The Calculation of a Miracle: The Persian Gulf War, 1991
Harold Gans July 11, 2021
On January 17, 1991, a coalition of armed forces from 34 countries led by the United States started operation Desert Storm to liberate recently-conquered Kuwait from Iraq. Iraq began its retaliation the next day. Over a period of several weeks, 39 modified Scud B (Al Hussein) missiles were fired at Israel, with 14 exploding in highly-populated residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. (The remainder of the Scuds were either duds, or landed in the wilderness, in the Mediterranean, or were intercepted by U.S. Patriot anti-missile missiles.) Two Israelis were directly killed by these Scuds, and 11 were seriously injured.
In 1993, a scientific paper written by Fetter, Lewis, and Gronlund, entitled “Why Were Scud Casualties So Low?” was published in the prestigious British scientific journal Nature.[1] An expanded and more detailed version of the paper appeared a few months later.[2] The low casualty rate had attracted professional scientific interest. The paper uses a standard mathematical formula to predict the number of casualties expected in a missile attack. The formula is an extrapolation from past missile attacks and takes into account three parameters that modify the extrapolation: a) the size of the warhead, b) the population density, and c) whether there was warning of the attack.
The extrapolation used by the Fetter et al paper was based on casualty statistics from thousands of V1 and hundreds of V2 rocket attacks on London during World War II. The V1 “buzz bombs” gave warning of their approach, while the V2 rockets did not. On average in London, each V2 rocket caused about twice as many casualties as did a V1 rocket.
As a test of the accuracy of the extrapolation, the formula was first applied to the 125 modified Scud B missiles that exploded in Teheran, Iran between February 29, 1988 and April 4, 1988 during the “war of the cities” between Iran and Iraq. The Scuds gave no warning of their approach, so the extrapolation was based only on the casualty rates from the V2 rockets in London. Reports indicate that, on average, between 9.2 and 16 people in Teheran were killed per Scud. Taking into account the difference in warhead size between the V2 and the Scud, as well as the difference between the population density of London and Teheran, the formula predicts an average of 14.4 deaths per Scud in Teheran. This prediction is accurate, since 14.4 is between 9.2 and 16. Similarly, the predicted number of seriously injured per Scud in Teheran, 35.1, is close to the observed value of approximately 32 per Scud. The Fetter et al paper notes that the accuracy of the prediction is obtained in spite of the differences in construction between structures in London and Teheran. London homes are built with brick; buildings in Teheran are built with reinforced concrete, as are buildings in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
The Israel Anomaly
Having established that the extrapolation formula works well, and that the difference in construction between brick and reinforced concrete structures does not adversely affect the accuracy of the extrapolation, the Fetter et al paper applies the formula to the case of the Scud attacks on Tel Aviv and Haifa. The missiles used against Iran and Israel were the same. Noting that the Israelis had warning of incoming Scuds from shared American satellite tracking data, and accounting for differences in population density, the formula predicts that the 14 scuds that exploded in residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa should have resulted in a total of 21 deaths and 61 seriously injured.[3] This is significantly more than the two deaths and 11 serious injuries that occurred. The paper notes that the total number of casualties caused by all 14 Scud impacts in Israel is less than the average number of casualties caused by a single missile explosion in London or Teheran.”[4] How does one explain such an incredible discrepancy?
The Fetter et al papers offer several possible explanations.[5] First, there is the inaccuracy of the Scuds and the fact that some of them were duds. However, this has no relevance at all to the extrapolation, which is based solely on the number of actual explosions (14) in residential areas and not on the number of missiles launched (39).
The second possibility offered to explain the small number of casualties in Israel is that Israeli structures are made of reinforced concrete while the buildings in London are made of brick. This difference is, however, irrelevant since the extrapolation worked well for Teheran, where the buildings are constructed with reinforced concrete, just as in Tel Aviv and Haifa.[6] Furthermore, the number of residential buildings and apartments destroyed in Tel Aviv and Haifa was exactly as expected based on the London experience. The final answer given is sheer luck! The Israelis were just very lucky![7]
From Where What When, here.