Christopher A. Lawrence, War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2017) 390 pages, $39.95
War by Numbers assesses the nature of conventional warfare through the analysis of historical combat. Christopher A. Lawrence (President and Executive Director of The Dupuy Institute) establishes what we know about conventional combat and why we know it. By demonstrating the impact a variety of factors have on combat he moves such analysis beyond the work of Carl von Clausewitz and into modern data and interpretation.
Using vast data sets, Lawrence examines force ratios, the human factor in case studies from World War II and beyond, the combat value of superior situational awareness, and the effects of dispersion, among other elements. Lawrence challenges existing interpretations of conventional warfare and shows how such combat should be conducted in the future, simultaneously broadening our understanding of what it means to fight wars by the numbers.
The book is available in paperback directly from Potomac Books and in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.
Soldiers of the British 51st Highland Division take cover in bocage in Normandy, 1944. [Daily Record (UK)]
While Trevor Dupuy’s concept of combat effectiveness has been considered controversial by some, he was hardly the only one to observe that throughout history, some military forces have fought more successfully on the battlefield than others. While the sources of victory and defeat in battle remain a fertile, yet understudied topic, there is a growing literature on the topic of military effectiveness in the fields of strategic and security studies.
Anthony King, a professor in War Studies at the University of Warwick, has published an outstanding article in the most recent edition of British Journal of Military History, “Why did 51st Highland Division Fail? A case-study in command and combat effectiveness.” In it, he examined military command and combat effectiveness through the experience of the British 51st Highland Division in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Most usefully, King developed a definition of military command that clarifies its relationship to combat effectiveness: “The function of a commander is to maximise combat power by defining achievable missions and, then, orchestrating subordinates into a cohesive whole committed to mission accomplishment.”
Defining Military Command
In order to analyze the relationship between command and combat effectiveness, King sought to “define the concept of command and to specify its relationship to management and leadership.” The construct he developed drew upon the work of Peter Drucker, an Austrian-born American business consultant and writer who is considered by many to be “the founder of modern management.” From Drucker, King distilled a definition of the function and process of military command: “command always consists of three elements: mission definition, mission management and mission motivation.”
As King explained, “When command is understood in this way, its connection to combat effectiveness begins to become clear.”
[C]ommand is an institutional solution to an organizational problem; it generates cohesion in a formation. Specifically, by uniting decision-making authority in one person and one role, a large military force is able to unite subordinate units, whose troops are not co-present with each other and who, in most cases, do not know each other. Crucially, the combat effectiveness of a formation, as a formation, is substantially dependent upon the ability of its commander to synchronise its disparate efforts in order to generate collective effects. Skillful command has a galvanising influence on a military force; by orchestrating the activities of subordinate units and motivating troops, command is able to create a level of combat power, which supervenes the capabilities of each of the parts. A well-commanded force has properties, which exceed those of its constituent units, fighting alone.
It is through the orchestration, synchronization, and motivation of effort, King concluded, that “command and combat effectiveness are immediately connected. Command fuses a formation together and increases its determination to fulfil its missions.”
Assessing the Combat Effectiveness of the 51st Division
The rest of King’s article is a detailed assessment of the combat effectiveness of the 51st Highland Division in Normandy in June and July 1944 using this military command construct. Observers at the time noted a decline in the division’s combat performance, which had been graded quite highly in North Africa and Sicily. The one obvious difference was the replacement of Major General Douglas Wimberley with Major General Charles Bullen-Smith in August 1943. After concluding that the 51st Division was no longer battleworthy, the commander of the British 21st Army Group, General Bernard Montgomery personally relieved Bullen-Smith in late July 1944.
In reviewing Bullen-Smith’s performance, King concluded that
Although a number of factors contributed to the struggles of the Highland Division in Normandy, there is little doubt that the shortcomings of its commander, Major General Charles Bullen-Smith, were the critical factor. Charles Bullen-Smith failed to fulfill the three essential functions required of a commander… Bullen-Smith’s inadequacies are highly suggestive of a direct relationship between command and combat effectiveness; they demonstrate how command can augment or undermine combat performance.
King’s approach to military studies once again demonstrates the relevance of multi-disciplinary analysis based on solid historical research. His military command model should prove to be a very useful tool for analyzing the elements of combat effectiveness and assessing combat power. Along with Dr. Jonathan Fennell’s work on measuring morale, among others, it appears that good progress is being made on the study of human factors in combat and military operations, at least in the British academic community (even if Tom Ricks thinks otherwise).
An Israeli tank unit crosses the Sinai, heading for the Suez Canal, during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War [Israeli Government Press Office/HistoryNet]
It has been noted throughout the history of human conflict that some armies have consistently fought more effectively on the battlefield than others. The armies of Sparta in ancient Greece, for example, have come to epitomize the warrior ideal in Western societies. Rome’s legions have acquired a similar legendary reputation. Within armies too, some units are known to be superior combatants than others. The U.S. 1st Infantry Division, the British Expeditionary Force of 1914, Japan’s Special Naval Landing Forces, the U.S. Marine Corps, the German 7th Panzer Division, and the Soviet Guards divisions are among the many superior fighting forces from history.
Trevor Dupuy found empirical substantiation of this in his analysis of historical combat data. He discovered that in 1943-1944 during World War II, after accounting for environmental and operational factors, the German Army consistently performed more effectively in ground combat than the U.S. and British armies. This advantage—measured in terms of casualty exchanges, terrain held or lost, and mission accomplishment—manifested whether the Germans were attacking or defending, or winning or losing. Dupuy observed that the Germans demonstrated an even more marked effectiveness in battle against the Soviet Army throughout the war.
He found the same disparity in battlefield effectiveness in combat data on the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. The Israeli Army performed uniformly better in ground combat over all of the Arab armies it faced in both conflicts, regardless of posture or outcome.
The clear and consistent patterns in the historical data led Dupuy to conclude that superior combat effectiveness on the battlefield was attributable to moral and behavioral (i.e. human) factors. Those factors he believed were the most important contributors to combat effectiveness were:
Leadership
Training or Experience
Morale, which may or may not include
Cohesion
Although the influence of human factors on combat effectiveness was identifiable and measurable in the aggregate, Dupuy was skeptical whether all of the individual moral and behavioral intangibles could be discreetly quantified. He thought this particularly true for a set of factors that also contributed to combat effectiveness, but were a blend of human and operational factors. These include:
Logistical effectiveness
Time and Space
Momentum
Technical Command, Control, Communications
Intelligence
Initiative
Chance
Dupuy grouped all of these intangibles together into a composite factor he designated as relative combat effectiveness value, or CEV. The CEV, along with environmental and operational factors (Vf), comprise the Circumstantial Variables of Combat, which when multiplied by force strength (S), determines the combat power (P) of a military force in Dupuy’s formulation.
P = S x Vf x CEV
Dupuy did not believe that CEVs were static values. As with human behavior, they vary somewhat from engagement to engagement. He did think that human factors were the most substantial of the combat variables. Therefore any model or theory of combat that failed to account for them would invariably be inaccurate.
Christopher A. Lawrence, War by Numbers Understanding Conventional Combat (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2017) 390 pages, $39.95
War by Numbers assesses the nature of conventional warfare through the analysis of historical combat. Christopher A. Lawrence (President and Executive Director of The Dupuy Institute) establishes what we know about conventional combat and why we know it. By demonstrating the impact a variety of factors have on combat he moves such analysis beyond the work of Carl von Clausewitz and into modern data and interpretation.
Using vast data sets, Lawrence examines force ratios, the human factor in case studies from World War II and beyond, the combat value of superior situational awareness, and the effects of dispersion, among other elements. Lawrence challenges existing interpretations of conventional warfare and shows how such combat should be conducted in the future, simultaneously broadening our understanding of what it means to fight wars by the numbers.
The book is available in paperback directly from Potomac Books and in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.
Trevor N. Dupuy, Numbers, Predictions and War: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles (Indianapolis; New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1979), p. 79
Is there actually a reliable way of calculating logistical demand in correlation to “standing” ration strength/combat/daily strength army size?
Did Dupuy ever focus on logistics in any of his work?
The answer to his first question is, yes, there is. In fact, this has been a standard military staff function since before there were military staffs (Martin van Creveld’s book, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (2nd ed.) is an excellent general introduction). Staff officer’s guides and field manuals from various armies from the 19th century to the present are full of useful information on field supply allotments and consumption estimates intended to guide battlefield sustainment. The records of modern armies also contain reams of bureaucratic records documenting logistical functions as they actually occurred. Logistics and supply is a woefully under-studied aspect of warfare, but not because there are no sources upon which to draw.
As to his second question, the answer is also yes. Dupuy addressed logistics in his work in a couple of ways. He included two logistics multipliers in his combat models, one in the calculation for the battlefield effects of weapons, the Operational Lethality Index (OLI), and also as one element of the value for combat effectiveness, which is a multiplier in his combat power formula.
Dupuy considered the impact of logistics on combat to be intangible, however. From his historical study of combat, Dupuy understood that logistics impacted both weapons and combat effectiveness, but in the absence of empirical data, he relied on subject matter expertise to assign it a specific value in his model.
Logistics or supply capability is basic in its importance to combat effectiveness. Yet, as in the case of the leadership, training, and morale factors, it is almost impossible to arrive at an objective numerical assessment of the absolute effectiveness of a military supply system. Consequently, this factor also can be applied only when solid historical data provides a basis for objective evaluation of the relative effectiveness of the opposing supply capabilities.[1]
His approach to this stands in contrast to other philosophies of combat model design, which hold that if a factor cannot be empirically measured, it should not be included in a model. (It is up to the reader to decide if this is a valid approach to modeling real-world phenomena or not.)
Yet, as with many aspects of the historical study of combat, Dupuy and his colleagues at the Historical Evaluation Research Organization (HERO) had taken an initial cut at empirical research on the subject. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dupuy and HERO conducted a series of studies for the U.S. Air Force on the historical use of air power in support of ground warfare. One line of inquiry looked at the effects of air interdiction on supply, specifically at Operation STRANGLE, an effort by the U.S. and British air forces to completely block the lines of communication and supply of German ground forces defending Rome in 1944.
Dupuy and HERO dug deeply into Allied and German primary source documentation to extract extensive data on combat strengths and losses, logistical capabilities and capacities, supply requirements, and aircraft sorties and bombing totals. Dupuy proceeded from a historically-based assumption that combat units, using expedients, experience, and training, could operate unimpaired while only receiving up to 65% of their normal supply requirements. If the level of supply dipped below 65%, the deficiency would begin impinging on combat power at a rate proportional to the percentage of loss (i.e., a 60% supply rate would impose a 5% decline, represented as a combat effectiveness multiplier of .95, and so on).
Using this as a baseline, Dupuy and HERO calculated the amount of aerial combat power the Allies needed to apply to impact German combat effectiveness. They determined that Operation STRANGLE was able to reduce German supply capacity to about 41.8% of normal, which yielded a reduction in the combat power of German ground combat forces by an average of 6.8%.
He cautioned that these calculations were “directly relatable only to the German situation as it existed in Italy in late March and early April 1944.” As detailed as the analysis was, Dupuy stated that it “may be an oversimplification of a most complex combination of elements, including road and railway nets, supply levels, distribution of targets, and tonnage on targets. This requires much further exhaustive analysis in order to achieve confidence in this relatively simple relationship of interdiction effort to supply capability.”[2]
The historical work done by Dupuy and HERO on logistics and combat appears unique, but it seems highly relevant. There is no lack of detailed data from which to conduct further inquiries. The only impediment appears to be lack of interest.
The International Security Studies Forum (ISSF) has posted a roundtable review on H-Diplo of Jasen J. Castillo’s Endurance and War: The National Sources of Military Cohesion (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). As the introduction by Alexander B. Downes of The George Washington University lays out, there is a considerable political science literature that addresses the question of military effectiveness, or why some militaries are more effective combatants than others. Castillo focused on why some armies fight hard, even when faced with heavy casualties and the prospect of defeat, and why some become ineffective or simply collapse. The example most often cited in this context – as Downes and Castillo do – is the French Army. Why were the French routed so quickly in 1940 when they had fought so much harder and incurred far higher casualties in 1914? (Is this characterization of the French entirely fair? I’ll take a look at that question below.)
According to Downes, for his analysis, Castillo defined military cohesion as staying power and battlefield performance. He identified two factors that were primary in determining military cohesion: the persuasiveness of a regime’s ideology and coercive powers and the military’s ability to train its troops free from political interference. From this, Castillo drew two conclusions, one counterintuitive, the other in line with prevailing professional military thought.
“First, regimes that exert high levels of control over society—through a combination of an ideology that demands ‘unconditional loyalty’ (such as nationalism, communism, or fascism) and the power to compel recalcitrant individuals to conform—will field militaries with greater staying power than states with low levels of societal control.”
“Second, states that provide their military establishments with the autonomy necessary to engage in rigorous and realistic training will generate armies that fight in a determined yet flexible fashion.”
Based on his analysis, Castillo defines four military archetypes:
“Messianic militaries are the most fearsome of the lot. Produced by countries with high levels of regime control that give their militaries the autonomy to train, such as Nazi Germany, messianic militaries possess great staying power and superior battlefield performance.”
“Authoritarian militaries are also generated by nations with strong regime control over society, but are a notch below their messianic cousins because the regime systematically interferes in the military’s affairs. These militaries have strong staying power but are less nimble on the battlefield. The Red Army under Joseph Stalin is a good example.”
“Countries with low regime control but high military autonomy produce professional militaries. These militaries—such as the U.S. military in Vietnam—perform well in battle but gradually lose the will to fight as victory recedes into the distance.”
“Apathetic militaries, finally, are characteristic of states with both low regime control and low military autonomy, like France in 1940. These militaries fall apart quickly when faced with adversity.”
The discussion panel – Brendan Rittenhouse Green, (University of Cincinnati); Phil Haun (Yale University); Austin Long (Columbia University); and Caitlin Talmadge (The George Washington University) – reviewed Castillo’s work favorably. Their discussion and Castillo’s response are well worth the time to read.
Now, to the matter of France’s alleged “apathetic military.” The performance of the French Army in 1940 has earned the country the infamous reputation of being “cheese eating surrender monkeys.” Is this really fair? Well, if measured in terms of France’s perseverance in post-World War II counterinsurgency conflicts, the answer is most definitely no.
As detailed in Chris Lawrence’s book America’s Modern Wars, TDI looked at the relationship between national cost of foreign interventions and the outcome of insurgencies. One method used to measure national burden was the willingness of intervening states to sustain casualties. TDI found a strong correlation between high levels of casualties to intervening states and the failure of counterinsurgency efforts.
Among the cases in TDI’s database of post-World War II insurgencies, interventions, and peace-keeping operations, the French were the most willing, by far, to sustain the burden of casualties waging counterinsurgencies. In all but one of 17 years of continuous post-World War II conflict in Indochina and Algeria, democratic France’s apathetic military lost from 1 to 8 soldiers killed per 100,000 of its population.
In comparison, the U.S. suffered a similar casualty burden in Vietnam for only five years, incurring losses of 1.99 to 7.07 killed per 100,000 population between 1966 and 1970, which led to “Vietnamization” and withdrawal by 1973. The United Kingdom was even more sensitive to casualties. It waged multiple post-World War II insurgencies. Two that it won, in Malaya and Northern Ireland, produced casualty burdens of 0.09 British killed per 100,000 during its 13 years; Northern Ireland (1968–1998) never got above 0.19 British soldiers killed per 100,000 during its 31 years and for 20 of those years was below 0.025 per 100,000. The British also lost several counterinsurgencies with far lower casualty burdens than those of the French. Of those, the bloodiest was Palestine, where British losses peaked at 0.28 killed per 100,000 in 1948, which is also the year they withdrew.
Of the allegedly fearsome “authoritarian militaries,” only Portugal rivaled the staying power of the French. Portugal’s dictatorial Estado Novo government waged three losing counterinsurgencies in Africa over 14 years, suffering from 1 to 3.5 soldiers killed per 100,000 for 14 years, and between 2.5 and 3.5 killed per 100,000 in nine of those years. The failure of these wars also contributed to the overthrow of Portugal’s dictatorship.
The Soviet Union’s authoritarian military had a casualty burden between 0.22 and 0.75 soldiers killed per 100,000 in Afghanistan from 1980 through 1988. It withdrew after losing 14,571 dead (the U.S. suffered 58,000 killed in Vietnam) and the conflict is often cited as a factor in the collapse of the Soviet government in 1989.
Castillo’s analysis and analytical framework, which I have not yet read, appears intriguing and has received critical praise. Like much analysis of military history, however, it seems to explain the exceptions — the brilliant victories and unexpected defeats — rather than the far more prevalent cases of indecisive or muddled outcomes.
Although possessing an enormous manpower advantage over the Daesh defenders, ISF had managed to secure only one-quarter of the city in two months of combat. This is likely due to the fact that the only ISF elements that have demonstrated any offensive combat effectiveness have been the CTS and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hash’d al Shaabi) Iraqi Shi’a militia mobilized by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in 2014. PMF brigades hold the western outskirts of the city, but thus far have been restrained from entering it for fear of provoking sectarian violence with the mostly Sunni residents.
Daesh defenders, believed to number only from 3,000-5,000 at the outset of the battle, have had the luxury of fighting against only one axis of advance and within urban terrain filled with trapped civilians, which they have used as human shields. They mounted a particularly effective counterattack against the CTS using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), which halted the initial offensive in mid-December. ISF casualties appear to be concentrated in the elite 1st Special Operations Brigade (the so-called “Golden Division”) of the CTS. An unnamed Pentagon source was quoted as stating that the Golden Division’s maneuver battalions had incurred “upwards of 50 percent casualties,” which, if sustained, would have rendered it combative ineffective in less than a month.
The Iraqi government has come to rely on the Golden Division to generate reliable offensive combat power. It spearheaded the attacks that recovered Tikrit, Ramadi, and Fallujah earlier in the year. Originally formed in 2004 as the non-sectarian Iraqi Special Operations Forces brigade, the Golden Division was amalgamated into the CTS in 2007 along with specialized counterterrorism and national police elements. Although intended for irregular warfare, the CTS appears to be the only Iraqi military force capable of effective conventional offensive combat operations, likely due to higher level of combat effectiveness relative to the rest of the ISF, as well as its interoperability with U.S. and Coalition supporting forces.
The relative success of the CTS can be seen as either indicative of the general failure of the decade-long U.S. effort to rebuild an effective Iraqi military establishment, or as an exemplary success of the U.S. Special Operations Forces model for training and operating with indigenous military forces. Or both.
The International Security Studies Forum (ISSF) has posted a 