Sorry about the OT, but I can't find what I'm looking for in Google.

A friend of mine, a Colonel in the US Army stationed in Iraq,
has noticed that the convoys are experiencing too many rear-end
collisions. In a recent such incident three soldiers were trapped
inside a burning truck and died.

The Army teaches them to maintain 100 meters between vehicles going
50 kph (~30 mph). These vehicles are carrying huge payloads of several
tons each. There is a gunner at the rear of each vehicle covering the
following vehicle. The gunner sometimes motions the driver of that
vehicle to move in closer.

I do not want to start a big thread here. The only question I want to
focus on is this: Is there a website which shows a mathematical model
of vehicles traveling in a convoy which takes into account varying
distances between vehicles.

The fundamental question we are trying to answer is this: If the
first vehicle in the convoy stops suddenly, do the reaction times of
each subsequent driver accumulate so that, at some point, a rear-end
collision is inevitable? The accident in which three soldiers died
involved the 14th, 15th and 16th vehicles in a convoy of 33.

TIA,

Andy Mai