Category Conventional warfare

Casualty Counts from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War

A tail of a multiple rocket ‘Smerch’ sticks out of the ground near the town of Martuni, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020. (AP Photo)

Last week Azerbaijan announced that they lost 2,783 troops killed during the six week 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. They also reported more than 100 missing-in-action. Another 1,245 are being treated in medical facilities. Fighting ended on 10 November, so I gather this is the wounded that had to be hospitalized for more than a month. There are certainly a whole lot more wounded that have been treated and released (more than 10,000?). The government has said that 94 civilians were killed and more than 400 wounded (wounded-to-killed ratio of over 4.25-to-1).

Armenia has previously announced at least 2,718 troops killed.

Article is here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-azerbaijan-says-2783-troops-were-killed-in-fighting-over-nagorno/

Equipment losses are discussed here:

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)



Also see: 

Results from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Their Wehrmacht was Better than our Army

Poking around the internet, I ran across an article from 1985 by the British journalist and historian Max Hastings, rather provocatively titled “Their Wehrmacht was Better than our Army.” It was published in the Washington Post. I had not seen it before (as I went to work for Trevor Dupuy in 1987):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4-4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/

A few highlights:

  1. The language in the first couple of paragraphs is also pretty provocative. 
  2. The discussion then goes to Liddell Hart.
  3. The discussion then goes to Trevor Dupuy and Martin Van Creveld.
  4. From Dupuy: “On a man for man basis, German ground soldiers consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops under all circumstances. This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost.”
  5. From Hastings: “A spirit of military narcissism, nourished by such films as “The Longest Day,” “A Bridge Too Far” and “The Battle of the Bulge,” was perpetuated mythical images of the Allied and German armies.”
  6. From Hastings: “Yet to be a soldier in America has never been the honorable calling, outside a few thousand Army families. It has traditionally been the route by which young men of modest origins…may aspire to build a career.”

It is worthwhile to read the entire article.

Now, these claims were controversial in the 1980s, and a number of U.S. Army officers and people out at Leavenworth personally and professionally went after Trevor Dupuy over this issue. There was a long unpleasant discussion of that story written up by the lawyer Thomas Nutter. He was going to turn into a book, but I gather that effort was never completed.

I do address the subject of the relative performance of armies in combat in Chapters 4 through 7 of my book War by Numbers. 

 

Results from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

This six-week war is now over. It was effectively a two-week war with a four-week poorly maintained ceasefire. Now I gather a more permanent ceasefire is in place, with 2,000 Russian troops placed between the warring factions. Russia is not entirely a neutral player here, having somewhat favored Armenia while Turkey supported Azerbaijan. But as Azerbaijan clearly won this round (and this has been going of and on since 1988) and took territory, then I suspect it is resolved for now. The president of Azerbaijan is touring the battlefield (his conquests) while the government of Armenia is in turmoil with several ministers resigning. Most governments don’t do very well after they lose a war and are usually replaced.

The big story from this war was the extensive use of drones and loitering munitions. These things trashed dozens of tanks, probably well over a 100. There are multiple videos of them, and some people have assembled body counts based upon these videos. I gather Armenia has stated that their losses are 2,317 killed, with other reports indicating 21 captured and several hundred missing. There are also losses from the Republic of Artsakh. Azerbaijan also suffered hundreds of losses and it may have been as high as 1,500, based upon an interpretation of a statement from the President of Azerbaijan. There were also Syrian fighters or mercenaries, which an outside agency reported 293 deaths. There were also civilian casualties. Overall, it looks like this conflict resulted in the deaths of at least 4,000 people and maybe over 5,000.

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

It does open a few questions. 

  1. Is that main battle tank antiquated?
  2. Are drones the air force of the future?
  3. Is this simply the result of conducting a war with air superiority?

This last point is important. Is what happened to Armenia in this war any different to what happened to Iraq in 1991? How does the efficacy and efficiency of the air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War compare to this conflict? The answer to this question certainly influences the answer to the first two questions. Is this just another example of the advantage of air supremacy, or is there a bigger lesson here?

The second point about drones also needs to be examined in some depth. It does not appear that Armenia had an effective air defense or good countermeasures against the drones. What would have been the difference if they did? Azerbaijan does have an air force, which took some loses, but their primarily prosecuted their air-to-ground campaign using drones. This may have been the poor mans or the cost-effective way of doing this. They could purchase a lot of relatively inexpensive drones and effectively prosecute and air-to-ground campaign to a degree that they could not have done using considerably less expensive manned aircraft. This does lead to the question, is an air force of drones much cheaper in the long run than an air force of manned aircraft? In the end, budget is always a limiting factor, so do drones simply give you more bang for the buck? So, from an analytical point of view, we are not just looking at a comparison of which is better, an air force of mostly drones or mostly manned aircraft; but also which is cheaper. This is potentially a fairly complex piece of analysis.

All this eventually gets to the first question, which is “Is the main battle tank antiquated?” I am not sure how you answer that question until you have answered the other two questions. 

 

“Our enemies generally shoot first 80 percent of the time”

Someone just asked me about a quote in the following article:
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/army-wants-smaller-brigades-stronger-divisions-lots-of-robots/

The quote is:

“Historical data on direct-fire engagements “shows that our enemies generally shoot first 80 percent of the time,” Sando said. “We don’t like those odds, [so] we want to avoid the close fight if we can. If we can’t avoid it, we want to enter it under conditions that are favorable to us.”

The question was: did this statistic come from us or do we know where it came from? Well, it definitely did not come from our work or Trevor Dupuy’s work. I have never heard of such a claim before.

Does anyone know where this came from? Is there some study or piece of quantitative historical analysis that this claim is based upon. I have my doubts about the accuracy of this claim.

If the data was drawn from unconventional (recent) warfare scenarios, then by nature of those conflicts, the insurgents initiate engagements more often than the counterinsurgents do. Not sure it would be as high as 4-to-1.

If it was drawn from conventional war scenarios, then by their nature it should be 50/50, unless you are always the attacker. Even then I am not it would be as high as 4-to-1.

 

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Below is an article on the counts of losses from Nagorno-Karabakh. It is based upon viewing of drone footage, etc. by individuals some distance from the conflict. The numbers should be viewed with considerable caution. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2020/09/the-fight-for-nagorno-karabakh.html

They state: “This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is undoubtedly higher than recorded here.” 

 

Anyhow, their count is:

………………………….Artsakh/Armenia……..Azerbaijan
Tanks……………………………..177………….26

AFVs……………………………….34………….11

IFVs………………………………..42………….24

Aircraft and Helicopters…………..0…………..10

Towed Artillery…………………..138

SP Artillery………………………..17

MLRS……………………………..72

Trucks, vehicles and jeeps……408………….21

 

Tank losses in Azerbaijan-Armenia Conflict

In case you have been distracted by all the U.S. news lately, there has been a significant conflict for the last month between Azerbaijan-Armenia over Nogorno-Karabakh that resulted in dozens of tanks lost, many due to drones and loitering munitions. This is conventional war. We have not done any systematic analysis of this, so I am hesitant to make any comments on it, but it is a significant event, in that a number of Armenian tanks were taken out by Azerbaijani drones. I have found the twitter accounts @RALee85 and @Rebel44CZ and @oryxspioenkop to be worth following. They tend to include a lot of the videos that have been released from this fight.

This is an article on the subject that came out this week:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/attack-drones-dominating-tanks-armenia-085624016.html

A few highlights:
.

  1. Armenia says it has lost around 900 servicemen.
  2. Actual casualties are probably higher.
  3. Open source analysis by Forbes magazine has tracked the destruction by drones of around 200 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, plus 300 soft-skinned military vehicles.
  4. It is kind of one-sided, as Armenia does not have such a collection of drones (it helps to have oil).

TDI and the TNDM

The Dupuy Institute does occasionally make use of a combat model developed by Trevor Dupuy called the Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model (TNDM). That model is a development of his older model the Quantified Judgment Model (QJM). 
 
There is an impression, because the QJM is widely known, that the TNDM is heavily involved in our work. In fact, over 90% of our work has not involved the TNDM. Here a list of major projects/publications that we done since 1993.
 
Based upon TNDM:
Artillery Suppression Study – study never completed (1993-1995)
Air Model Historical Data feasibility study (1995)
Support contract for South African TNDM (1996?)
International TNDM Newsletter (1996-1998, 2009-2010)
TNDM sale to Finland (2002?)
FCS Study – 2 studies (2006)
TNDM sale to Singapore (2009)
Small-Unit Engagement Database (2011)
 
Addressed the TNDM:
Bosnia Casualty Estimate (1995) – used the TNDM to evaluate one possible scenario
Casualty Estimation Methodologies Study (2005) – was two of the six methodologies tested
Data for Wargames training course (2016)
War by Numbers (2017) – addressed in two chapters out of 20
 
Did not use the TNDM: 
Kursk Data Base (1993-1996)
Landmine Study for JCS (1996)
Combat Mortality Study (1998)
Record Keeping Survey (1998-2000)
Capture Rate Studies – 3 studies (1998-2001)
Other Landmine Studies – 6 studies (2000-2001)
Lighter Weight Armor Study (2001)
Urban Warfare – 3 studies (2002-2004)
Base Realignment studies for PA – 3 studies (2003-2005)
Chinese Doctrine Study (2003)
Situational Awareness Study (2004)
Iraq Casualty Estimate (2004-2005)
The use of chemical warfare in WWI – feasibility study (2005?)
Battle of Britain Data Base (2005)
1969 Sino-Soviet Conflict (2006)
MISS – Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets (2006-2009)
Insurgency Studies – 11 studies/reports (2007-2009)
America’s Modern Wars (2015)
Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (2015)
The Battle of Prokhorovka (2019)
Aces at Kursk (2021)
More War by Numbers (2022?)
 
 
Our bread and butter was all the studies that “did not use the TNDM.” Basically the capture rate studies, the urban warfare studies and the insurgencies studies kept us steadily funded for year after year. We would have not been able to maintain TDI on the TNDM. We had one contract in excess of $100K in 1994-95 (the Artillery Suppression study) and our next TNDM related contract that was over $100K was in 2005.
 
  

Armor Attrition in Nagorno-Karabakh

Over the last week fighting has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is an area of Azerbaijan that broke away from Azerbaijan with the help of Armenia when the Soviet Union was breaking up in 1991. They went to war over it in 1991-92 and Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh on 10 December 1991.

Not sure what caused this conflict in the Caucasus to flair back up, Both of these nations have a surplus of old Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers and fighting vehicles. The predominantly Christian Armenia tends to be supported by Russia while the predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan tends to be supported by Turkey. This is not the first time in history that Russia and Turkey had an argument over this region.

There was an article published yesterday that I found interesting:

https://news.yahoo.com/armor-attrition-nagorno-karabakh-battle-225735581.html

A few highlights:

  1. 95 people have been killed (including 11 civilians).
    1. Wikipeida is reporting higher losses. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
      1. 152 Armenia servicemen killed
      2. 30+ Azerbaijan servicemen killed
      3. 28-30 Syrian fighters killed
      4. 19 Azerbaijani and 13 Armenian civilians killed.
  2. Armenia claims it has destroyed 137 tanks (doubtful).
  3. Azerbaijan claims it has destroyed 130 tanks and ACVs (doubtful).

Also, the video in the article of two tanks in a column being shot is pretty interesting.

 

Attrition for $900

I was on the phone with someone earlier today and he told me that Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War was on sale on Amazon.com for only $900. I took a look, and sure enough, they have used one for $121.00 and a new one $890. That is it.

On the other hand, we still have new copies for sale for the list place of $19.95. See here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm

I have not taken inventory in a while, but we still have 40 or so available.

Ordering information is here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/order.htm

Maybe I should start selling on Amazon.com and undercut them with an offer of $889.99.

Summation of Force Ratio Posts

I think the following posts make the cases that the three-to-one rule as presented in Army FM 6-0 and other publications is incorrect (50% chance of the defender winning at 3-to-1). If there is any historical evidence that supports this claim, then I would ask that TRADOC, which is responsible for these manuals, to produce such evidence. I strongly suspect there is no such evidence. I would hope that we will see corrective action from TRADOC.

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus 243 Battles 1600-1900

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus 49 U.S. Civil War battles

The U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule versus the 752 Case Division-level Data Base 1904-1991

The World War I Cases from the Division-level Database

The World War II Cases from the Division-level Database

Post-World War II Cases from the Division-level Database

The Source of the U.S. Army Three-to-One Rule

My next few blog posts are going to address the impact of “Human Factors” on these force ratios.