Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis
[This piece was originally posted on 13 July 2016.] Trevor Dupuy’s article cited in my previous post, “Combat Data and the 3:1 Rule,” was the final salvo in a roaring, multi-year debate between two highly regarded members of the U.S.…
The fifth of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is: Initiative permits application of preponderant combat power. From Understanding War (1987): The importance of seizing and maintaining the initiative has not declined in our times, nor will it in the…
In an insightful essay over at The Strategy Bridge, “Lethality: An Inquiry,” Marine Corps officer Olivia Gerard accomplishes one of the most important, yet most often overlooked, aspects of successfully thinking about and planning for war: questioning a basic assumption.…
[This piece was originally published on 27 June 2017.] Trevor Dupuy’s theories about warfare were sometimes criticized by some who thought his scientific approach neglected the influence of the human element and chance and amounted to an attempt to reduce…
To follow on my earlier post introducing British military theorist Richard Simpkin’s foresight in detecting trends in 21st Century warfare, I offer this paragraph, which immediately followed the ones I quoted: Briefly and in the most general terms possible, I…
For my money, one of the most underrated analysts and theorists of modern warfare was the late Brigadier Richard Simpkin. A retired British Army World War II veteran, Simpkin helped design the Chieftan tank in the 60s and 70s. He…
With the emergence of the importance of cross-domain fires in the U.S. effort to craft a joint doctrine for multi-domain operations, there is an old military concept to which developers should give greater consideration: interchangeability of fire. This is an…
[This series of posts is adapted from the article “Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor,” by Richard C. Anderson, Jr., originally published in the June 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.] Posts in the series Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor (Part 1)…
[This series of posts is adapted from the article “Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor,” by Richard C. Anderson, Jr., originally published in the June 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.] Posts in the series Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor (Part 1)…
[This series of posts is adapted from the article “Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor,” by Richard C. Anderson, Jr., originally published in the June 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.] Posts in the series Artillery Effectiveness vs. Armor (Part 1)…