr. Tom Lucas of the Naval Post-Graduate School (49 slides):  Fitting Lanchester equations to time-phased battle data