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For example, in a battle between 1000 men on side A and 750 men on side B in the era of close combat (sword and shield), you'd wind up with 250 men on Side A and 0 on Side B after an engagement to the finish. That's a 75% loss rate for the superior force.
With ranged fire, you have a more complex situation. The following example ignores terrain and morale for the purposes of illustrating the basic principle.
Suppose that Side A has 1,000 soldiers engaged, against 750 for Side B. Casualty rates are identical: 10% per volley of fire (1000 soldiers firing = 100 hits). Volleys are assumed to occur simultaneously.
We come up with the following table:
Time Increment | Side A Force | Side B Force | Ratio A:B |
0 | 1,000 | 750 | 1.33 |
1 | 925 | 650 | 1.42 |
2 | 860 | 558 | 1.54 |
3 | 804 | 472 | 1.70 |
4 | 757 | 392 | 1.93 |
5 | 718 | 316 | 2.27 |
6 | 686 | 244 | 2.81 |
7 | 662 | 175 | 3.78 |
8 | 644 | 109 | 5.91 |
9 | 633 | 45 | 14.07 |
10 | 628 | 0 | Infinite |
As you can see, the side with superior numbers gains an ever-widening level of superiority over the enemy, taking less than 40% losses in exchange for annihilating the enemy.