AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary

Lanchester at Salamis

Status: Prior

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

Lanchester at Salamis. Lanchester's attrition laws meet ancient naval history: ramming warfare concentrates force like aimed fire, so galley battles obey the square law, while phalanx battles, fought rank against rank on a fixed frontage, obey the linear law — two regimes of the same mathematics separated by a shoreline.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Compiling Greco-Roman naval engagements with recorded fleet strengths and ship losses (n >= 25), the regression of log loss-exchange ratio on log initial force ratio yields an exponent between 1.6 and 2.4, while the same regression on land battles from the same sources yields <= 1.3, with non-overlapping 90% confidence intervals; equal exponents, or naval below land, kill it.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: digitized engagement tables from Kromayer-Veith's Antike Schlachtfelder and the Morrison-Coates trireme-battle compilations.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Generated by a fresh Fable-tier instance at maximum effort with generation-first blindness (no repo/web/DB access); titles-only knowledge of existing items, embedded in titles_supplied per the batch-2 lane rule; prompt pre-committed in docs/GOAL_CONJECTURES_BATCH3_20260705.md (b043140). Novelty unverified by construction. titles_supplied stripped to the committed sidecar conjecture_fresh_fablemax_batch3_titles_supplied_20260705.md at import (schema additionalProperties:false; relaxation queued).

Novelty / leakage triage

Adjacent (closely related prior work exists)

Lanchester-on-historical-battles is an established (and contested) validation literature (Engel; Dupuy Institute), but no ancient-naval application or >=25-engagement dataset was located — and a contrary indication stands: standard treatments classify ancient naval BOARDING under the linear law, against the conjecture's ramming-square-law split. Any registration must confront that classification and the mixed validation record.

Lanchester's laws (standard exposition) — Boarding classified linear — contrary indication
Dupuy Institute, 'The Lanchester Equations and Historical Warfare' — Mixed validation even for modern battles

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.

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