Lanchester’s duel logic applies to ships as well as to individual soldiers

Evidence

When Lanchester modeled duels in his simulated ancient battles, he pictured soldiers grappling with other soldiers, but his logic works just as well for confrontations between larger entities. Ships attack other ships, fighter planes attack fighter planes, and nation-states attack rival nation-states. For these confrontations, too, the nature of the interaction matters, and opponents lining up one-on-one can spark an arms race. For example, for almost 1,500 years oared galleys churned through Mediterranean waters as Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks all battled for supremacy. For most of this period (1800–750 BCE) ship design remained largely unchanged. Fleets of long, canoe-like ships shuttled soldiers back and forth to battle, powered by sail when the winds cooperated and at all other times by sweat and muscle, as rows of oarsmen spaced along the length of each side pulled long oars in unison to propel the vessel. But somewhere around 750–700 BCE everything changed. A new weapon was added to the galleys: the battering ram. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 260

Categorization

• XREF: The animal-human warfare parallel the reader explicitly wants; connects to earlier chapters establishing Lanchester’s laws for soldier duels. — connects to: The bronze ram converted galleys into individuals subject to linear-law duels — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 261

Related

• The bronze ram converted galleys into individuals subject to linear-law duels (similarity 0.91)
• Weapons innovations trigger arms races in ships just as in animals (similarity 0.81)
• Big weapons only pay off when fights are one-on-one duels (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The bronze ram converted galleys into individuals subject to linear-law duels #expands (0.75) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 261