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From: rshu@ads.com (Richard Shu)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Combat Simulation
Message-ID: <5387@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 Apr 89 02:19:18 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7300
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From: Richard Shu <rshu@ads.com>
In article <5332@cbnews.ATT.COM> Steven J. Owens writes:

>Is there any good method for simulating a battle simply, without going 
>through everything at a tactical level, but giving each side more options 
>and detail than simply "1000 men on side A versus 100 men on side B, 
>side B loses"?

If you include mathematical models in your definition of simulation,
you should look at a posting I've submitted about mathematical combat models.

>The perfect solution to this would be some sort of mult-dimensional
>array with each dimension representing either a battlefield condition, a
>goal, a strategy, etc.... and then to resolve the battle you cross-ref
>all of the dimensions and arrive at an answer that gives both statistics
>(X number of men on side A killed) and results in plain english (Side A
>driven back from the defensive position of side B).  

>Naturally that's only a pipedream, but how close to that can I get?

You should look at COL Trevor Dupuy's book:

@book{QJM,
key = "dupuy85",
title = "Numbers, Predictions \& War",
author = "Dupuy, T.",
publisher = "HERO Books",
address = "Fairfax VA",
Year = "1985"}

He has developed a set of equations based on a historical database of
combats.  I think that's what you want.  Read it and then let me know
what you think.  Is it a pipedream to base predictions of combat results
on historical data?

Rich

Question: Is there any relationship between General William E. Dupuy
          (the first TRADOC commander) and COL Trevor N. Dupuy?  
          I assume not but it would be curious if there were.

[mod.note:  Col. Dupuy co-authored "The Encyclopedia of Military
History" with another Dupuy, his father, I believe.  I'll try to check
at home tonight to be sure.

Also, I believe T.N. Dupuy has another book, "Understanding War"
on a similar topic.

- Bill ]