Narrow entrance gates cancel the numerical advantage of massed attackers, favoring the better-armed defender

Evidence

Narrow gates work the same way for termites. The strength of siafu armies lies in their numbers. Masses of ants pour over prey, biting and slicing all at the same time. Unlucky grasshoppers or spiders are overwhelmed because they are attacked by thousands of soldiers at once. Lanchester’s square law helps make sense of this outcome. Just like soldiers concentrating their fire on an opposing army, the simultaneous attack of thousands of ants can overwhelm even the best of fighters. But termite mounds eradicate this numerical advantage, since only a few ants can fit into each entrance at a time. Narrow gateways convert the battlefield from one of mass attack to one of individual confrontations, akin to dung beetles defending tunnels. In this type of fight, the better-armed soldier prevails. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 488

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Lanchester’s square law from earlier human-warfare discussions of massed fire concentration; the termite mound as a fortress parallels Lachish walls. — connects to: Breached fortifications restore numerical advantage to massed attackers in termite warfare — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 490
• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates Lanchester’s square law’s application outside human warfare.

Related

• Breached fortifications restore numerical advantage to massed attackers in termite warfare (similarity 0.87)
• Fortified positions let termite soldiers defeat numerically superior army ants (similarity 0.85)
• Fortified architecture lets termites negate an enemy’s numerical superiority (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Breached fortifications restore numerical advantage to massed attackers in termite warfare #corroborates (0.75) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 490