Category Modeling, Simulation & Wargaming

More Combat Results Tables from War by Numbers

Now, the purpose of War by Numbers was not to create Combat Results Tables (CRT) for wargames. Its real purpose was to test the theoretical ideas of Clausewitz, and more particularly, Trevor N. Dupuy to actual real-world data. Not as case studies, but as statistical compilations that would show what the norms are. Unfortunately, military history is often the study of exceptions, or exceptional events, and what is often lost to the casual reader it what the norms are. Properly developed statistical database will clearly show what the norms are and how frequent or infrequent these exceptions are. People tend to remember the exceptional cases, they tend to forget the norms, if they even knew what they were to start with.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 of War by Numbers is primarily focused on measuring human factors (which some people in the U.S. DOD analytical community seem to think are unmeasurable, even though we are measuring them). As part of that effort I ended up assemble a set of force ratios tables based upon theater and nationality. The first of these, on page 10, was in my previous blog post. Here are a few others, from page 11 of War by Numbers.

Germans attacking Soviets (Battles of Kharkov and Kursk), 1943

Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases

0.63 to 1.06-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 20% 5

1.18 to 1.87-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 6% 17

1.91-to-1.00 and higher Attacker Advances 0% 21

Soviets attacking Germans (Battles of Kharkov and Kursk), 1943

Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases

0.40 to 1.05-to-1 Attack usually fails 70% 10

1.20 to 1.65-to-1.00 Attack often fails 50% 11

1.91 to 2.89-to-1.00 Attack sometimes fails 44% 9

Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) Data, U.S. attacking Japanese, 1945

Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases

1.40 to 2.89-to-1.00 Attack succeeds 0% 20

2.92 to 3.89-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 21% 14

4.35-to-1.00 and higher Attack usually succeeds 4% 26

Force Ratios and CRTs

Page 10 for War by Numbers includes the following table:

European Theater of Operations (ETO) Data, 1944

Force Ratio Result Percent Failure Number of cases

0.55 to 1.01-to-1.00 Attack Fails 100% 5

1.15 to 1.88-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 21% 48

1.95 to 2.56-to-1.00 Attack usually succeeds 10% 21

2.71-to-1.00 and higher Attacker Advances 0% 42

Many commercial wargames have something called a CRT or Combat Results Table. It is based upon force ratios. For example, this was one of the earliest CRTs used on Avalon Hill Games in the 1960s.

As can been seen from this Combat Results Table, at 1-to-1 the chances of an attack winning is one-in-three. At 2-to-1 odds the chances of the attacker winning is either the same as the defender winning or is a two-thirds chance of winning. At 3-to-1 odds, the attacker will always win.

Now the variable factor is the exchange result, which is defined that the defender removed everyone and the attacker removes as much as the defender. This usually results in an attacker win, if the attack has the right “spare change.” If the attacker was attacking with a single 7 strength unit against a 3 strength defender and they roll and exchange, then both units are eliminated.

Compare that to the table from my book based upon 116 division-level engagements from the European Theater of Operations (1944-145).

Needless to say, some elements of my book War by Numbers are of interest to the commercial wargaming community.

Staff Reference Guide

The U.S. Army Staff Reference Guide, Volume I: Unclassified Resources, December 2020, ATP 5-0.2-1 has been released.

Link to it is here: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN31193-ATP_5-0.2-1-000-WEB-1.pdf

There are ten references to “Dupuy” in the guide, which I believe is a first. I do not recall any previous Army manual referencing Trevor Dupuy’s work, even though I have seen his work in a manual or two without reference. It is nice that they have properly acknowledged his work.

The references are on:

Page xi: “Acknowledgements”: four references, two for Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy and two to his son Arnold C. Dupuy,. Ph.D.
Page 220: Table D-6. Division opposed rates of advance (km/day). I will have more comments about this table later.
Page 285. Paragraph G-162, Casualty Estimates: Two references. I will probably have a blog post about this later.
Page 402. References: Three references. I will probably have a blog post about this later also.

The two Trevor N. Dupuy books referenced in the Staff Reference Guide are the still out of print Numbers, Predictions & War (1979) and Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (1995). We still have 40 or so copies of Attrition for sale. See http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm

TDI and the TNDM

Christopher A. Lawrence
October 19, 2020

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.

Take a look at: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/tdipub3.htm

Battle of Britain Casualty estimation Conventional warfare Insurgency & Counterinsurgency Kursk Data Bases Modeling, Simulation & Wargaming Research & Analysis TNDM War by Numbers

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.

Soviet Artillery in Proportion

A miniature wargaming website in the UK came to my attention because he quoted from my Kursk book (actually probably from my blog). The link is here:

https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/

Now, this was one of the many asides that I developed during the writing of the book and I felt one of the more significant discussions in the book. I am always concerned that a number of major points in that book were drowned in the 1,662 pages. I am glad he was able to identify and pull that one out.

The quote is in his blog post, but for the battle we estimated that the Germans fired 51,083 tons of ammunition while the Soviets fired 21,867 tons. I don’t think anyone else have made such a calculation.

For the Soviet rocket launchers (Katyushas) they fired an estimated 2,422 tons of ammo, while for the German rocket launchers (Nebelwerfers) they fired 5,916 tons of ammo.

This is subject that probably could be the basis of a complete stand-alone study or book. I suspect if this was the case at Kursk, where the Soviet army had three months to prepare and stockpile, then it is very much an issue for other, especially more mobile, operations.

P.S. The complete quote is also in this earlier blog post:

German versus Soviet Artillery at Kursk

TMCI is officially closing this year

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) is officially closing this year. The TMCI webpage is here: http://militaryconflict.org/. The website had not been updated since 2014.

TMCI was founded in 1979 by Dr. Donald S. Marshall and Trevor Dupuy. They were concerned by the inability of existing Defense Department combat models to produce results that were consistent or rooted in historical experience. The organization was a non-profit, interdisciplinary, informal group that avoided government affiliation in order to maintain an independent perspective and voice. It’s object was to advance public understanding or organized warfare in all its aspects. Most of the initial members were drawn from the ranks of operations analyst experienced in quantitative historical study and military operations research.

The organization conducted over 60 general meetings over its 41 years of existence, usually hosting two meetings a year. I gather in the early years, some of its meetings had over a hundred attendees, but in recent times it was a core group of around 20. There were also attempts to get funding from DOD to support it, which never occurred.

The TMCI eventually ended up being run by Roger Mickelson. During this stage, it actually wrote and published three books: 1) Anatomy of a Combat Model published in 1995, 2) A Concise Theory of Combat published in 1997, and 3) A Philosophy of War published in 2013.

The Anatomy of a Combat Model was written by Lawrence J. Low and is available from the TMCI site at http://militaryconflict.org/Anatomy%20of%20a%20Combat%20Model_1.pdf I am not sure it will continue to be available through this website. It does not appear to be posted elsewhere.

A Concise Theory of Combat was written by Edmund L. Dubois, Wayne P. Hughes Jr., and Lawrence J. Low. Link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40235431-a-concise-theory-of-combat and I gather can be downloaded from here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/47751814/A-Concise-Theory-of-Combat and here: https://core.ac.uk/display/36731683 . I cannot vouch for the validity of either of these sites.

I cannot find a link to A Philosophy of War. I have my hard copy but cannot find where it can be obtained on line. It is not on Amazon.

Roger Mickelson was killed in 2016 in a car accident and while TMCI continued, it seemed to have lost focus. Some of the people involved in it, Wayne Hughes and Chuck Hawkins, also recently passed away.

TMCI never really accomplished what it hoped to do. Partly because it never got funding and nor had a staff. As such, there was little work done between meetings and everything was volunteer only. You get what you pay for with volunteer work. If the DOD feels that there is a need for independent analysis of combat and the development of a theory of combat, then they probably need to fund such an effort. So far, they have not.

A few related posts:

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) Will Meet in October

Three Presentations

The Elements of Trevor Dupuy’s Theory of Combat

World War IV

Roger Mickelson (Col, USA): “Final Change of Command”

So, Who’s Your Favorite Admiral?

Charles Hawkins passed away

Published Obituary for Charles Hawkins

John Honig passed away

John Honig passed away

Christopher A. Lawrence
February 2, 2020

John Honig passed away on 30 January 2020 at the age of 96. He was one of the regular attendees of The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) in addition to being one of the founding members of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS)

His obituary is definitely worth a read. He was born in Austria in 1923: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?fhid=10909&n=john-honig&pid=195250345

His has donated papers to the Holocaust Museum: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn692234

John Honig interview: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/45464588.pdf

Modeling, Simulation & Wargaming

Time and the TNDM

Shawn Woodford
January 2, 2020

[The article below is reprinted from December 1996 edition of The International TNDM Newsletter. It was referenced in the recent series of posts addressing the battalion-level validation of Trevor Dupuy’s Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model (TNDM).]

Time and the TNDM
by Christopher A. Lawrence

Combat models are designed to operate within their design parameters, but sometimes we forget what those are. A model can only be expected to perform well in those areas for which it was designed in and those areas where it has been tested (meaning validated). Since most of the combat models used in the US Department of Defense have not been validated, this leaves open the question as to what their parameters might be. In the cue of the TNDM, if the model is not giving a reasonable result, then you must ask, is it because the model is being operated outside of its parameters? The parameters of the model are pretty well deﬁned by the 149 engagements of the QJM Database to which it was validated.

One of the areas where there is a problem with the TNDM is that while the analyst is capable of running a battle over any time period, the model was fundamentally validated to run 1 to 3 days engagements. This means that there should be a reduced conﬁdence in the results of any engagement of less than 24 hours or over three days. The actual number of days used for each engagement in the original QJM data base is shown below:

By comparison, the 75 battalion level engagements that we are using to validate the TNDM for battalion-level engagements occur over the following time periods:

Three of the engagements used in the battalion-level validation are from the QJM database.

We did run sample engagements of 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours and 3 hours. The results of the 12-hour run was literally 1/2 the casualties and 1/2 of the advance for the 24-hour run. The same straight dividing effect was true for the 3- and 6-hour runs. For increments less than 24 hours the model just divided the results by the number of hours. As Dave Bongard pointed out to me, there are various lighting choices, including daylight and night, and these could vary the results some if used. But the impact for daylight would be 1.1 additional casualties and the reduction for night is .7 or .8.

The problem is that briefer battles will result in higher casualties per hour than extended battles. Also, in any extended battle, there are intense periods and un-intense periods, with the model giving the average result of those periods. For battles of less than 24 hours, there tends to be only intense periods. Therefore, it should be expected that battles lasting 3 hours should have more than 1/6 the losses of a 24 hours battle. This will be tested during the battalion-level validation.

For battles in excess of one day, there is a table in the TNDM that reduces the overall casualties and advance rate over time to account for fatigue.

Modeling, Simulation & Wargaming TNDM Validation