I have had these books for a while but have only just had a chance to finish reading them. They are not for the feint of heart and use quantitative historical analysis and the hard science of tactical psychology to look at the impact of the stress of battle.
The United states Department of Defence DOD Instruction 6490.05. defines Combat and Operational Stress Reactions (COSRs) as “physical, emotional, cognitive, or behavioral reactions, adverse consequences, or psychological injuries of service members who have been exposed to stressful or traumatic events in combat or military operations,”. These COSRs can vary in severity depending on a variety of operational conditions, including intensity, duration, frequency of combat exposure, leadership, and unit morale.
Any military simulation needs to understand and incorporate these factors.
This is a great work of Operational Research by David Rowland. The Stress of Battle: Quantifying Human Performance in Combat is the end result of years of work by David Rowland and his team at the Ministry of Defence. Rowland was the father of historical analysis as a branch of Operational Research.
First published in 2006 this is one of the classic works on historical analysis of combat and some understanding of statistics is required to gain the full benefit from this in-depth work.
The book, sponsored by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), traces the development of quantitative historical analysis techniques within the British Ministry of Defence from studies (including trials and exercise monitoring) conducted in the 1970s. This analysis enables information to be compiled on more realistic combat modelling (using comparisons between simulated and real combat), particularly in relation to human behaviour and reactions, underpinning operational effectiveness, force structures and equipment procurement studies. Issues covered include: an introduction to operational research and historical analysis; combat trials, armour and anti-armour effectiveness studies; heroism and combat degradation; historical analysis of shock and surprise effects.
This particular work looks at a combination of field analysis experiments in the 1980s using lasers, well documented WW2 engagements and a handful of battles from other wars. Almost every page in it is packed with evidence or explanations of the complex methodology used to ensure that you could get controlled results from an otherwise messy and chaotic environment.
Rowland’s analysis highlights the following factors:
- Tanks suppress defenders, but you need at least two tanks per defending MG to have any effect;
- Combat degradation is about a factor of 10 compared to performance on firing ranges;
- Anti-tank guns focus the attention of tanks from suppressing MGs, and the bigger the anti-tank gun the more attention it diverts (unsurprisingly);
- Fortifications & obstacles (i.e. properly prepared defensive positions) increase defence effectiveness by a factor of 1.65;
- In defending against a 3:1 attack, the average rifleman will inflict 0.5 casualties on the attackers whereas a MG will inflict 4 casualties;
- 1 in 8 riflemen will cause 4 casualties, and the other 7 none;
MG equivalents for casualty causing are: 9 rifles = 1 MG; 1 medium mortar (81mm) = 3 MG;
- In urban combat typically three times as many defenders will surrender (some wounded) as are killed or withdraw, the only sensitivity on this is being completely surrounded (so 20% dead, 60% captured (incl wounded) and 20% withdraw);
- attack casualties are less affected by force ratio in urban attacks;
- successful defence of urban areas is best achieved by light defence with counter attacks supported by armour
The book is well illustrated with loads of graphs, diagrams and pictures from the field exercises to illustrate the points in the text.
This book takes a different view as military psychologist Leo Murray argues that the real question is: ‘How do we make the enemy stop fighting?’
War Games is a fascinating insight into how the human mind operates in combat situations.
Weaving together intense first-hand accounts of combat with the hard science of tactical psychology, Murray offers a compelling insight into how war affects the human mind. War Games is both a powerful glimpse through the eyes of fighting men and an urgent reminder that the future of modern warfare lies in understanding how the enemy thinks.
Fascinating and often chilling, this is the story of how psychology wins wars.
The main component of the book discusses the hard science of tactical psychology, from its basic components to its most compelling effects. Each chapter comes with a key fact, examining for example; the strength of aversion to killing, the number of artillery shells or rifle bullets needed to pin down a unit and the extent to which combat degrades rational thought.
The end result is a reasonably complete picture of how soldiers react to combat and how wars can be won by understanding the way enemy soldiers think.
If you are playing or designing wargames then these two books are an absolute must read and have on your book shelves.
Postscript:
The significant factor missing from both books is the impact of politics and ideology on the battlefield since the end of World War 2. In other words how have the “rules of engagement” impacted on Western armies capability to deal with the ideology and fanaticism of their opponents? Can Western armies with the value they place on human life (rightly) ever defeat an enemy who does not? Or are they doomed to winning military engagements but losing wars?
The rise of new world powers backed by ideology and military might may challenge these very concepts.
