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Rockopolis posted:Makes sense. Guess I gotta wait for the actual soft helmets to come out of development. Be kind of cool if they end up looking like that. https://www.breachbangclear.com/wonders-tanker-helmets/ Various armies had some form of helmet for tankers, and this was usually something along the lines of a leather helmet with rubber/protective padding. Not sure when exactly their general use declined during World War II.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:18
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Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:26
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Raenir Salazar posted:Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills. This is laughably untrue and anyone who believes so should go to a firing range, stand next to a shooter, and write out his will in quadruplicate while waiting to die.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:29
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Thalantos posted:Shrugs. Unit history records? What, 'today the first platoon killed 20 dudes and injured 12'? I doubt it. We arent talking about fighter pilots here. How would they even know?
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Aug 13, 2018 18:34
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“We came under fire from an entrenched position today. We called in artillery and found only 4 bodies in large enough pieces to identify.”
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Aug 13, 2018 18:38
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feedmegin posted:What, 'today the first platoon killed 20 dudes and injured 12'? I doubt it. We arent talking about fighter pilots here. How would they even know? Well, captured POWs would help, as well as general AAR to check on enemy positions and counting dead on both sides, but it would be really hard to pin down who killed what and how many without a lot of research and sources.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:38
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Raenir Salazar posted:Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills. Pretty sure the maneuvering and small unit doctrine of the time made this extremely unlikely.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:40
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Jobbo_Fett posted:This is laughably untrue and anyone who believes so should go to a firing range, stand next to a shooter, and write out his will in quadruplicate while waiting to die. I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say, since if your assertion is true then standing next to a friendly shouldn't result in friendly fire? It's a mystery. Anyways it was a statistic I only vaguely remember hearing from a documentary in which US troops in WWII, attempting to return to friendly lines got killed by friendlies due to poor communication; and the same documentary iirc suggested something like over 70% of all rounds fired at the enemy miss.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:53
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Raenir Salazar posted:Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills. this is definitely not true but you are talking about spending thousands and thousands of rounds per casualty inflicted. in part this is due to doctrine and the way infantry squads work using fire and movement. in part it's due to the fact that shooting at people while you are being shot at is hard.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:55
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The total number of bullets used during WW2 is something along the lines of tens of billions iirc, so a hell of a lot more than 70% of them didn't hit anyone. But still, the only way the friendly fire assertion makes sense is that if a friendly decides to shoot you, they're far more likely to succeed than the enemy is, since you're usually not very protected from them or trying to take cover from them.
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Aug 13, 2018 18:59
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Raenir Salazar posted:I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say, since if your assertion is true then standing next to a friendly shouldn't result in friendly fire? It's a mystery. How many friendlies were killed by American Friendly Fire during WW2 vs How many enemies were killed by American fire during WW2? Something tells me A is smaller than B, but I dunno, I guess the military really is that incompetent! Your idea, which was only expanded upon after my post, suggests that the Americans killed more of themselves than they did the enemy. How can you possibly imagine that to be true?
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Aug 13, 2018 19:00
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Thalantos posted:Shrugs. Unit history records? Good luck connecting casualties recorded by one side to the unit on the opposing side that might have inflicted them. Even in theatres with more discrete units (tank warfare, aviation) where units are claiming kills, the claims are notoriously inaccurate and difficult to interpret. Looking at something like the Battle of Britain, Luftwaffe aviators as a whole claimed 2.5x the number of actual Allied losses, and Allied aviators claimed 2x the actual German losses.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:10
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Raenir Salazar posted:Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills. Wikipedia attributes the following to Jon Krakauer from 2009: quote:According to the most comprehensive survey of casualties (both fatal and nonfatal), 21 percent of the casualties in World War II were attributable to friendly fire, 39 percent of the casualties in Vietnam, and 52 percent of the casualties in the first Gulf War. In the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, casualty rates are 41 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Slate here, working from what appear to be deaths: quote:The dirty little secret of the Gulf War is that "friendly fire" accounted for 24 percent of the U.S. dead. A rate this high is not an inevitable consequence of the "fog of war." According to a study done at the Army's Command and General Staff College, "friendly fire" casualties accounted for less than 2 percent of all those occurring in battle during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:28
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PittTheElder posted:Good luck connecting casualties recorded by one side to the unit on the opposing side that might have inflicted them. I figured it would be massively inaccurate, assuming it even existed, tbh. I guess the us army didn't really start pushing for kill counts until vietnam....?
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Aug 13, 2018 19:28
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Yeah kill counts were a Vietnam thing, and even then they were intentionally inflated by people on the ground (because more kills = good job), and they weren't any more accurate.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:36
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feedmegin posted:What, 'today the first platoon killed 20 dudes and injured 12'? I doubt it. We arent talking about fighter pilots here. How would they even know? The modern day us army absolutely does this, tho. Granted, it'd made easier by computers, but paperwork has existed for centuries.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:37
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Saying that small arms fire is that inaccurate is lol. Garand and other contemporary rifles are very accurate, and so is everything bigger than than an M3 grease gun. Saying that you can get light up with (accurate) friendly fire due to confusion is more likely, especially once tanks, arty and planes get involved. Like in Generation Kill, they were assaulting a city and most casualties the Marines in qiestion got were from an A-10 strafing (quite accurately) a friendly APC.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:38
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Jobbo_Fett posted:How many friendlies were killed by American Friendly Fire during WW2 vs How many enemies were killed by American fire during WW2? Basically, as per Ulmont's post, the idea is if small arms fire is sufficiently inaccurate; and friendly fire casualties sufficiently high, then I am trying to say that it can seem more likely to die to friendly fire than to enemy fire. Maybe the statistics in the end don't bare this out in the end, but I don't think it's an unreasonable misconception. JcDent posted:Saying that small arms fire is that inaccurate is lol. Garand and other contemporary rifles are very accurate, and so is everything bigger than than an M3 grease gun. What? No one is saying that the guns themselves are inaccurate, only their operators in combat conditions.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:47
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Thalantos posted:The modern day us army absolutely does this, tho. Granted, it'd made easier by computers, but paperwork has existed for centuries. yes and how accurate do you think the data is? they try to record who they kill and what unit they came from but unless you overrun enemy positions before they can drag out their wounded/dead you will never even be remotely close JcDent posted:Saying that small arms fire is that inaccurate is lol. Garand and other contemporary rifles are very accurate small arms are accurate, but guys engaging in fire and maneuver while getting shot at are not very accurate shots. also how you can skew that to "most people are killed by friendly fire" is pretty hilarious. stuff like GW1 is pretty skewed in favor of friendly fire by overall low casualty counts for one side. if you look at the total proportion of all combatants killed by friendly fire, it sure isn't 52%
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Aug 13, 2018 19:49
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Raenir Salazar posted:Basically, as per Ulmont's post, the idea is if small arms fire is sufficiently inaccurate; and friendly fire casualties sufficiently high, then I am trying to say that it can seem more likely to die to friendly fire than to enemy fire. Maybe the statistics in the end don't bare this out in the end, but I don't think it's an unreasonable misconception. it's wildly inaccurate since it has only occurred once in a peak Cold War military plus allies playing in the most perfect tank and airpower terrain known to man against a third rate opponent if it were true how would people fight wars in the first place you just sit around for long enough that the other guy friendly fires more people than you do?
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Aug 13, 2018 19:51
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Raenir Salazar posted:I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say, since if your assertion is true then standing next to a friendly shouldn't result in friendly fire? It's a mystery. Suppression fire is a thing.
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Aug 13, 2018 19:52
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Also most friendly fire casualties come from someone accidentally dropping fires on your position. Soldiers only used small arms at around 200m or less because that's when you can identify a target so you just aren't getting much friendly fire from that. The ratio shifts in the Gulf Wars not because things are worse but because the Iraqis were so ineffective that a couple of high profile friendly fire incidents of US forces mistakenly engaging friendly targets represented one of the greater threats.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:01
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Folks, in terms of WWII kill counts, instead of arguing about this you can look at the actual after action reports... Here's one http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll8/id/3816 Some things are counted: prisoners taken, for one, and also tanks and AT guns destroyed or captured. (Whether the latter numbers are accurate is another matter) You will note though that numbers are not usually given for infantry casualties inflicted, instead language like 'the enemy was driven off' is used. EDIT: Also yeah, friendly fire numbers are proportionately high for US soldiers because they are not actually taking a ton of casualties. Fangz fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Aug 13, 2018 20:06
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:it's wildly inaccurate since it has only occurred once in a peak Cold War military plus allies playing in the most perfect tank and airpower terrain known to man against a third rate opponent As per Fangz post, you outmaneuver the enemy to the point they decide their position is untenable and then retreat, with probably only relatively small amount of casualties sustained. Which begs the question about what where German casualties per defencive engagement with Allied troops compared with Japanese casualties in similarly sized defencive engagements; which you know may not make my claim correct, but may lend credence to the logic of it.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:38
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Jobbo_Fett posted:the comma in your link fucks it up and gives a 404 fixed, thanks
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Aug 13, 2018 20:50
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Raenir Salazar posted:As per Fangz post, you outmaneuver the enemy to the point they decide their position is untenable and then retreat, with probably only relatively small amount of casualties sustained. No this is totally wrong, the aim is to fix the enemy and then destroy them. Trading a few casualties while the enemy withdraws to their next prepared position is called losing.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:51
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Alchenar posted:No this is totally wrong, the aim is to fix the enemy and then destroy them. That really really depends. “Drive the enemy from this ground and take possession of it” is one of the oldest objectives in warfare. Allied planners would have given zero shits of the Germans saw the Overlord armada approaching and retreated inland because securing a beachhead was the objective for that day. Likewise you can annihilate an enemy and still not accomplish your objective. Ignoring Vietnam take examples of delaying or rear guard actions and the like. Slaughter some garrison to the man but give them time to blow a bridge or spike equipment you need? Great, they might be dead but they still won. ]
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Aug 13, 2018 20:56
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I'm starting to think this guy's whole shtick is dropping galaxy-brain takes based on small scraps of wildly misunderstood information.
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Aug 13, 2018 20:58
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Alchenar posted:The ratio shifts in the Gulf Wars not because things are worse but because the Iraqis were so ineffective that a couple of high profile friendly fire incidents of US forces mistakenly engaging friendly targets represented one of the greater threats. It was not this. quote:Nor was the Gulf War statistic skewed by one or two anomalous incidents—the Pentagon found that during the 100-hour Desert Storm ground war, there were 27 separate cases of fratricide.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:00
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Raenir Salazar posted:Basically, as per Ulmont's post, the idea is if small arms fire is sufficiently inaccurate; and friendly fire casualties sufficiently high, then I am trying to say that it can seem more likely to die to friendly fire than to enemy fire. Maybe the statistics in the end don't bare this out in the end, but I don't think it's an unreasonable misconception. It is an unreasonable misconception because both of your starting assumptions are complete and utter nonsense without the slightest basis in fact. Small arms fire was not particularly inaccurate. The reason so many bullets were fired without hitting anything is that the vast majority of rounds fired in combat are not meant to hit anything. A huge percentage of shots fired are of the "put some lead over there to keep their heads down" or "something may have moved in that bush, put a burst in there just in case" type. Outside of artillery (where the shells were aimed wrong and fell short) and airstrikes (where the planes simply bomb the wrong position - one of the reasons why direct air support wasn't all that effective in practice), friendly fire casualties were not particularly common. Your argument is essentially "If grass can talk, and flowers are made of bacon, then it is not an unreasonable assumption that cows are obligate carnivores"
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Aug 13, 2018 21:26
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ulmont posted:It was not this. I don't think what you quoted does anything to disprove his point other than show that his use of the phrase 'a couple' was hyperbole.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:28
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Alchenar possibly exaggerates (I am not sure though, I think the Pentagon count includes incidents without fatalities, so Slate's argument is dubious) but the general idea is correct. The basic situation is that total US battle deaths during the Gulf war was a tiny 146, 0.02% of their deployed force, whereas during WWII Allied deaths on the Western front from 1944-1945 was more than 165 thousand, 3% of the force. That's two orders of magnitude higher battle deaths proportionately.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:32
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What the gently caress is this argument about, raenir salazar clearly just didnt think very hard about their post so it made no sense.
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Aug 13, 2018 21:54
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Raenir Salazar posted:Small arms accuracy I believe during WWII was so wildly inaccurate that I believe it was considered that friendly fire kills to be more likely than enemy kills. Citation needed, because I want to know the WW2 equivalent of "the world lit only by fire" So, you can engineer aircraft, battleships, submarines, freaky mechanical and electrical control systems, the first computers, and nuclear weapons, but you can't build a gun that shoots straight?
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Aug 13, 2018 21:56
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27 incidents in a campaign involving 700,000 US troops is tiny. The mistake the slate author makes is measuring friendly fire as a proportion of casualties, when really it should be 'blue on blue engagements as a proportion of total engagements'. Without that second figure you don't actually know if there's a target acquisition problem.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:15
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hailthefish posted:I'm starting to think this guy's whole shtick is dropping galaxy-brain takes based on small scraps of wildly misunderstood information. Have you forgotten what my old avatar was or something, I've been a regular in this thread for years. Gnoman posted:It is an unreasonable misconception because both of your starting assumptions are complete and utter nonsense without the slightest basis in fact. I never claimed that the guns themselves were inaccurate; so at least one of my claims is accurate because aiming to miss is still missing even if it accomplishes the mission. The other claim "You are more likely to be injured by friendly fire than enemy fire" may not be statistically correct sure, though again I don't think the logic used is wildly unreasonable.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:16
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ulmont posted:It was not this. There are a few things going on here. First off, the 27 incidents of fratricide number is kind of meaningless outside of context. The sad reality is that if you have a couple million 18 year olds run around with rifles someone's going to get shot by accident, and that's before we get into poo poo like air strikes and artillery or what amounts to industrial accidents. Even discounting people getting run over by forklifts you're going to have a certain number of friendly fire incidents just as a cost of doing business. The real question you have to ask yourself is what is the rate of those accidents. How many man-hours of combat operations before someone shoots the wrong thing? How many air strikes before a friendly target gets lit up? It's like assessing road deaths - the US's 30,000 per year and Liberia's 1500 per year doesn't add up to Liberia being a much safer place to drive because on a per-mile basis they're killing a lot more people. Are the rates of fratricide higher or lower than in WW2? I don't know. I don't know that that data exists, but it would be interesting to know. That said, friendly fire plays in pretty frequently in any account of WW2 operations, so it's not like it wasn't there. I suspect in a world of GPS fixed locations and laser guided munitions fewer friendlies end up killed by air power alone - tragic misidentifications included - than when you're trying to employ B17s tactically. That's an extreme example, but it shows the general point well. What I find impressive, truth be told, is that in an operation as huge as Gulf War 1991 there were only 27 instances of fratricide. We had close to three quarter a million combat troops involved in all that. Coalition forces might bump it even higher - how many did the Brits et al send? There are two more things to consider: 1) media coverage and 2) public assumptions about warfare. 1) the birth of the 24 hour news cycle and what we would now call embedded reporting means that this poo poo gets covered. An A-10 blows up a Bradley and that poo poo's getting on CNN. A P-47 lights up a platoon of the wrong guys and the dead's family probably never even know it was a friendly fire incident. 2) modern, western democracies have a VERY low tolerance for dead soldiers. Part of this is because of the general lower number of casualties we've had to suffer. The totality of Vietnam was a single bad day in the ACW. The entirety of the GWOT features about 10,000 Americans dead, and that's including the 3k from 9/11. That's half of American KIA from the Battle of the Bulge. Whether this is a good, a bad, or an indifferent thing is something for a different conversation. The reality is that it's a thing, and along with those lower numbers is a growing intolerance for "preventable" deaths. If you have a really nasty cluster gently caress of a firefight that leaves a few dozen Americans dead you end up with congressional inquiries. Any kind of fratricide is going to be seen as the most preventable death possible, so you're going to see even more abhorrence for it when it happens. Note that none of this means that these incidents shouldn't be studied and attempts made to figure out what went wrong. Is 27 a lot or a little? I don't know, I don't have anything to really compare it to. My gut says on the low side, but that's just my gut. Regardless, even if it's low it would be great to figure out why it happened and make it lower. Just because highway fatalities in 2018 are lower on a per-mile basis than 1950 doesn't mean we should stop figuring out how to make driving safer. However, much like some level of automotive death is just one of the prices we pay as a society for having roads and cars, I seriously doubt that friendly fire will ever be completely eliminated.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:17
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Raenir Salazar posted:The other claim "You are more likely to be injured by friendly fire than enemy fire" may not be statistically correct sure, though again I don't think the logic used is wildly unreasonable. The logic is wildly unreasonable. Who would accept that as a norm or standard? Even the most callous leader would take issue with the inefficiency of it.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:26
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Raenir Salazar posted:
A bullet that is fired to suppress the enemy is not a miss. It did exactly what the person shooting it intended it to do. A "just in case" bullet that doesn't hit anything because there wasn't really anything there is not a miss. It did exactly what it was intended to do. Never mind that you have yet to provide anything to support the notion that "You are more likely to be injured by friendly fire than enemy fire" was ever believed by anybody. Nor have you provided any evidence that friendly fire was particularly common in the era you are discussing. Your claim is NOT accurate. You are grasping at any straw you can find to avoid admitting that you made an idiotic statement with no supporting evidence whatsoever.
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Aug 13, 2018 22:26
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Reading Russia's War, and it mentions that in 1940 the USSR wargamed their defensive strategy for the coming war with Germany. I'm wondering what rules they'd have used for that wargame? Are any rulesets used for military wargaming in the public domain?
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