Today’s edition of TDI Friday Read is a roundup of posts by TDI President Christopher Lawrence exploring the details of tank combat between German and Soviet forces at the Battle of Kursk in 1943. The prevailing historical interpretation of Kursk is of the Soviets using their material and manpower superiority to blunt and then overwhelm the German offensive. This view is often buttressed by looking at the ratio of the numbers of tanks destroyed in combat. Chris takes a deeper look at the data, the differences in the ways “destroyed” tanks were counted and reported, and the differing philosophies between the German and Soviet armies regarding damaged tank recovery and repair. This yields a much more nuanced perspective on the character of tank combat at Kursk that does not necessarily align with the prevailing historical interpretations. Historians often discount detailed observational data on combat as irrelevant or too difficult to collect and interpret. We at TDI believe that with history, the devil is always in the details.
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Tag Eastern Front
TDI Friday Read: Measuring The Effects of Combat in Cities
Between 2001 and 2004, TDI undertook a series of studies on the effects of urban combat in cities for the U.S. Army Center for Army Analysis (CAA). These studies examined a total of 304 cases of urban combat at the divisional and battalion level that occurred between 1942 and 2003, as well as 319 cases of concurrent non-urban combat for comparison.
The primary findings of Phases I-III of the study were:
- Urban terrain had no significantly measurable influence on the outcome of battle.
- Attacker casualties in the urban engagements were less than in the non-urban engagements and the casualty exchange ratio favored the attacker as well.
- One of the primary effects of urban terrain is that it slowed opposed advance rates. The average advance rate in urban combat was one-half to one-third that of non-urban combat.
- There is little evidence that combat operations in urban terrain resulted in a higher linear density of troops.
- Armor losses in urban terrain were the same as, or lower than armor losses in non-urban terrain. In some cases it appears that armor losses were significantly lower in urban than non-urban terrain.
- Urban terrain did not significantly influence the force ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations.
- Overall, it appears that urban terrain was no more stressful a combat environment during actual combat operations than was non-urban terrain.
- Overall, the expenditure of ammunition in urban operations was not greater than that in non-urban operations. There is no evidence that the expenditure of other consumable items (rations; water; or fuel, oil, or lubricants) was significantly different in urban as opposed to non-urban combat.
- Since it was found that advance rates in urban combat were significantly reduced, then it is obvious that these two effects (advance rates and time) were interrelated. It does appear that the primary impact of urban combat was to slow the tempo of operations.
In order to broaden and deepen understanding of the effects of urban combat, TDI proposed several follow-up studies. To date, none of these have been funded:
- Conduct a detailed study of the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad may also represent one of the most intense examples of urban combat, so may provide some clues to the causes of the urban outliers.
- Conduct a detailed study of battalion/brigade-level urban combat. This would begin with an analysis of battalion-level actions from the first two phases of this study (European Theater of Operations and Eastern Front), added to the battalion-level actions completed in this third phase of the study. Additional battalion-level engagements would be added as needed.
- Conduct a detailed study of the outliers in an attempt to discover the causes for the atypical nature of these urban battles.
- Conduct a detailed study of urban warfare in an unconventional warfare setting.
Details of the Phase I-III study reports and conclusions can be found below:
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 1
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 2
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 1
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2.1
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 3
Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 1
Our first urban warfare report that we did had a big impact. It clearly showed that the intensity of urban warfare was not what some of the “experts” out there were claiming. In particular, it called into question some of the claims being made by RAND. But, the report was based upon Aachen, Cherbourg, and a collection of mop-up operations along the Channel Coast. Although this was a good starting point because of the ease of research and availability of data, we did not feel that this was a fully representative collection of cases. We also did not feel that it was based upon enough cases, although we had already assembled more cases than most “experts” were using. We therefore convinced CAA (Center for Army Analysis) to fund a similar effort for the Eastern Front in World War II.
For this second phase, we again assembled a collection of Eastern Front urban warfare engagements in our DLEDB (Division-level Engagement Data Base) and compared it to Eastern Front non-urban engagements. We had, of course, a considerable collection of non-urban engagements already assembled from the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. We therefore needed a good urban engagement nearby. Kharkov is the nearest major city to where these non-urban engagements occurred and it was fought over three times in 1943. It was taken by the Red Army in February, it was retaken by the German Army in March, and it was taken again by the Red Army in August. Many of the units involved were the same units involved in the Battle of Kursk. This was a good close match. It has the additional advantage that both sides were at times on the offense.
Furthermore, Kharkov was a big city. At the time it was the fourth biggest city in the Soviet Union, being bigger than Stalingrad (as measured by pre-war population). A picture of its Red Square in March 1943, after the Germans retook it, is above.
We did have good German records for 1943 and we were able to get access to Soviet division-level records from February, March and August from the Soviet military archives in Podolsk. Therefore, we were able to assembled all the engagements based upon the unit records of both sides. No secondary sources were used, and those that were available were incomplete, usually one-sided, sometimes biased and often riddled with factual errors.
So, we ended up with 51 urban and conurban engagements from the fighting around Kharkov, along with 65 non-urban engagements from Kursk (we have more now).
The Phase II effort was completed on 30 June 2003. The conclusions of Phase II (pages 40-41) were similar to Phase I:
.Phase II Conclusions:
- Mission Accomplishment: This [Phase I] conclusion was further supported. The data does show a tendency for urban engagements not to generate penetrations.
- Casualty Rates: This [Phase I] conclusion was further supported. If urban combat influenced the casualty rate, it appears that it resulted in a reduction of the attacker casualty rate and a more favorable casualty exchange ratio compared to nonurban warfare. There still appears to be no basis to the claim that urban combat is significantly more intense with regards to casualties than is nonurban warfare.
- Advance Rates: There is no strong evidence of a reduction in the advance rates in urban terrain in the Eastern Front data. TDI still stands by its original conclusion that the average advance rate in urban combat should be one-half to one-third that of nonurban combat.
- Linear Density: Again, there is little evidence that the presence of urban terrain results in a higher linear density of troops, but unlike the ETO data, the data did not show a tendency to trend in that direction.
- Armor Losses: This conclusion was further supported (Phase I conclusion was: Overall, it appears that the loss of armor in urban terrain is the same as or less than that found in nonurban terrain, and in some cases is significantly lower.)
- Force Ratios: The conclusion was further supported (Phase I conclusion was: Urban combat did not significantly influence the Force Ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations).
- Duration of Combat: Nothing could be determined from an analysis of the data regarding the Duration of Combat (Time) in urban versus nonurban terrain.
There is a part 2 to this effort that I will pick up in a later post.
Trevor Dupuy and the 3-1 Rule
Dr. Reina Pennington, a professor of history at Norwich University, recently published an analysis of the Eastern Front during World War II which made the case that the Soviet superiority in manpower over Germany was not as large as is often claimed. In support of her argument, Pennington provided a table comparing the total number of Soviet and German combat forces and force ratios at different times during the conflict. She pointed out that for much of the war, Soviet forces were either outnumbered, or achieved modest numerical superiorities that did not exceed 3 to 1 until late in 1944. “A 2:1 advantage is significant,” Pennington argued, “but falls short of the 3:1 force ratio that is generally regarded as necessary for attacking forces, and it’s a long way from the double-digit advantage that is often claimed.”
To support her assertion of the relevance of the 3-1 force ratio, Pennington linked to an article by Trevor N. Dupuy, “Combat Data and the 3:1 Rule,” published in the summer 1989 edition of International Security. The problem with citing Dupuy is that his assessment of the 3-1 rule contradicts her assertion of it.
Dupuy criticized the 3-1 rule on empirical grounds. The so-called “3-1 rule” is a military aphorism that holds that attacking forces require a 3 to 1 advantage over defending forces in order to succeed. Although this rule has become widely-known and widely-held, especially in Western militaries, its origin is unknown and unattributed. It is not exactly clear to what exactly it refers, and there is no known original statement of the rule that can be consulted for clarification.
Dupuy questioned the ambiguity of the rule, which in turn undermined its relevance.
[W]hat is the force ratio to be used with the 3:1 force ratio planning factor? Is it numbers of men, or weapons? Is it firepower? Is it some other calculation of a combat power ratio? In any event, it is clear that neither numbers nor firepower tells us much unless we know the circumstances under which these numbers face each other and the manner in which the firepower is applied.[1]
In 1984, Dupuy’s Historical Evaluation Research Organization (HERO) compiled a database of battles from 1600 to 1973 for the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency (CAA; now known as the U.S. Army Center for Army Analysis). CAA’s examination of the numerical force ratios in the database showed that attackers with advantages of 3-1 or more in manpower succeeded 74% of the time. It also showed that attackers won between 58% and 63% of the time when attacking with between a 1.5-1 numerical disadvantage and less than a 3-1 advantage. Attackers also managed to obtain a manpower advantage of 3-1 or greater in just 106 of 598 cases (17.7%) examined.[2]
Dupuy concurred that a 3-1 ratio based on a simple numerical total of troop numbers had limited use as a general rule-of-thumb guide for military planning, but asserted that it was useless for analytical purposes Simply put, while there are many historical cases where an attacking force with a 3-1 numerical advantage succeeded, there are also many cases where attackers won with less than a 3-1 advantage, and even with a numerical inferiority. On the Eastern Front during World War II, for example, the German Army regularly conducted successful attacks against numerically superior Soviet forces.
Dupuy was so certain of the validity of the data on this that he made it an aphorism of his own: In the average modem battle, the attacker’s numerical strength is about double the defender’s.
This is because the attacker has the initiative and can initiate combat at a time and place of his choosing and in the manner of his choosing. The attacker can mass his forces at critical points on the battlefield to gain the advantage in strength which he believes necessary to assure the success of the attack.
A battle usually does not take place unless each side believes it has some chance for success. Otherwise, the attacker would avoid taking the initiative. The defender, if he could not avoid battle by withdrawal, would make every possible effort to reinforce the prospective battle area sufficiently to have a chance for successful defense. One circumstance in which a battle occurs without the tacit agreement or acceptance of the defender, is when the attacker achieves surprise. Alternatively, surprise by a defender (for instance, by ambush) may result in a battle taking place before the prospective attacker is ready.
Most military men are aware of the rule of thumb that an attacker can count on success if he has a three-to-one numerical superiority, while a defender can expect success if his inferiority is not less than one-to-two. But the side achieving surprise can count on the effects of surprise multiplying its force strength by a factor ranging between 1.5 and 2.5 (or even more in some cases). Thus, an attacker expecting to achieve surprise would be willing to attack with less than a three-to-one superiority.
Another factor which can influence an attacker to seek battle with less than a three-to-one superiority is confidence in the superior quality of his troops. This accounts for many instances in which the Germans attacked in World War II with less than the desirable numerical superiority, and for the similar instances of Israeli attacks in the Arab-Israeli wars without great numerical superiority.[3]
Dr. Pennington is on fairly firm ground in rejecting the idea that numerical superiority was the sole reason the Red Army defeated the German Army in World War II, but numbers did play an extremely important role in the Soviet success. The lack of a 3-1 manpower advantage did not preclude the Soviets from battlefield success; 2-1 was sufficient. By the time the Soviets achieved a 3-1 advantage, success was well in hand and the end in sight.
NOTES
[1] Trevor N. Dupuy. Numbers, Predictions and War: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles. Indianapolis; New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1979, p. 13
[2] Joshua M. Epstein, “Dynamic Analysis and the Conventional Balance in Europe,” International Security, Spring 1988, p. 156; Robert Helmbold and Aqeel A. Khan. “Combat History Analysis Study Effort (CHASE): Progress Report for the Period August 1984-June 1985,” Bethesda, MD: U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency, August 1986
[3] Trevor N. Dupuy. Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War. Falls Church (VA): Nova Publications, 1995, pp. 98-99