Tag Military Science

Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War (2)

Shalmjah border, February 2010. An operation to repatriate the mortal remains of Iranian soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War is carried out under the aegis of the ICRC. [CC BY-NC-ND / ICRC / M. Greub]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]

Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War

Iranian Missing in Action: Wanted Dead or Alive

By 1995 Iran had conducted seventeen dedicated MIA [missing in action] retrieval operations from wartime battlefields. Approximately 80% of the MIAs are believed to lie in Iraqi territory. In that year Iran proposed a joint Iranian-Iraqi accord to retrieve the missing of both sides.[18] Brigadier General Mir Feisel Baqerzadeh and IRGC Brigadier General Behahim Safaie head the Special Commission for MIA Retrieval. Iran claimed to have recovered or settled some 21,000 cases by early 1995. In that time 2,505 MIAs had been retrieved by joint search operations in Iraq and another 12,638 in Iranian territory, the latter representing 85% of those estimated missing in Iranian held ground. Back calculating these figures indicates total Iranian missing was now regarded as 72,753, up 20% from the original figure of 60,711. By October 1996 the count was 24,000 retrieved.[19] By June of 1997 the number of MIA cases resolved had risen to 33,000 including 6,000 death certificates issued at family request for individuals of whom no trace had ever been found.[20] As of September 1997 the total number of MIA bodies recovered stood at over 37,000 according to Brigadier General Baqerzadeh.[21] “Martyr” (i.e. killed in action) status entitles the family to a $24,000 lump sum death benefit as well as a $280 monthly pension with provision for $56 a month for each dependent child from the Foundation for the Martyrs,[22]

The rate of actual forensic identification of the remains is unknown. One source mentions a positive identification of some 900. The standard practice seems to be determination of the operation in which they were martyred and the provincial origins of units in that engagement. Wartime operations which have yielded large numbers of MIA remains are Beit al-Moqqadas-4, Kheiber, Karbala-4, Karbala-5, Karbala-6, Karbala-8, Karbala-10, Ramazan, Badr, Kheiber, Muslim Ibn-e Aqil, Wal Fajir Preliminary Operation, Wal Fajir-1, Wal Fajir-2, Wal Fajir-6, Wal Fajir-8, Fath-5, and the Iraqi attacks on Majnoon and Shalamech, The retrieval operations are often dangerous and occur in former minefields. As of 1995 eleven IRGC personnel had been killed and fourteen seriously wounded in MIA retrieval operations. Individual military units often recover their own MIAs. In a speech at Gurgan, Ali Mirtaheri, head of the committee in charge of search teams for MIAs of the 27th Huzrat-e Rasul Pasdaran Infantry Division, stated in November 1997 that divisional teams had recovered 1,610 MIA bodies. Forty-two team members from the division have been killed and another eighty maimed in the operations (probably from leftover mines).[23]

Due to the number of cases and the vigorous retrieval operations MIA funerals tend to be mass affairs. Burials in Tehran alone tell the story. In October 1993 208 were buried in Tehran and 360 in other locations. In October 1994 1,000 martyrs were buried in Tehran; in April 1995 another 600 of 3,000 just recovered MIAs and the following month 405 more in Mashad; in October 1995 600 were interred; 750 in October 1996; 1,000 more in January 1997; in July 1997 another 2,000 including 400 from Tehran Province were interred nationwide; in September 1997 200 of 1,233 interred nationwide, including 47 in Qazvin, 34 in Khuzistan, 5 in Shustar and 5 in Sistan-Baluchistan. Of these only 118 were unknowns.[24] Unrecovered Iranian MIAs are carried as active soldiers on their unit personnel rolls with their current status listed simply as “still at the front.” Iran has also recovered Iraqi MIAs, returning up to 400 bodies at a time in a mutual exchange program usually accomplished at the Khosrawi border station in Kermanshah Province.[25] A total of 31,000 Iraqi bodies have been so returned compared to 2,500 Iranian dead returned by Iraq as of January 1997.[26] In January 1997, in conjunction with the Iraqi return of the remains of sixty Iranian MIAs of the Wal Fajir Preliminary Operation, Brigadier General Mir Feisel Baqerzadeh stated that Iran was willing to assume all search responsibilities and associated costs for both Iraqi and Iranian MIAs on Iraqi territory should Iraq not wish to continue recovery operations.[27] In May 1997 Brigadier General Mohammed Balar, spokesman for the Commission for Iranian PoWs, called on international organizations to pressure Iraq to clarify the status of 20,000 Iranian MIAs.[28]

Mr Beuttel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Boeing Company.

NOTES

[18] “Iran Proposes Joint Committee to Decide Fate of PoWs,” Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), 18 October 1993.

[19] “The Remains of 750 Iranian Soldiers…” Al Akhbar Muslim World News, 15 October 1996.

[20] “Remains of Twenty Martyrs of Imposed War Handed Over to Iran,” IRNA, 1 June 1997.

[21] “Funeral Service to be Held Nationwide for 1,233 War Martyrs,” IRNA, 1 October 1997.

[22] Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, London: Paladin Books, 1990, p. 54.

[23] “37,000 Bodies of Martyrs Discovered in Seven Years,” IRNA, 10 November 1997.

[24] “Funeral Procession War Martyrs,” IRNA, 7 July 1997; “The Remains of 750 Iranian Soldiers…”, Al Akhbar Muslim World News, 15 October 1996; “Funeral Service to be Held Nationwide for 1,233 War Martyrs,” IRNA, 1 October 1997; “Funeral Service for War Martyrs,” Iran Daily, 7 October 1997.

[25] “3,000 Bodies of Martyrs Found on Former Iran-Iraq Battlefields,” IRNA, 15 February 1995; “Funeral Service Held for 405 Martyrs in Mashad,” IRNA, 6 March 1995; “Cases of Over 21,000 MIA’s Settled So Far, IRNA, 19 February 1995; “568 More Bodies of Iran’s MIAs Uncovered,” IRNA, 17 October 1993; “Paper on PoW Issues,” IRNA, 31 May 1993; “IRGC Official: Investigations Continue to Find Our Martyrs’ Bodies,” IRNA, 20 February 1995; “Bodies of 65 Martyrs of Iraq-Imposed War Delivered to Iran,” IRNA, 13 August 1993; “Leader Attends Funeral for 600 Martys,” Iran News, 28 October 1995; “Leader Attends Funeral Service for 1,000 Martyrs,” Iran News, 20 October 1997; “War: MIAs Search Operation for MIAs Extended Another Year,” IRNA, 23 October 1995.

[26] “Funeral Ceremony for 1,000 Soldiers Killed in War Against Iraq,” Iran Weekly Press Digest, 21-31 January 1997.

[27] “Bodies of Sixty Martyrs Handed Over to Iran,” IRNA, 7 January 1997.

[28] “Iran Calls in International Clout to Find 20,000 PoWs,” Iran News, 20 May 1997.

Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal (1)

The Martyrs Memorial to the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) in Imam Khomeini Square, Hamadan, Iran. [KiwiOutThere]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]

Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War was the longest sustained conventional war of the 20th Century. Lasting from 22 September 1980 to 20 August 1988, the seven years, ten months, and twenty-nine days of this conflict are some of the least understood in modem military history. The War of Sacred Defense to the Iranians and War of Second Qadissiya to Iraqis is the true “forgotten war” of our times. Seemingly never ending combat on a scale not witnessed since World War I and World War II was the norm. Casualties were popularly held to be enormous and, coupled with the lack of battlefield resolution year after year, led to frequent comparisons with the Western Front of World War I. Despite the fact that Iran had been the victim of naked Iraqi aggression, it was the Iraqis who were viewed as the “good guys” and actively supported by most nations in the world as well as the world press.

Studying the Iran-Iraq War is beset with difficulties. Much of the reporting done on the war was conducted in a slipshod manner. Both Iraq and Iran tended to exaggerate each other’s losses. As oftentimes Iraqi claims were the only source, accounts of Iranian losses became exaggerated. The data is highly fragmentary, often contradictory, usually vague in particulars, and often suspect as a whole. It defies complete reconciliation or adjudication in a quantitative sense as will be evident below.

There are few stand-alone good sources for the Iran-Iraq War in English. One of the first, and best, is Edgar O’Ballance, The Gulf War (1988). O’Ballance was a dedicated and knowledgeable military reporter who had covered many conflicts throughout the world. Unfortunately his book ends with the Karbala-9 offensive of April 1987. Another good reference is Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (1990). Hiro too is a careful journalist who specializes in South Asian affairs. Finally, there is Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War Volume III: The Iran-Iraq War (1990). This is the most comprehensive treatment of the conflict from a military standpoint and tends to be the “standard” reference. Finally there are Iranian sources, most notably articles appearing since the war in the Tehran Times, Iran News, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) and others.

This paper will approach the subject of losses in the conflict from the Iranian perspective. This is for two reasons. First, too often during the war Iraqi claims and figures were uncritically accepted out of prejudice against Iran. Secondly, since the War the Iranians have been more forthcoming about details of the conflict and though not providing direct figures, have released related quantified data that allows us to extrapolate better estimates. The first installment of this paper examines the evidence for total Iranian war casualties being far lower than popularly believed. It will also analyze this data to establish overall killed-to-wounded ratios, MIA and PoW issues, and the effectiveness of chemical warfare in the conflict. Later installments will analyze selected Iranian operations during the war to establish data such as average loss rate per day, mean length of engagements, advance rates, dispersion factors, casualty thresholds affecting breakpoint and other issues.

Casualties as Reported and Estimated

Too often incorrect formulae were applied to calculate casualties or the killed-to-wounded ratio. The standard belief was that Iran suffered two wounded for every killed—a ratio not seen since the ancient world. Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy established that the average distribution of killed-to-wounded in 20th Century warfare is on the order of 1:4 and in fact this relationship may be as old as the year 1700.[1] In Operation Peace for Galilee of 1982 the Israeli ratio of killed-to-wounded was on the order of 1:6.5 while the Syrian was 1:3.56.[2] At the same time in the Falklands, U.K. casualty ratio was 1:3. For Argentine ground forces it was 1:4.85.[3] Also it was assumed that Iran must have suffered 3-4 times the casualties of Iraqi forces in many given engagements on the basis of no good evidence this author can find.

Typical Western estimates of Iranian losses in the war are given below.[4]

The lowest estimate of Iranian KIA was from the Pentagon which estimated the killed (military and civilian) at 262,000.[5]

At the end of 1980 the Iraqis claimed 4,500 Iranian KIA and 11,500 WIA.[6] Iraqi claims as of 22 September 1981 were 41,779 Iranian KIA[7] By the end of August 1981 other estimates placed it as 14,000-18,000 KIA and some 26,000-30,000 WIA.[8] Alternate estimates placed this at 14,000 KIA and 28,000 WIA,[9] Still others claimed 38,000 KIA.[10] During the first half of 1982 estimate was 90,000 Iranians killed.[11] Iran’s casualties in its 1984 offensives resulted in 30,000-50,000 more KIA.[12] In mid-1984 Iran’s KIA were 180,000-500,000 and WIA 500,000-825,000.[13] By 23 March 1985, Iranian KIA may have been 650,000 with 490,000 “seriously” wounded.[14] In September 1986 the count of Iranian dead was 240,000.[15] By April 1987 Iran had 600,000-700,000 KIA and twice that number wounded.[16] Iraq claimed 800,000 total Iranian KIA at the time of the cease-fire.[17] Figure 1 graphically depicts this reporting.

Official Iranian statistics released on 19 September 1988 immediately after the cease fire listed the following casualty figures:

Mr Beuttel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Boeing Company.

NOTES

[1] Trevor N. Dupuy, Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War, Fairfax, VA: HERO Books, 1990.

[2] Richard Gabriel, Operation Peace for Galilee: The Israeli PLO War in Lebanon, New York: Hill and Wang, 1984. pp. 235-236.

[3] Martin Middlebrook, Task Force: The Falklands War, 1982, Revised Edition; London: Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 382-385; Martin Middlebrook, The Fight for the Malvinas, London: Penguin Books, 1990, pp. 283-284. The low British ratio in the Falklands is a result of many ground forces being killed in mass while still aboard the Sir Galahad. This deflates the ratio vis a vis that actually experienced in ground combat. The shipborne dead should more properly be considered naval casualties.

[4] Anthony Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1990, p. 3.

[5] Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, London: Paladin Books, 1990, p. 4.

[6] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II, p. 144, n. 2.

[7] Hiro, The Longest War, p. 275, n. 26.

[8] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II, p. 120.

[9] Edgar O’Ballance, The Gulf War, London: Brassey’s, 1988, p. 74.

[10] Hiro, The Longest War, p. 54.

[11] O’Ballance, The Gulf War, p. 88.

[12] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II, p. 198.

[13] Ibid, p. 434, Figure 12.3.

[14] Ibid, p. 215, n. 18.

[15] Hiro, The Longest War, p. 175.

[16] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II, p, 261.

[17] Hiro, The Longest War, p. 250.

Dupuy/DePuy

Trevor N. Dupuy (1916-1995) and General William E. DePuy (1919-1992)

I first became acquainted with Trevor Dupuy and his work after seeing an advertisement for his book Numbers, Prediction & War in Simulation Publications, Inc.’s (SPI) Strategy & Tactics war gaming magazine way back in the late 1970s. Although Dupuy was already a prolific military historian, this book brought him to the attention of an audience outside of the insular world of the U.S. government military operations research and analysis community.

Ever since, however, Trevor Dupuy has been occasionally been confused with one of his contemporaries, U.S. Army General William E. DePuy. DePuy was notable in his own right, primarily as the first commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) from 1973 to 1977, and as one of the driving intellectual forces behind the effort to reorient the U.S. Army back to conventional warfare following the Vietnam War.

The two men had a great deal in common. They were born within three years of one another and both served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Both possessed an analytical bent and each made significant contributions to institutional and public debates about combat and warfare in the late 20th century. Given that they tilled the same topical fields at about the same time, it does not seem too odd that they were mistaken for each other.

Perhaps the most enduring link between the two men has been a shared name, though they spelled and pronounced it differently. The surname Dupuy is of medieval French origin and has been traced back to LePuy, France, in the province of Languedoc. It has several variant spellings, including DePuy and Dupuis. The traditional French pronunciation is “do-PWEE.” This is how Trevor Dupuy said his name.

However, following French immigration to North America beginning in the 17th century, the name evolved an anglicized spelling, DePuy (or sometimes Depew), and pronunciation, “deh-PEW.” This is the way General DePuy said it.

It is this pronunciation difference in conversation that has tipped me off personally to the occasional confusion in identities. Though rare these days, it still occurs. While this is a historical footnote, it still seems worth gently noting that Trevor Dupuy and William DePuy were two different people.

TDI Friday Read: Lethality, Dispersion, And Mass On Future Battlefields

Armies have historically responded to the increasing lethality of weapons by dispersing mass in frontage and depth on the battlefield. Will combat see a new period of adjustment over the next 50 years like the previous half-century, where dispersion continues to shift in direct proportion to increased weapon range and precision, or will there be a significant change in the character of warfare?

One point of departure for such an inquiry could be the work of TDI President Chris Lawrence, who looked into the nature of historical rates of dispersion in combat from 1600 to 1991.

The Effects Of Dispersion On Combat

As he explained,

I am focusing on this because l really want to come up with some means of measuring the effects of a “revolution in warfare.” The last 400 years of human history have given us more revolutionary inventions impacting war than we can reasonably expect to see in the next 100 years. In particular, I would like to measure the impact of increased weapon accuracy, improved intelligence, and improved C2 on combat.

His tentative conclusions were:

  1. Dispersion has been relatively constant and driven by factors other than firepower from 1600-1815.
  2. Since the Napoleonic Wars, units have increasingly dispersed (found ways to reduce their chance to be hit) in response to increased lethality of weapons.
  3. As a result of this increased dispersion, casualties in a given space have declined.
  4. The ratio of this decline in casualties over area have been roughly proportional to the strength over an area from 1600 through WWI. Starting with WWII, it appears that people have dispersed faster than weapons lethality, and this trend has continued.
  5. In effect, people dispersed in direct relation to increased firepower from 1815 through 1920, and then after that time dispersed faster than the increase in lethality.
  6. It appears that since WWII, people have gone back to dispersing (reducing their chance to be hit) at the same rate that firepower is increasing.
  7. Effectively, there are four patterns of casualties in modem war:

Period 1 (1600 – 1815): Period of Stability

  • Short battles
  • Short frontages
  • High attrition per day
  • Constant dispersion
  • Dispersion decreasing slightly after late 1700s
  • Attrition decreasing slightly after mid-1700s.

Period 2 (1816 – 1905): Period of Adjustment

  • Longer battles
  • Longer frontages
  • Lower attrition per day
  • Increasing dispersion
  • Dispersion increasing slightly faster than lethality

Period 3 (1912 – 1920): Period of Transition

  • Long battles
  • Continuous frontages
  • Lower attrition per day
  • Increasing dispersion
  • Relative lethality per kilometer similar to past, but lower
  • Dispersion increasing slightly faster than lethality

Period 4 (1937 – present): Modern Warfare

  • Long battles
  • Continuous frontages
  • Low attrition per day
  • High dispersion (perhaps constant?)
  • Relatively lethality per kilometer much lower than the past
  • Dispersion increased much faster than lethality going into the period.
  • Dispersion increased at the same rate as lethality within the period.

Chris based his study on previous work done by Trevor Dupuy and his associates, which established a pattern in historical combat between lethality, dispersion, and battlefield casualty rates.

Trevor Dupuy and Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality

What Is The Relationship Between Rate of Fire and Military Effectiveness?

Human Factors In Warfare: Dispersion

There is no way to accurately predict the future relationship between weapon lethality and dispersion on the battlefield, but we should question whether or not current conception of combat reflect consideration of the historical trends.

Attrition In Future Land Combat

The Principle Of Mass On The Future Battlefield

TDI Friday Read: Measuring The Effects of Combat in Cities

Between 2001 and 2004, TDI undertook a series of studies on the effects of urban combat in cities for the U.S. Army Center for Army Analysis (CAA). These studies examined a total of 304 cases of urban combat at the divisional and battalion level that occurred between 1942 and 2003, as well as 319 cases of concurrent non-urban combat for comparison.

The primary findings of Phases I-III of the study were:

  • Urban terrain had no significantly measurable influence on the outcome of battle.
  • Attacker casualties in the urban engagements were less than in the non-urban engagements and the casualty exchange ratio favored the attacker as well.
  • One of the primary effects of urban terrain is that it slowed opposed advance rates. The average advance rate in urban combat was one-half to one-third that of non-urban combat.
  • There is little evidence that combat operations in urban terrain resulted in a higher linear density of troops.
  • Armor losses in urban terrain were the same as, or lower than armor losses in non-urban terrain. In some cases it appears that armor losses were significantly lower in urban than non-urban terrain.
  • Urban terrain did not significantly influence the force ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations.
  • Overall, it appears that urban terrain was no more stressful a combat environment during actual combat operations than was non-urban terrain.
  • Overall, the expenditure of ammunition in urban operations was not greater than that in non-urban operations. There is no evidence that the expenditure of other consumable items (rations; water; or fuel, oil, or lubricants) was significantly different in urban as opposed to non-urban combat.
  • Since it was found that advance rates in urban combat were significantly reduced, then it is obvious that these two effects (advance rates and time) were interrelated. It does appear that the primary impact of urban combat was to slow the tempo of operations.

In order to broaden and deepen understanding of the effects of urban combat, TDI proposed several follow-up studies. To date, none of these have been funded:

  1. Conduct a detailed study of the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad may also represent one of the most intense examples of urban combat, so may provide some clues to the causes of the urban outliers.
  2. Conduct a detailed study of battalion/brigade-level urban combat. This would begin with an analysis of battalion-level actions from the first two phases of this study (European Theater of Operations and Eastern Front), added to the battalion-level actions completed in this third phase of the study. Additional battalion-level engagements would be added as needed.
  3. Conduct a detailed study of the outliers in an attempt to discover the causes for the atypical nature of these urban battles.
  4. Conduct a detailed study of urban warfare in an unconventional warfare setting.

Details of the Phase I-III study reports and conclusions can be found below:

Measuring The Effects Of Combat In Cities, Phase I

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase II – part 2

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 2.1

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 3

Urban Phase IV – Stalingrad

Urban Combat in War by Numbers

Dupuy’s Verities: The Utility Of Defense

Battle of Franklin, 1864 by Kurz and Allison. Restoration by Adam Cuerden [Wikimedia Commons]

The third of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is:

Defensive posture is necessary when successful offense is impossible.

From Understanding War (1987):

Even though offensive action is essential to ultimate combat success, a combat commander opposed by a more powerful enemy has no choice but to assume a defensive posture. Since defensive posture automatically increases the combat power of his force, the defending commander at least partially redresses the imbalance of forces. At a minimum he is able to slow down the advance of the attacking enemy, and he might even beat him. In this way, through negative combat results, the defender may ultimately hope to wear down the attacker to the extent that his initial relative weakness is transformed into relative superiority, thus offering the possibility of eventually assuming the offensive and achieving positive combat results. The Franklin and Nashville Campaign of our Civil War, and the El Alamein Campaign of World War II are examples.

Sometimes the commander of a numerically superior offensive force may reduce the strength of portions of his force in order to achieve decisive superiority for maximum impact on the enemy at some other critical point on the battlefield, with the result that those reduced-strength components are locally outnumbered. A contingent thus reduced in strength may therefore be required to assume a defensive posture, even though the overall operational posture of the marginally superior force is offensive, and the strengthened contingent of the same force is attacking with the advantage of superior combat power. A classic example was the role of Davout at Auerstadt when Napoléon was crushing the Prussians at Jena. Another is the role played by “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps at the Second Battle of Bull Run. [pp. 2-3]

This verity is both derivative of Dupuy’s belief that the defensive posture is a human reaction to the lethal environment of combat, and his concurrence with Clausewitz’s dictum that the defense is the stronger form of combat. Soldiers in combat will sometimes reach a collective conclusion that they can no longer advance in the face of lethal opposition, and will stop and seek cover and concealment to leverage the power of the defense. Exploiting the multiplying effect of the defensive is also a way for a force with weaker combat power to successfully engage a stronger one.

It also relates to the principle of war known as economy of force, as defined in the 1954 edition of the U.S. Army’s Field Manual FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations:

Minimum essential means must be employed at points other than that of decision. To devote means to unnecessary secondary efforts or to employ excessive means on required secondary efforts is to violate the principle of both mass and the objective. Limited attacks, the defensive, deception, or even retrograde action are used in noncritical areas to achieve mass in the critical area.

These concepts are well ingrained in modern U.S. Army doctrine. FM 3-0 Operations (2017) summarizes the defensive this way:

Defensive tasks are conducted to defeat an enemy attack, gain time, economize forces, and develop conditions favorable for offensive or stability tasks. Normally, the defense alone cannot achieve a decisive victory. However, it can set conditions for a counteroffensive or counterattack that enables Army forces to regain and exploit the initiative. Defensive tasks are a counter to enemy offensive actions. They defeat attacks, destroying as much of an attacking enemy as possible. They also preserve and maintain control over land, resources, and populations. The purpose of defensive tasks is to retain key terrain, guard populations, protect lines of communications, and protect critical capabilities against enemy attacks and counterattacks. Commanders can conduct defensive tasks to gain time and economize forces, so offensive tasks can be executed elsewhere. [Para 1-72]

UPDATE: Just as I posted this, out comes a contrarian view from U.S. Army CAPT Brandon Morgan via the Modern War Institute at West Point blog. He argues that the U.S. Army is not placing enough emphasis on preparing to conduct defensive operations:

In his seminal work On War, Carl von Clausewitz famously declared that, in comparison to the offense, “the defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive.”

This is largely due to the defender’s ability to occupy key terrain before the attack, and is most true when there is sufficient time to prepare the defense. And yet within the doctrinal hierarchy of the four elements of decisive action (offense, defense, stability, and defense support of civil authorities), the US Army prioritizes offensive operations. Ultimately, this has led to training that focuses almost exclusively on offensive operations at the cost of deliberate planning for the defense. But in the context of a combined arms fight against a near-peer adversary, US Army forces will almost assuredly find themselves initially fighting in a defense. Our current neglect of deliberate planning for the defense puts these soldiers who will fight in that defense at grave risk.

The Combat Value of Surprise

American soldiers being marched down a road after capture by German troops in the Ardennes, December 1944.
American soldiers being marched down a road after capture by German troops in the Ardennes, December 1944.

[This article was originally posted on 1 December 2016]

In his recent analysis of the role of conventional armored forces in Russian hybrid warfare, U.S. Army Major Amos Fox noted an emphasis on tactical surprise.

Changes to Russian tactics typify the manner in which Russia now employs its ground force. Borrowing from the pages of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who stated, “It is still more important to remember that almost the only advantage of the attack rests on its initial surprise,” Russia’s contemporary operations embody the characteristic of surprise. Russian operations in Georgia and Ukraine demonstrate a rapid, decentralized attack seeking to temporally dislocate the enemy, triggering the opposing forces’ defeat.

Tactical surprise enabled by electronic, cyber, information and unconventional warfare capabilities, combined with mobile and powerful combined arms brigade tactical groups, and massive and lethal long-range fires provide Russian Army ground forces with formidable combat power.

Trevor Dupuy considered the combat value of surprise to be important enough to cite it as one of his “timeless verities of combat.”

Surprise substantially enhances combat power. Achieving surprise in combat has always been important. It is perhaps more important today than ever. Quantitative analysis of historical combat shows that surprise has increased the combat power of military forces in those engagements in which it was achieved. Surprise has proven to be the greatest of all combat multipliers. It may be the most important of the Principles of War; it is at least as important as Mass and Maneuver.

In addition to acting as combat power multiplier, Dupuy observed that surprise decreases the casualties of a surprising force and increases those of a surprised one. Surprise also enhances advance rates for forces that achieve it.

In his combat models, Dupuy categorized tactical surprise as complete, substantial, and minor; defining the level achieved was a matter of analyst judgement. The combat effects of surprise in battle would last for three days, declining by one-third each day.

He developed two methods for applying the effects of surprise in calculating combat power, each yielding the same general overall influence. In his original Quantified Judgement Model (QJM) detailed in Numbers, Predictions and War: The Use of History to Evaluate and Predict the Outcome of Armed Conflict (1977), factors for surprise were applied to calculations for vulnerability and mobility, which in turn were applied to the calculation of overall combat power. The net value of surprise on combat power ranged from a factor of about 2.24 for complete surprise to 1.10 for minor surprise.

For a simplified version of his combat power calculation detailed in Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (1990), Dupuy applied a surprise combat multiplier value directly to the calculation of combat power. These figures also ranged between 2.20 for complete surprise and 1.10 for minor surprise.

Dupuy established these values for surprise based on his judgement of the difference between the calculated outcome of combat engagements in his data and theoretical outcomes based on his models. He never validated them back to his data himself. However, TDI President Chris Lawrence recently did conduct substantial tests on TDI’s expanded combat databases in the context of analyzing the combat value of situational awareness. The results are described in detail in his forthcoming book, War By Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat.

Recent Developments In “Game Changing” Precision Fires Technology

Nammo’s new 155mm Solid Fuel Ramjet projectile [The Drive]

From the “Build A Better Mousetrap” files come a couple of new developments in precision fires technology. The U.S. Army’s current top modernization priority is improving its long-range precision fires capabilities.

Joseph Trevithick reports in The Drive that Nammo, a Norwegian/Finnish aerospace and defense company, recently revealed that it is developing a solid-fueled, ramjet-powered, precision projectile capable of being fired from the ubiquitous 155mm howitzer. The projectile, which is scheduled for live-fire testing in 2019 or 2020, will have a range of more than 60 miles.

The Army’s current self-propelled and towed 155mm howitzers have a range of 12 miles using standard ammunition, and up to 20 miles with rocket-powered munitions. Nammo’s ramjet projectile could effectively double that, but the Army is also looking into developing a new 155mm howitzer with a longer barrel that could fully exploit the capabilities of Nammo’s ramjet shell and other new long-range precision munitions under development.

Anna Ahronheim has a story in The Jerusalem Post about a new weapon developed by the Israeli Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. called the FireFly. FireFly is a small, three-kilogram, loitering munition designed for use by light ground maneuver forces to deliver precision fires against enemy forces in cover. Similar to a drone, FireFly can hover for up to 15 minutes before delivery.

In a statement, Rafael claimed that “Firefly will essentially eliminate the value of cover and with it, the necessity of long-drawn-out firefights. It will also make obsolete the old infantry tactic of firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy hiding behind cover.”

Nammo and Rafael have very high hopes for their wares:

“This [155mm Solid Fuel Ramjet] could be a game-changer for artillery,” according to Thomas Danbolt, Vice President of Nammo’s Large Caliber Ammunitions division.

“The impact of FireFly on the infantry is revolutionary, fundamentally changing small infantry tactics,” Rafael has asserted.

Expansive claims for the impact of new technology are not new, of course. Oribtal ATK touted its XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) precision-guided grenade launcher along familiar lines, claiming that “The introduction of the XM25 is akin to other revolutionary systems such as the machine gun, the airplane and the tank, all of which changed battlefield tactics.”

Similar in battlefield effect to the FireFly, the Army cancelled its contract for the XM25 in 2017 after disappointing results in field tests.

UPDATE: For clarity’s sake, let me re-up my contrarian take:

Will This Weapon Change Infantry Warfare Forever? Maybe, But Probably Not

Measuring the Effects of Combat in Cities, Phase III – part 1

Now comes Phase III of this effort. The Phase I report was dated 11 January 2002 and covered the European Theater of Operations (ETO). The Phase II report [Part I and Part II] was dated 30 June 2003 and covered the Eastern Front (the three battles of Kharkov). Phase III was completed in 31 July 2004 and covered the Battle of Manila in the Pacific Theater, post-WWII engagements, and battalion-level engagements. It was a pretty far ranging effort.

In the case of Manila, this was the first time that we based our analysis using only one-side data (U.S. only). In this case, the Japanese tended to fight to almost the last man. We occupied the field of combat after the battle and picked up their surviving unit records. Among the Japanese, almost all died and only a few were captured by the U.S. So, we had fairly good data from the U.S. intelligence files. Regardless, the U.S. battle reports for Japanese data was the best data available. This allowed us to work with one-sided data. The engagements were based upon the daily operations of the U.S. Army’s 37th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division.

Conclusions (from pages 44-45):

The overall conclusions derived from the data analysis in Phase I were as follows, while those from this Phase III analysis are in bold italics.

  1. Urban combat did not significantly influence the Mission Accomplishment (Outcome) of the engagements. Phase III Conclusion: This conclusion was further supported.
  2. Urban combat may have influenced the casualty rate. If so, it appears that it resulted in a reduction of the attacker casualty rate and a more favorable casualty exchange ratio compared to non-urban warfare. Whether or not these differences are caused by the data selection or by the terrain differences is difficult to say, but regardless, there appears to be no basis to the claim that urban combat is significantly more intense with regards to casualties than is non-urban warfare. Phase III Conclusion: This conclusion was further supported. If urban combat influenced the casualty rate, it appears that it resulted in a reduction of the attacker casualty rate and a more favorable casualty exchange ratio compared to non-urban warfare. There still appears to be no basis to the claim that urban combat is significantly more intense with regards to casualties than is non-urban warfare.
  3. The average advance rate in urban combat should be one-half to one-third that of non-urban combat. Phase III Conclusion: There was strong evidence of a reduction in the advance rates in urban terrain in the PTO data. However, given that this was a single extreme case, then TDI still stands by its original conclusion that the average advance rate in urban combat should be about one-half to one-third that of non-urban combat/
  4. Overall, there is little evidence that the presence of urban terrain results in a higher linear density of troops, although the data does seem to trend in that direction. Phase III Conclusion: The PTO data shows the highest densities found in the data sets for all three phases of this study. However, it does not appear that the urban density in the PTO was significantly higher than the non-urban density. So it remains difficult to tell whether or not the higher density was a result of the urban terrain or was simply a consequence of the doctrine adopted to meet the requirements found in the Pacific Theater.
  5. Overall, it appears that the loss of armor in urban terrain is the same as or less than that found in non-urban terrain, and in some cases is significantly lower. Phase III Conclusion: This conclusion was further supported.
  6. Urban combat did not significantly influence the Force Ratio required to achieve success or effectively conduct combat operations. Phase III Conclusion: This conclusion was further supported.
  7. Nothing could be determined from an analysis of the data regarding the Duration of Combat (Time) in urban versus non-urban terrain. Phase III Conclusion: Nothing could be determined from an analysis of the data regarding the Duration of Combat (Time) in urban versus non-urban terrain.

So, in Phase I we compared 46 urban and conurban engagements in the ETO to 91 non-urban engagements. In Phase II, we compared 51 urban and conurban engagements in an around Kharkov to 49 non-urban Kursk engagements. On Phase III, from Manila we compared 53 urban and conurban engagements to 41 non-urban engagements mostly from Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Manila. The next blog post on urban warfare will discuss our post-WWII data.

P.S. The picture is an aerial view of the destroyed walled city of Intramuros taken on May 1945

Are There Only Three Ways of Assessing Military Power?

military-power[This article was originally posted on 11 October 2016]

In 2004, military analyst and academic Stephen Biddle published Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, a book that addressed the fundamental question of what causes victory and defeat in battle. Biddle took to task the study of the conduct of war, which he asserted was based on “a weak foundation” of empirical knowledge. He surveyed the existing literature on the topic and determined that the plethora of theories of military success or failure fell into one of three analytical categories: numerical preponderance, technological superiority, or force employment.

Numerical preponderance theories explain victory or defeat in terms of material advantage, with the winners possessing greater numbers of troops, populations, economic production, or financial expenditures. Many of these involve gross comparisons of numbers, but some of the more sophisticated analyses involve calculations of force density, force-to-space ratios, or measurements of quality-adjusted “combat power.” Notions of threshold “rules of thumb,” such as the 3-1 rule, arise from this. These sorts of measurements form the basis for many theories of power in the study of international relations.

The next most influential means of assessment, according to Biddle, involve views on the primacy of technology. One school, systemic technology theory, looks at how technological advances shift balances within the international system. The best example of this is how the introduction of machine guns in the late 19th century shifted the advantage in combat to the defender, and the development of the tank in the early 20th century shifted it back to the attacker. Such measures are influential in international relations and political science scholarship.

The other school of technological determinacy is dyadic technology theory, which looks at relative advantages between states regardless of posture. This usually involves detailed comparisons of specific weapons systems, tanks, aircraft, infantry weapons, ships, missiles, etc., with the edge going to the more sophisticated and capable technology. The use of Lanchester theory in operations research and combat modeling is rooted in this thinking.

Biddle identified the third category of assessment as subjective assessments of force employment based on non-material factors including tactics, doctrine, skill, experience, morale or leadership. Analyses on these lines are the stock-in-trade of military staff work, military historians, and strategic studies scholars. However, international relations theorists largely ignore force employment and operations research combat modelers tend to treat it as a constant or omit it because they believe its effects cannot be measured.

The common weakness of all of these approaches, Biddle argued, is that “there are differing views, each intuitively plausible but none of which can be considered empirically proven.” For example, no one has yet been able to find empirical support substantiating the validity of the 3-1 rule or Lanchester theory. Biddle notes that the track record for predictions based on force employment analyses has also been “poor.” (To be fair, the problem of testing theory to see if applies to the real world is not limited to assessments of military power, it afflicts security and strategic studies generally.)

So, is Biddle correct? Are there only three ways to assess military outcomes? Are they valid? Can we do better?