Love-Dupuy Collection
of
Empirical Data and Models
(Created April 2023)

F.W. Lanchester's Equations

The famous “Lanchester Equations” used in various forms for empirical combat resolution originated with work that Lanchester did for “Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm”, published in 1916; which I've managed to obtain digital copies of, below:

Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm (1916) (141.2 MB Color PDF)
Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm (1916) (24.4 MB Grayscale PDF)

While his equations have been published many times in clearer format in the century since he published them; it's nice to have the originals so you can see the overall context of his work.

Trevor Nevitt Dupuy's Empirical Work

In October 1964, T.N. Dupuy's Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO) completed their study “Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality” that underpinned a significant portion of HERO's later work (as well as it's successors).

The actual study is relatively hard to get, since some annexes are no longer on DTIC; so they're here in their entirety.

Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality – Final Report (5.1 MB PDF)
Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality – Annex I: Basic Historical Studies (5.1 MB PDF)
Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality – Annex II: Science, Technology, and Weapons Development in History (2.3 MB PDF)
Historical Trends Related to Weapon Lethality – Annex III: Comparative Analysis of Historical Studies (6.9 MB PDF)

Dupuy was focused on quantifying as many parameters in combat as possible empirically, using military history as his “laboratory”; and it is for this reason his work is useful for casualty estimation, as it is somewhat available to the average web denizen.

Average Casualty Rates for War Games, Based on Historical Combat Data, Section 1 (Feb 1967) (22.4 MB PDF)
Average Casualty Rates for War Games, Based on Historical Combat Data, Section 2 (Feb 1967) (5~ MB PDF)
Average Casualty Rates for War Games, Based on Historical Combat Data, Section 3 (Feb 1967) (7.7 MB PDF)
Opposed Rates of Advance of Large Forces in Europe (ORALFORE) (August 1972) (24.5 MB PDF)
A Study of Breakthrough Operations (1976) (5.6 MB PDF)
Studies on Soviet Combat Performance (June 1977) (15.4 MB PDF)
The Value of Field Fortifications in Modern Warfare – Volume 1 (December 1979) (8.1 MB PDF)
Conventional Attrition and Battle Termination Criteria (August 1982) (4 MB PDF)
Casualty Estimates for Contingencies: Volume II – Appendix (November 1985) (7.8 MB PDF)
HERO: Handbook on Ground Forces Attrition in Modern Warfare (September 1986) (7.8 MB PDF)
Forced Changes of Combat Posture (September 1988) (8.7 MB PDF)
Capture Rate Study: Phase III – Post-WWII Capture Rates (November 2000) (5.7 MB PDF)

There may be far more detailed studies done by the Soviet (and now Russian) Militaries related to empirical quantification, but they're locked behind a language barrier.

Empirical Models/Assumptions

Soviet Anti-Tank Belt Model – This presents a Soviet formula used during the 1940s to determine the density of AT guns needed per kilometer of frontage needed to stop a tank attack.

WWII Weapon Effect Assumptions – This presents commonly used assumptions by the warring powers used in determining weapon effectiveness during World War II.

Albert G. Love's Casualty Estimation Work

Colonel Albert G. Love

In October of 1917, Major Albert G. Love was assigned to duty as officer in charge of the U.S. Army's Medical Records Section, after spending most of 1910-1914 as a Captain in the Medical Records Section. Back then, MRS was part of the Sanitation Division in the Surgeon General`s Office.

Love would remain connected with the medical community in the U.S. Army over the next few decades, eventually rising to Colonel in charge of the Historical Section, before retiring as a Brigadier General.

Love's big “break” came with World War I.

Because there was no suitable method yet in stone for forecasting casualties, the AEF initially only had 18,000 total hospital beds when the Meuse-Argonne offensive started in September 1917. In the first few days of the M-A Offensive, casualties were well over eighteen thousand, leading to many preventable deaths.

After WWI, the then-Surgeon General at the time – Merritte Ireland – steered Love into analyzing the data available from the just concluded conflict using “modern” punch card tabulation machines.

Finally in 1930, Love published his work War Casualties: Their Relation to Medical Service and Replacements in issue 24 of the Army Medical Bulletin.

Two years later in 1932, the Staff Officer's Field Manual (1932) was published, using some of Love's work for casualty estimation.

In January 1941, Love posted slightly revised battle loss tables for the AEF in issue 55 of the Army Medical Bulletin; and a few months later, revised versions of Love's data from War Casualties were published in FM 8-55 Medical Field Manual, Reference Data (5 March 1941).

These two documents – Army Medical Bulletin #24 and FM 8-55 – would underpin a large portion of US casualty estimation during World War II, with some variation in the modernized Staff Officers Field Manuals of the wartime period: FM 101-10 (1941) (October 1943) (October 1944) (August 1945); as there would be repeated callbacks to Love's work:

A 12 August 1943 Casualty Estimate by the COSSAC medical staff for Normandy had a notation at the top: “[derived using] Gen Love’s Scheme of Estimation of Casualties” – in Operation ‘Overlord,’ Casualty Estimates (Excl of Air Force)’’ August 12. 1943. Evelyn A Sutton Papers. The Museum of Military Medicine Archives. Keogh Barracks, U.K.
Post-War Interview of General Guy Denit – in NARA II, RG319, Entry UD-UP 18, Box 24

Page 4:
Love's tables: D. was not very much impressed with them when they were drawn up. He thought that as they were based on past experience they would not be very useful in the next war. They were not used in the Pacific. There, estimates were based on current experience; the lessons of the Buna campaign, for example were used to forecast the results of the next operation. Love's estimates were based on the availability of 12-15% beds, whereas D. never had more than 6%.

Page 7:
With respect to anticipating casualty rates in the Pacific, Denit gave full credit to his staff officer (whom he did not name, I believe) who used a slide-rule and not Love's Tables in estimating bed requirements. "The fellow who was doing that work for me didn't miss. He didn't miss a forecast more than 300 men in any one invasion."

Bibliography

AMEDD Journal; January-June 2018 – The Figures of Experience: A Brief History of Risk and Planning Within the Army Medical Community by Major Michael H. Mobbs (768 KB PDF)

AMEDD Historian #17, Spring 2017 – How Many Hospitals to Deploy? by Sanders Marble, Senior Historian, ACHH (937 kb PDF)

DuPuy Institute Blog – ‘Love’s Tables’: U.S. War Department Casualty Estimation in World War II (LINK)

U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence, Stimson Library Digital Collections (LINK)

“Love's Tables”

Army Medical Bulletin #24: War Casualties: Their Relation to Medical Service and Replacements (1930) – 10.8 MB PDF
Army Medical Bulletin #55: Revised Tables for War Casualties (1941) – 15.9 MB PDF

Inter-War and World War II Field Manuals with Casualty Estimation Data

Staff Officer's Field Manual (1932) – 29 MB PDF
FM 8-15 Medical Field Manual, Medical Service of the Corps and Army (25 Feb 1941) – 7.7 MB PDF (data on % return to duty per day)
FM 8-55 Medical Field Manual, Reference Data (5 March 1941) – 8.1 MB PDF / 2 MB PDF
FM 101-10 Staff Officers' Field Manual: Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (June 1941) – 47.3 MB PDF
FM 101-10 Staff Officers' Field Manual: Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (October 1943) ← Don't Have
FM 101-10 Staff Officers' Field Manual: Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (October 1944) ← Don't Have
FM 101-10 Staff Officers' Field Manual: Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (August 1945) – 9.2 MB PDF

World War II Publications with Casualty Estimation Data

Starting in February 1943, the Army Service Forces (ASF) published a monthly report for each of it's various sections. Section 7 was the Surgeon's Office's Report, and it was published under the heading “Health”. It ran from February 1943 to May 1946, upon which it became “Health of the Army”. The reason I've reprinted the whole run of the wartime Health report is that they contain a wealth of casualty data if one knows where to look. A permanent online link is at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at NIH (HERE)./

1943 Reports (Arranged Chronologically)

1944 Reports (Arranged Chronologically)

1945 Reports (Arranged Chronologically)

Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (31-JAN-1945) -- 12.65 MB PDF

1946 Reports (Arranged Chronologically)

Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (31-JAN-1946) -- 9.28 MB PDF
Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (28-FEB-1946) -- 7.48 MB PDF
Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (31-MAR-1946) -- 8.25 MB PDF
Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (30-APR-1946) -- 6.92 MB PDF
Army Service Forces, Monthly Report, Section 7 -- Health (31-MAY-1946) -- 8.36 MB PDF

Post-World War II Field Manuals with Casualty Estimation Data

FM 8-55 Army Medical Service Planning Guide (October 1960) – 4.6 MB PDF
FM 8-55 Planning for Health Service Support (15 February 1985) ← Don't Have
FM 8-55 Planning for Health Service Support (September 1994) – 2.9 MB PDF
NATO Planning Guide for the Estimation of CBRN Casualties (Study Draft 2 – Nov 2014) – 9.6 MB PDF
NATO Planning Guide for the Estimation of CBRN Casualties (Edition A, Ver 1 – Oct 2017) – 8.1 MB PDF

The Modern US Whole Bloods System

These documents don't have casualty metrics, but have logistical data for the “modern” US Military Whole Bloods system.

Operational Procedures For The Armed Services Blood Program Elements (TM 8-227-11 / NAVMED P-5123 / AFI 44-118) (1 Sep 2007)
Armed Services Blood Program – Joint Blood Program Handbook (TM 8-227-12 / NAVMED P-6530 / AFH 44-152) (Dec 2011)
DOD Instruction 6480.04 – Armed Services Blood Program (7 January 2022)

Post-World War II Studies on Empirical Data (Casualties or other Metrics)

Miscellaneous, organized by Year

Air Evacuation and its Effect on Theater and Zone of Interior Hospitalization Requirements (1947) 5.3 MB PDF – [Excerpted Tidbits] This covers a lot of stuff such as early helicopters, C-54, C-74, etc in evacuating medical casualties. Also tables of logistical efficiency in various methods of evacuating casualties – you can see why we have no more hospital ships in large numbers anymore once late 1940s transport aircraft appeared.

Battle Casualties: Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations (1952) – 34.5 MB PDF – Another seminal work by Gilbert W. Beebe with a new co-author in Michael E. DeBakey. This has a large amount of statistical tables from US Army WW2 data.

Cost of Non-Battle Injuries and Diseases as Compared to Battle Casualties (1954) – 2.8 MB PDF – This paper by Colonels B.D. Holland and A.P. Long was presented at the 61st annual convention of the Association of Military Surgeons of U.S. in 1954, and later reprinted in a 1955 issue of Military Medicine.

Variation In Psychological Tolerance to Ground Combat in World War II (April 1958) – 39.2 MB PDF – Seminal work by Gilbert W. Beebe and John W. Appel on psychological casualties in WWII performed under Contract DA-49-007-MD-172 for the Department of the Army in April 1958 under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences. This study is referenced in just about every reference on psychological casualties. (Internet Archive LINK for Preservation)

US Army Battle Casualties in Korea by Frederick W. Cleaver (ORO-T-71 [AFFE]) (October 1956) – 3.1 MB PDF.

1973 USMC Casualty Terminology – Taken from Marine Corps Casualty Procedures Manual (February 1973).

HCSD Report 81-011: Casualty Estimation Sub-Study: Disease and Non-Battle Injury Rates (1981) (1.9 MB PDF)

Combat Stress Reactions Occurring in the IDF during the Lebanon Conflict of 1982 (1982) (1.2 MB PDF)

Israeli Battle Shock Casualties: 1973 and 1982 (August 1983) – 2.4 MB PDF

CAA-TP-87-6: Analysis of Historical Artillery Expenditures (AHART) Study – CY 87 (June 1987) (10.5 MB PDF) – This document has some rough estimates for historical rounds per day vs 1980's WARRAMP (Wartime Requirements for Ammunition, Materiel, and Personnel) followed by a bibliography of studies on Artillery Consumption. (Click for Excerpt).

CAA-RP-90-1: Rates of Advance in Historical Land Combat Operations (June 1990) (8.5 MB PDF)

Correlation of Forces: The Quest For a Standardized Model (1993) (4.9 MB PDF) – This is a monograph written for the School of Advanced Military Studies that includes copies of “standardized” wargaming values for certain formations such as T-72 battalions, etc.

Large-Scale Combat Operations, Casualties, and the All-Volunteer Force – A Monograph by Major David R. Jones (2019) – This document has some nice tables on the 80th Infantry Division, showing monthly losses, and table excerpts from cold war versions of FM 101-10.

The 43rd Infantry Division: Unit Cohesion and Neuropsychiatric Casualties (1999) (7 MB PDF) – This doesn't have much “hard” tables, instead focusing more on the intangibles of “combat fatigue” in a very neglected theater (early war SWPA).

Battle Trauma and DNBI (2000) (401 KB PDF) – This paper was presented at a meeting in Kiev in September 2000 and has copies of the rough baseline NATO stats for battle casualties for an army level mission per ACE Directive 85-8, as well as Return to Duty / Admission to Hospital rates.

Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)

P-1903: The Relationship of Battle Damage to Unit Combat Performance (April 1986) – 5.6 MB PDF – This includes some data on how increasing levels of sleep deprivation destroy the combat ability of a fighting force.

P-5220: Casualty Estimation for Nuclear and Radiological Weapons (June 2016) – 1~ MB PDF.

Naval Health Research Center

#90-16: Shipboard and Ground Troop Casualty Rates among Navy and Marine Corps Personnel during WWII Operations – 1.6 MB PDF
#91-1: Analyses of Battle Casualties by Weapon Type aboard U.S. Navy Warships (February 1991) – 1 MB PDF
#91-15: The Dynamics of Casualty Rate Estimation, Medical Resource Allocation, and Disease and Injury Surveillance – 693 KB PDF
#92-1: The Relationship Between Battle Intensity and Disease Rates among Marine Corps Infantry Units – 870 kb PDF
#93-12 Comparisons of Medical Presentation and Admission Rates During Various Combat Operations – 1.2 MB PDF
#93-16: The Battle for Hue: Casualty and Disease Rates During Urban Warfare – 791 KB PDF
#93-35: Projections of Battlefield Medical Casualties Among U.S. Marine Forces for Various Theaters of Operations – 2.9 MB PDF
#94-2B: A Simulation Program to Project Casualty and Illness Rates – 656 KB PDF
#96-10J: Incorporating Adversary-Specific Adjustments into the FORECAS Ground Casualty Projection Model – 2.8 MB PDF
#97-3C: Using the Shipboard Casualty Projection System (SHIPCAS) to Forecast Ship Hits and Casualty Sustainment – 1.5 MB PDF
#97-39: Using the Ground Forces Casualty Forecasting System (FORECAS) to Project Casualty Sustainment – 1.8 MB PDF
#02-02: Development of Modules for the Refinement of Marine Corps Casualty Estimates – 956 KB PDF
#03-21: Modeling Casualty Sustainment During Peacekeeping Operations – 371 KB PDF
#13-61: A Statistical Approach for Estimating Casualty Rates During Combat Operations – 615 KB PDF
#20-32: Forecasting Wounded-In-Action Casualty Rates for Ground Combat Operations – 1.3 MB PDF

Kursk Operation Simulation And Validation Exercise (KOSAVE) Study by US Army Concepts Analysis Agency (1990s)

Fitting Firepower Score Models to the Battle of Kursk Data (2000) (7 MB PDF) – This is a thesis that uses the 1990s Kursk Operation Simulation And Validation Exercise (KOSAVE) / KDB database to validate various models. It shows attrition day by day for both sides.

CAA-SR-98-7: Kursk Operation Simulation and Validation Exercise - Phase II (KOSAVE II) (12.5 MB PDF)

Ground Forces Battle Casualty Rate Pattern Study by Logistics Management Institute for US OSD (1987-1991)

GFBCRP: Uses in Casualty Estimation and Simulation Evaluation – Presentation by George Kuhn (October 1992) – 2.9 MB PDF
Ground Forces Battle Casualty Rate Patterns – The Empirical Evidence (FP703TR1) – 10.2 MB PDF
Ground Forces Battle Casualty Rate Patterns – Current Rate Projections Compared to the Empirical Evidence (FP703TR2) – 10.8 MB PDF
Ground Forces Battle Casualty Rate Patterns – Suggested Planning Considerations (FP703TR3) – 6.2 MB PDF

Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations Study by US Army Concepts Analysis Agency (1990s)

CAA-RP-93-2: Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations: An Annotated Bibliography (JUN 1993) – 20.2 MB PDF

CAA-RP-93-4: Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations: A Catalog of Attrition and Casual Data Bases on Diskettes Useable with Personal Computers (SEP 1993) – 7.9 MB PDF

CAA-RP-95-1: Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations: Some Empirical Relations Among Force Sizes, Battle Durations, Battle Dates, and Casualties (MAR 1995) – 7.1 MB PDF

CAA-RP-95-5: Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations: Losses Of National Populations, Armed Forces, Army Groups, and Lower Level Land Combat Forces (APR 1996) -7.7 MB PDF

CAA-RP-97-1: Personnel Attrition Rates in Historical Land Combat Operations: Losses Of Divisions and Lower Level Land Combat Forces APR 1997) – 17 MB PDF