Technological Advancement Lessons from History?

In an effort that is similar to what Trevor Dupuy was doing with his Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, we have another paper from Dr. Kott of Army Research Laboratory. This effort is in many respects Trevor Dupuy’s graph from Evolution of Weapons and Warfare brought forward in time. Many of the weapons and weapons systems calculations used are similar to what was done for Dupuy’s Quantified Judgment Model (QJM), including the use of formulae for determining the combat power of “ground-mobile, direct-fire systems (MFS).” This is very similar to what Trevor Dupuy did with Mobile Fighting Machines (MFM) in Numbers, Predictions and War.

At some point I may systematically analyze the similarities and differences between the two efforts, but this will take some time. Right now, I am trying to get another book finished. Anyhow, Dr. Kott’s latest article is here:

https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/the-future-of-war-technology-whispers-to-us-from-the-past-and-we-must-listen-better/

Our previous posts on Dr. Kott’s work are here:

The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare?

Data Used for the ARL Paper

Data Used of the ARL Paper – post 2

Dupuy’s Verities: Fortification

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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