Category Modeling, Simulation & Wargaming

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)

 

 

Osipov

Back in 1915, a Russian named M. Osipov published a paper in a Tsarist military journal that was Lanchester like: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a241534.pdf

He actually tested his equations to historical data, which are presented in his paper. He ended up coming up with something similar to Lanchester equations but it did not have a square law, but got a similar effect by putting things to the 3/2nds power.

As far as we know, because of the time it was published (June-October 1915), it was not influenced or done with any awareness of work that the far more famous Frederick Lanchester had done (and Lanchester was famous for a lot more than just his modeling equations).  Lanchester first published his work in the fall of 1914 (after the Great War had already started). It is possible that Osipov was aware of it, but he does not mention Lanchester. He was probably not aware of Lanchester’s work. It appears to be the case of him independently coming up with the use of differential equations to describe combat attrition. This was also the case with Rear Admiral J. V. Chase, who wrote a classified staff paper for U.S. Navy in 1902 that was not revealed until 1972.

Osipov, after he had written his paper, may have served in World War I, which was already underway at the time it was published. Between the war, the Russian revolutions, the civil war afterwards, the subsequent repressions by Cheka and later Stalin, we do not know what happened to M. Osipov. At the time I was asked by CAA if our Russian research team knew about him. I passed the question to Col. Sverdlov and Col. Vainer and they were not aware of him. It is probably possible to chase him down, but would probably take some effort. Perhaps some industrious researcher will find out more about him.

It does not appear that Osipov had any influence on Soviet operations research or military analysis. It appears that he was ignored or forgotten. His article was re-published in the September 1988  of the Soviet Military-Historical Journal with the propaganda influenced statement that they also had their own “Lanchester.” Of course, this “Soviet Lanchester” was publishing in a Tsarist military journal, hardly a demonstration of the strength of the Soviet system.

 

Soviet OR

There was a sense among some in the Sovietology community in the late 1980s that Soviet Operations Research (OR) was particularly advanced. People had noticed the 300-man Soviet Military History Institute and the Soviet use of the quantified “Correlation of Forces and Means,” which they used in WWII and since. Trevor Dupuy referenced these in his writings. They had noticed a number of OR books by professors at their Frunze Military Academy. In particular, the book Tactical Calculations by Anatoli Vainer was being used by a number of Sovietologists in their works and presentations (including TNDA alumni Col. John Sloan). There was a concern that the Soviet Union was conducting extensive quantitative analysis of its historical operations in World War II and using this to further improve their war fighting capabilities.

This is sort of a case of trying to determine what is going on by looking at the shadows on a cave wall (Plato analogy here). In October 1993 as part of the Kursk project, we meet with our Russian research team headed by Dr. Fyodor Sverdlov (retired Colonel, Soviet WWII veteran, and former head of the Frunze Military Academy History Department). Sitting there as his right hand man was Dr. Anatoli Vainer (also a retired Colonel, a Soviet WWII veteran and a Frunze Military Academy professor).

We had a list of quantitative data that we needed for the Kursk Data Base (KDB). The database was to be used as a validation database for the Center of Army Analysis (CAA) various modeling efforts. As such, we were trying to determine for each unit for each day the unit strength, losses, equipment lists, equipment losses, ammunition levels, ammunition expenditures, fuel levels, fuel expenditures, and so forth. They were stunned. They said that they did not have models like that. We were kind of surprised at that response.

Over the course of several days I got to know these two gentlemen, went swimming with Col. Sverdlov and had dinner over at Col. Vainer’s house. I got to see his personal library and the various books he wrote. Talked to him as much as I could sensitively do so about Soviet OR, and they were pretty adamant that there really wasn’t anything significant occurring. Vainer told me that his primary source for materials for his books was American writings on Operations Research. So, it appeared that we had completed a loop….the Soviets were writing OR books based upon our material and we were reading them and thinking they had a well developed OR structure.

Their historical research was also still primarily based upon one-side data. They simply were not allowed to access the German archives and regardless they knew that they should not be publishing Soviet casualty figures or any negative comparisons. Col. Sverdlov, who had been in the war since Moscow 1941, was well aware of the Soviet losses, and had some sense that the German losses were less, but this they could not publish [Sverdlov: “I was at Prokhorovka after the war, and I didn’t see 100 Tigers there”]. So, they were hardly able to freely conduct historical analysis in an unbiased manner.

In the end, at this time, they had not developed the analytical tools or capability to fully explore their own military history or to conduct operations research.

 

Battle Outcomes: Casualty Rates As a Measure of Defeat

This third article in the box I was about to trash was also written by someone I knew, Robert McQuie. It was a five-page article published in Army magazine in November 1987 (pages 30-34) called “Battle Outcomes: Casualty Rates As a Measure of Defeat.” I was an article I was aware of, but had not seen for probably around three decades. It was based upon data assembled by HERO (Trevor Dupuy). It was part of the lead-in to the Breakpoints Project that we later did.

The by-line of the article is “A study of data from mid-twentieth century warfare suggest that casualties–whether the reality or the perception of them—are only occasionally a factor in command decisions to break off unsuccessful battles.” 

The analysis was based upon 80 engagements from 1941-1982. Of those 52 were used to create the table below (from page 34):

Reasons for a Force Abandoning An Attack or Defense:

Maneuver by Enemy…………………………..Percent

  Envelopment, encirclement, penetration……..33

  Adjacent friendly unit withdrew………………..13

  Enemy occupied key terrain…………………….6

  Enemy achieved surprise……………………….8

  Enemy reinforced………………………………..4

Total………………………………………………64

 

Firepower by Enemy

  Casualty or equipment losses……………………10

  Heavy artillery or air attacks by enemy…………..2

Total…………………………………………………12

 

Other Reasons

  No reserves left……………………………………….12

  Supply shortage………………………………………..2

  Truce or surrender…………………………………….6

  Change in weather…………………………………….2

  Orders to withdraw…………………………………….2

Total…………………………………………………….24

 

He then goes on in the article to question the utility of Lanchester equations, ending with the statement “It appears as well that Mr. Lanchester’s equations present a drastic misstatement of what drives the outcome of combat.” He also points out that many wargames and simulations terminate simulated battles at 15% to 30% casualties a day, ending with the statement that “The evidence indicated that in most cases, a force has quit when its casualties reached less than ten percent per battle. In most battles, moreover, defeat has not been caused by casualties.”

Robert McQuie was a senior operations research analyst for U.S. Army’s CAA (Concepts Analysis Agency). In 1987 I was working at HERO and considering heading back to school to get a graduate degree in Operations Research (OR). At Trevor Dupuy’s recommendation, I discussed it with Robert McQuie, who stated strongly not to do so because it was a “waste of time.” His argument was that while Operations Research was good at answering questions where the results could be optimized, it was incapable of answering the bigger questions. He basically felt the discipline had reached a dead end.

Anyhow, another keeper.

 

NTC Exercise

This article caught my attention (updated the link): https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-military-might-not-best-164000460.html

I remember observing a National Training Center (NTC) rotation around 2000 (the map shown above is not from this exercise). It was an armor or mechanized brigade and an air mobile brigade against the usual reinforced company of very experienced defending opposing forces.

One of the first disasters occurred when the air mobile brigade decided to conduct an insertion against an opposing force (OPFOR) that was completely ready for this. They ended up loosing a number of helicopters and were halted. So much for their “verticle envelopment” effort. Interesting enough, in 2003, outside of Baghdad, I gather we attempted the same thing, with similar results. An army fights as it trains.

The other early disaster was an early morning (still dark) attack that failed to take a large hill in the south of the battlefield that was enemy occupied. This hill gave the defenders complete oversight of the entire U.S. armored brigades’ attack in the morning.

Still, with the vertical envelopment having failed, and with their flank not covered, they then attacked forward with rather predictable results, especially when they hit the minefield that extended across the open area of the battlefield. It turned out that the brigades’ engineering assets were still in the rear. It took some time (read: hours) to bring them up. In the meantime the brigade was stranded in the middle of a wide-open desert area that was over-watched by the enemy. This experience may have been a career killer for the brigade commander.

Their only success came from an attached “Ukrainian armored company” that was not Ukrainian, but was actually people from the opposing forces playing an attached foreign contingent. They managed to maneuver through some rocky area on the north side of the battlefield, because they knew it intimately, bypassed the minefield that was holding up the rest of the brigade, and flanked the defenders. I gather this won the battle for the attackers.

Anyhow, I have no knowledge that allows me to comment on Captain Metz’s article, other than to note what I saw in my observation of a NTC exercise.

Wargaming at RAND

Images of RAND wargames from a 1958 edition of Life magazine. [C3I Magazine]

A friend tipped me off to RAND Corporation‘s “Events @ RAND” podcast series on iTunes, specifically a recent installment titled “The Serious Role of Gaming at RAND.” David Shlapak, senior international research analyst and co-director of the RAND Center for Gaming, gives an overview of RAND’s history and experiences using gaming and simulations for a variety of tasks, including analysis and policy-making.

Shlapak and Michael Johnson touched off a major debate last year after publishing an analysis of the military balance in the Baltic states, based on a series of analytical wargames. Shlapak’s discussion of the effort and the ensuing question and answer session are of interest to both those new to gaming and simulation, as well as wargaming old timers. Much recommended.

War by Numbers is on Amazon

lawrencefinal

My new book, with a release date of 1 August, is now available on Amazon.com for pre-order: War by Numbers (Amazon)

It is still listed at 498 pages, and I am pretty sure I only wrote 342. I will receive the proofs next month for review, so will have a chance to see how they got there. My Kursk book was over 2,500 pages in Microsoft Word, and we got it down to a mere 1,662 pages in print form. Not sure how this one is heading the other way.

Unlike the Kursk book, there will be a kindle version.

It is already available for pre-order from University of Nebraska Press here: War by Numbers (US)

It is available for pre-order in the UK through Casemate: War by Numbers (UK)

The table of contents for the book is here: War by Numbers: Table of Contents

Like the cover? I did not have a lot to do with it.

TMCI Agenda

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) latest agenda shows me making two presentations on Monday, October 3: “War by Numbers” and “Data for Wargames.” Dr. Shawn Woodford is presenting on Tuesday with “Studying Combat: Where from Here?”

There are also presentations by Rosser Bobbitt, Roger Mickelson, Gene Visco, John Brinkerhoff, Chuck Hawkins, Alenka Brown, J. Michael Waller, Seyed Rizi, Russ Vane and probably a couple of others.

Contact Roger Mickelson for a copy of the agenda at TMCI6@aol.com

Three Presentations

I will be giving two presentations at the October meeting of The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) and Shawn will be making one presentation there.

On Monday, 3 October, I will be doing a presentation on my book War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat, that is going to published in June/August 2017.  This presentation will describe the book. In addition, I will be discussing four or five other book projects that are on-going or I am considering.

The same day I will being making presentation called “Data for Wargames.” This was a course developed for a USMC White Team for a wargaming exercise.

On Tuesday Shawn Woodford will be presenting “Studying Combat: Where to Go from Here.” As he describes it:

Studying Combat: Where To Go From Here?

With Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Robert Work’s recent call for a revitalized war gaming effort to support development of a new national military strategy, it is worth taking stock of the present state of empirical research on combat. I propose to briefly survey work on the subject across relevant fields to get a sense of how much progress has been since TMCI published The Concise Theory of Combat in 1997. This is intended to frame a discussion of where the next steps should be taken and possibilities for promoting work on this subject in the defense and academic communities.

War by Numbers Release Date

University of Nebraska Press (which owns Potomac Books) just posted the following announcement on War by Numbers: War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat

It is part of their spring/summer releases. The book may be in the warehouse and available for sale by mid-June.

According to U. of N. Press, the book is 498 pages, 231 tables, 2 charts and 49 graphs. Not sure that this is the final page count as my manuscript is only 342 pages and 121,094 words. I have not seen the final edited manuscript.

I have developed a course from this book called “Data for Wargames.” Will be giving presentations on the book and the course in early October at The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) meeting in Alexandria, VA (more on this later).