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How Statistics Gave the Allied Forces an Edge in World War II
It’s World War II and you’re a data scientist (or a statistician, as they were known at the time) for the Allied forces. D-Day is approaching and you need to estimate how many tanks the Germans have. You do know that the Germans have a sequential numbering system (1, 2, …, n), and you know the serial codes for a small sample of captured German tanks. To overshoot the estimation means that resources spent on preparing the Allies for D-Day will not be going to battles in other geographic regions, and to undershoot the estimation could mean a massacre on the shores of Normandy. It’s imperative that you get this number right. How do you go about approaching this problem?
Take a moment and think about it — the statisticians in WWII couldn’t scroll down for an answer!
In this article, I’ll cover:
- A deeper dive into the German Tank Problem’s historical context.
- How the historical solution works with intuitive illustrations.
- Computer simulation experiments and code to further prove its effectiveness.
This is a fascinating example of statistics saving lives. I implore the reader to take their time in understanding…
