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.
That was some nice writing by “the wargame whisperer.”
Interesting articles. I wonder how much credence is given to results of wargames by senior officers- especially when accompanied by the old saying “no plan survives first contact with the enemy”!
Interesting articles. I wonder how much credence is given to results of wargames by senior officers- especially when accompanied by the old saying “no plan survives first contact with the enemy”!
I have found Trevor Dupuy’s work very useful in designing historical wargames. It provides a good conceptual structure, as do your books like War by Numbers.. Is there an opportunity here for the Dupuy Institute?
It seems to me that most of a plan does survive first contact with the enemy.
Remember that the plan includes the initial resources and reserves and their placements/positionings as well as intended movements and goals/objectives (and contingency actions).
If one doesn’t plan where to go then changing routes on the fly (upon first contact) isn’t likely to serve much purpose (and probably would tend toward “freeze, fight or flight” on the fly).
“Plan the work, work the plan” (and ad lib with the plan in mind).