What if there was a piece of software that could predict — really, accurately predict — how a war was going to go?
The Economist reports on a “collaboration between computer programmers, mathematicians, weapons experts, military historians, retired generals and combat veterans” that’s been surprisingly prescient about conflicts’ length and casualty counts. The catch: it doesn’t work on counterinsurgencies and guerilla wars, like the one we now have in Iraq.
The Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model’s predictive power is due in large part to the mountain of data on which it draws, thought to be the largest historical combat database in the world. The Dupuy Institute’s researchers comb military archives worldwide, painstakingly assembling statistics which reveal cause-and-effect relationships, such as the influence of rainfall on the rate of rifle breakdowns during the Battle of the Ardennes, or the percentage of Iraqi soldiers killed in a unit before the survivors in that unit surrendered during the Gulf war.
Analysts then take a real battle or campaign and write equations linking causes (say, appropriateness of uniform camouflage) to effects (sniper kill ratios). These equations are then tested against the historical figures in the database, making it possible to identify relationships between the circumstances of an engagement and its outcome, says Chris Lawrence, the Dupuy Institute’s director since its founder’s death in 1995.
The TNDM’s reliance on real combat data, rather than results from war games or exercises, also gives it an edge. Another forecasting system, TACWAR, was used by America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Like many models, it was largely developed with data from war games. As a result, says Richard Anderson, a tank specialist at the Dupuy Institute, TACWAR and other programs based on laser tag exercises tend to run hot, or overestimate casualties. Real-bullet data is more reliable, because fear of death makes soldiers more conservative in actual combat than they are in exercises, resulting in fewer losses. The discipline is only just beginning to recognise the tremendous value of real-world verification, says Andreas Tolk, an eminent modelling scientist at Virginia’s Old Dominion University.
The next challenge will be to expand the TNDM’s ability to forecast the outcomes of asymmetric conflicts, such as the Iraqi insurgency. To this end, the Dupuy Institute is hoping to get its hands on the Vietcong archives, as Vietnam opens up. Insurgencies rarely leave much of a paper trail, but the Vietnamese kept detailed records of their struggle against the French and Americans. The resulting papers provide the world’s most extensive documentation of guerrilla fighting.
(Big ups: JVD)
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
What a load of nonsense. Even if you had a program you would need perfect inteligence of your own capabilities and then you would need perfect intelligence of the enemies capabilities. This would have to be an almost instantanious update as each side reacted to the others changing strategies.
Computer geeks have thier uses but this is not one of them.
Good Morning Folfs,
Just a wild a** suggestion here is, insteading of asking the Generals and Admirals who warm chairs in the Pentagon, why not ask the Lieutenants, Sergants and EM’s who are in it everyday.
A point here has anybody else noticed that with each war since the Civil War American flag officers have moved farther and farther away from the battlespace?
In every war the Generals discount this point of view but when the history books are writen it is always what the dogs on the ground or on deck saw that turned out to be what was happening.
All that this sofware scheme will do is keep the General and Admirals delusional longer and get more people killed.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
I say Combine the above with even Movie scenarios for Homeland Security & local PD forces & have those nearest the Combat acess this data aside those in the E Ring.
Id like to ask TACWAR when is WW3
When will Israel be assulted by enemy forces.
When will Megiddo be the Final battlesite???
Now make software flexible for Disasters or Riots.
Id examine all wars from WW1- Today & maybe Crimea War, Franco Prussian War, 100 Years War.
Below sample movies to use:
The Seige
THX 1138
Blade Runner
Die Hard 2.
6th Day
Terminator 1-3.
Good Day,
I do think that we should take a critical look at any model that tries to “predict”. Just look at what we have been doing with natural disasters and certainly with much less data. Why would anyone reject the notion that we need to “do a better job” at planning for the future?
I have been in the business of educating K to Gray and am amazed at how very little has changed from the time that I was in school. Perhaps those of us who think and do want to do a better job should begin to find a way to apply some of the simulation modeling to our education systems. I have been doing this task for 20 years, with lots of success but find little support from people who want to do things the same old way.
I applaud the effort to improve our understanding of warfare. Perhaps educated policy makers will be able to make decisions and implement them with more accurate informaion. Perhaps we will not go to” war” in the future without planning and understanding the potential consequences.
Dr. Arlene A. O’Leary
Looking at the amount of warfare ever conducted and the time passed, I’d submit that any algorithm would naturally predict a 90% chance of peace for 90% of humanity 90% of the time.
The rest are fighting for religious or survival reasons [yes, I consider Capitalism as a religion] that are easily moderated or assuaged. Yes easily, when the priorities / expectations are set correctly and the fawning audience is reactive instead.
The truth of our moment is that a non-reality has been an excuse for death and atrocity. This is not what we are capable of. Yes, Rodney, we can just get along and we’d be somewhat stupid to not give that our best attention.
What is not ridiculous about any industry complaining that peace will ‘hurt revenues’ ?
We’ve lived off of the myth long enough. Some people do NOT just have to be sacrificed in the name of victory. Especially one based upon blatant fraud.
Researchers love discovery any way it comes! Their paycheck shouldn’t be laundered through the killing mill.
The truth of our moment is that a non-reality has been an excuse for death and atrocity. This is not what we are capable of. Yes, Rodney, we can just get along and we’d be somewhat stupid to not give that our best attention.
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No, the model actual works pretty well. Nor perfectly, but well. I've used the original paper ancestor of it. However, it is an analyst's tool. It doesn't magically tell you anything without accurate data and someone well grounded in military history/operations analysis to evaluate that data and put it into the model correctly. Put in bad data, and get an inaccurate result. It is only as good as the person plugging in the data.
Those interested in examining the basic structure of the model can find the basics of it in Trevor Dupuy's now out of print book Numbers, Predictions and War, with some new data tables and formula from another of his books, Attrition: Forecasting Casualties in Battle, and some of TDI's newsletters.
It works far better than any other model available, such as the ridiculous simulators the Pentagon used to use, like ATLAS.
Given good data, it can tell a commander whether an operation will be a total walkover, a risky proposition, or just be hopeless from the beginning, and give reasonable casualty predictions within +-15% or so. That actually has quite a lot of application.