Dr Johnson’s team is one of several groups who, in previous papers, have shown that
Richardson’s power law also applies to attacks by terrorists and insurgents.
Dr Johnson’s team is one of several groups who, in previous papers, have shown that
Richardson’s power law also applies to attacks by terrorists and insurgents.
Guy was ahead of his time in many respects.
Bump for later reading.
Interesting theory. It seems to be putting numbers into rough correlation with common sense.
The comments at the original article are very interesting.
If you look back three articles earlier in the forum you’ll find an article about a “Chef” and looking at the previous six articles from there yields two more. That’s three out of six articles in a row about “chefs”. Based upon this I must conclude that Freerepublic is predomiantly about food and cooking! Grandpa Random never sleeps.
Technology can reduce the number of total friendly casualties by providing better targeting data and better accuracy of fire - but so long as hostile fire inflicts any casualties at all, if you aren't taking any friendly fire casualties you are not pressing your firepower advantage hard enough.
In fact, if you are able to inflict a hundred times more casualties than the than your opponent does, the number of total casualties you suffer will be minimized by making the rules of engagement so aggressive that the number of friendly fire casualties actually approximates the number of hostile fire casualties.
Corwallis demonstrated his understanding of the principle in a battle against Greene in the campaign leading up to Yorktown when he was presented with a situation where his flank was about to crumble and he in danger of losing the battle. To the horror of his subordinate officers, Cornwallis ordered his artillery to decimate all the hostile soldiers on that flank - consciously inflicting heavy casualties on his own troops on that flank in order to turn the battle as a whole.