[thechat] Lanchester's Law: Too Few American Soldiers

Chris Marsh chris at ecleanuk.com
Mon Apr 7 09:54:01 CDT 2003


[..]
> > > A maths professor explains why the US probably hasn't sent enough 
> > > > troops to Iraq, which is possibly why it's progressing slower
than 
> > > > expected.
> > >
> > > But if you send twice as many troops, you're giving
> > > the enemy twice as many targets to shoot at, and
> > > you can expect twice as many deaths.
> >
> > Not if you stack 'em up one behind the other ;)
> 
> So you're basically saying they always ride single file, to hide their
> numbers?

Nice by-product, but I was really getting at the fact that the enemy
would only have one target at any one time if all troops positioned
themselves behind the guy in front of them. Of course I was being
facetious, so am completely aware of the enormous, gaping flaws in this
logic.

Regards

Chris Marsh

"It's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers
that might be wrong."    - Richard Feynman



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