Morality And Killing

[Pertinax]

I have mentioned elsewhere, in pms and personal discussion , about some interesting work undertaken in the analysis of American Civil war battlefields. The reference is "On Killing" Col. D Grossman.

The point of greatest interest to me was this -though its not a "hidden" piece of knowledge - a minority of combatants kill opponents, many people may be on the battlefield and exposed to fire and may comport themselves bravely-but they wont kill. This of course has implications if you require a combat unit to cause fatalities or maim and discommode an enemy.

The essence of the American analysis was this-dozens upon dozens of muskets were retrieved from major battlefield sites, many having been filled and refilled several times, 4 times was not uncommon , some isolated examples had 15 shot loads ! Now, large numbers of men were in close proximity for lengthy periods of time on a relativley small(in modern terms) battlefield ( you only need see the remains of the First WW trenches to understand why machine guns were so deadly-they were across the street/field! My blood ran cold the first time I saw the Somme battlefield, id expected a great "theatre" of conflict ,not an intimate murderous struggle) .

The American infantryman therefore was heroically active on the Civil War battlefield, exposed to fire , reloading his arms, but apparently not wishing to kill-this is not cowardice, far from it, its moral bravery, you risk your life but will not take anothers.

Dave Grossman points to repetitive use of human shaped targets as the key neuro reinforcment method for making someone with a gun kill with reflexive/unreflective skill and suggests Vietnam as the era that radicalised this ability.His theory goes further to suggest kids using video games that feature killing are subconsciously "training" to kill by reinforcement.

We know combat fatalities inflicted by the pilum/gladius combo wre not surpassed till machine guns came of age , what was exercising my mind was surely other cultures (eg:Assyria perhaps?) of any period must have had this problem of troops "not killing" and I assume therefore had professional responses to this moral dilemma.Or do we take this as a counter symptom of machine age "democratic" armies?

Edited March 28, 2006 by Pertinax

[Pantagathus]

That's a tough one Pertinax...

 

Especially using the American Civil War as a starting point for the hypothesis. That truely was a 'brother against brother' conflict over a mostly political issue (railroads, evolving national economics & the threat they posed to the survival of the South's agriculture system) that the comman man forced to fight in the conflict could give a flying **** less about.

 

I think that 'moral response' was/is more a product during a civil war and not typical combat.

 

Now, on the subject of conditioning with video games... I agree, but there are many historic & pre-historic precedents for such activities.

 

Perfect example is the anecdote of the hungry Baeleric youth being forced by his parents to win his food by hitting a suspended piece of bread with his sling to build proficiency.

Edited March 28, 2006 by Pantagathus

[Pertinax]

I was pondering the Civil War angle-in that internicine conflicts in fully "developed " nations (America was still expanding at a rate of knots) are usually particularly vile affairs, setting aside outside interests the Spanish Civil War for example had a plethora of ugly events and long dark echoes.I was also considering the ries of War between enfranchised democracies (or partly so) -the !st WW was the first true , full machine age war between allegedly democratic countries, some say the vast slaughter was actually an expression of the fact that the protaganists insisted they were morally correct-no tactical/strategic experience of such conditions existed( on such a scale) so the lessons were bloody and prolonged, particularly due to the "correctness" of the cause.

 

The supression of the Pretender at Culloden, was in reality a very small scale affair but particularly bloody and one sided-though Charles had panicked the whole country by getting to Derby without much opposition! Perhaps that hints at what happens in "rebellions".

 

Shaka Zulu had little difficulty in mobilising men to a full killing potential, but I rather feel terror and an unrequited personal desire for revenge motivated his meteoric rise.

 

 

As an aside how did you personally feel about "Gangs of New York" vis a vis the Draft riots and the Commen Man?

[Spurius]

In my humble opinion:

 

The killing zone of ancient and early medieval war was fairly small and personal. If you were 20 feet from the fight, and didn't have any spears or arrows, you didn't affect the fight, except by your butt there. Don't run and maybe you won't have to fight if the lines hold and the enemy breaks.

 

Once in the killing zone, though, you couldn't sham fight. That person across from you will see to that by either knocking you down or killing you. So the real test is if a formation holds. If the men melt out position, well that's that.

 

So I don't think not wanting to kill another human was as big of a problem as it is now.

 

Sidenote: My Dad was a paratrooper in WWII. He killed men at range and even one by hand in a night patrol encounter. He also served on firing squads after the war during occupation. Get up, eat breakfast, go out shoot someone, drive somewhere else, shoot one or two more, then back to barracks, dinner and bed. He said that the firing squads were harder for him to think about than what he did in combat. He got out of those as fast as possible. Just an insight into one man's mind.

[Pertinax]

All the things we discuss here , and turn over in our minds seem to point to no perceivable change in human psychology in relation to all the normal emotions and desires of mankind. Battlefield "concentration" must have been a severe test of will and "strength" (by which term I mean a multitude of things- fire discipline, morale ..all the usual suspects).Is the dispersed modern battlefield any less stressful-we have ballistic weapons , do they make combat easier? I suggest not-the "comfort" of direct (if potentially fatal ) contact is a resolved fear, as Caesar said "men generally fear what they cannot see more than that which they prerceive directly".

This doesnt make the actual fear any less, but it is a direct, certain , factual thing.

 

 

side note to this post: my late Father was in the Malaysian Emergency ( communist counter insurgency if anyone is unfamiliar), his worst experience was guarding a rubber plantation in the pitch black(couldnt see his hand in front of his face at all) -he said he would have prefered a straight fight to the horror of sweating nights away waiting for an enemy that never appeared. He just met a lot of large snakes and lizards on that job.

[Pertinax]

Dave Grossman ("On Killing") make the particularly apt point that spec ops (Lurps? is that correct for N America?) although in ,apparently, particularly tense combat situations ,do not suffer the same degree of combat fatigue as normal combat units ( by which he means Vietnam era Army/Marine units) .His suggestion is that as they are recce units ,despite the dangerous nature of the job, they withdraw from contact as a matter of course and therefore do not have the horror of further anticipated fear. This doesnt mean their job isnt dangerous or non-fatal but it does suggest something about human stress.

 

I was wondering about peltastii units-the film Alexander concentrated my mind-they nipped out in front of heavy infantry in loin cloths , used a sling or small spear and dived back out of the way-how stressful was that? You need bravado to step into the open , but if you are not expected to hang about ,perhaps its not as mentally tough as being in the phalanx.

Edited April 2, 2006 by Pertinax

[Gaius Octavius]

A regular army colonel told our class (a long time ago), that a commander in WWII, in Europe was happy if 20% of his men fired their weapons!

[Ursus]

I can't speak well about the details of military tactics. But on the subject of morality I'd do whatever it would take to survive. If making loud noises and rude gestures did not scare off an enemy intent to kill me, I'd resort to more effective means.

[Furius Venator]

I've studied this in some detail and the plain fact is that all our observable data suggests that in any force of infantry, be they seasoned verterans or raw recruits, about 20-25% of men actually fight as well as is normally regarded typical. There seem to be deep rooted psychological reasons for this.

 

 

There was an objection above that a man in close combat could not 'sham fight' which is an excellent point. Yet there is a huge difference between trying to stay alive and trying to kill tour opponent. Aggressive fighting at close quarters leaves you more susceptible to getting hurt. Also conside the fact that if 75% of those engaged are not too keen on getting to grips, there is an excellent chance that one's opponent is merely trying to stay alive also.

 

It is very difficult to come to terms with this (I still have real difficulty at times, I keep thinking 'oh yes but the Tenth would have more real fighters than that'). Common sense and our own preconceptions are in conflict with the observable data, also with the literary evidence. I know which side I have come down on...

 

Spurius, your father was certainly one of those that the British soldier Wigram termed 'gutful men' the five or six men in a platoon who could be relied on to do anything. You should be proud of him (I mean, you almost certainly are proud of him, but you're right to be).

[Pertinax]

What exercises my mind here is-how much harder is it to "abstain from killing" ( and I particualrly annotate this by saying ,"not kill but risk ones own life") in a close combat gladius/pilum unit . With projectile weapons , reverting to my American Civil War post, one can stand on the field exposed to fire and not deserting your comrades but not killing-what happens when you really must kill to sustain an action?

 

ps: Spurius I hold my hand up to your Father, what guts.

[Furius Venator]

It is only harder to do so if the man opposite you is actually trying to kill you. In fact about 1 combat in 16 will see both men going all out to kill each other and three quarters of 'combats' will be between men who are simply concerned with staying alive. One can expect blows to be exchanged but with little risk to either party (though it will not feel like that to the men involved).

[Pertinax]

These thoughtful posts lead me to another question-given what we know of Samurai ethics , can anyone give any statistical information or links to information regarding the battlefield conditions in medieval Japan? My line of thought is -can a culture posited on incontravertible personal honour transcend the norms of " European " behaviour and killing ratios.I have no direct information on proportionate combat fatalities in medieval Japan, I am interested to explore the crossover of "personal " ethics versus peasants armed with guns

Do all cultures have a minority of actual combative combatants? What of gender in combat? (I realise that is probably another thread) or rather what of mixed gender combat unit cohesiveness ( my queastion here is realated to the "how do the genders react to casualties in mixed units?").

 

I apologise if I am becoming too introverted in my thoughts but my thoughts keep wandering off...

[Furius Venator]

I've tried in vain to find any oriental data.

 

As regards mixed gender units, it's a bad thing. The women do just fine, no better or worse than men in an all male unit. But the introduction of women to a fighting unit means that the men are less effective. There seems to be a 'protective' instinct that means they try to 'look after' the woman, degrading their effectivenesss. These studies are largely US.

[Pertinax]

The other "non-european" formation that interests me is the Zulu impi, based totally on close quarter combat /using an "oval" rather than a square (no corners to de-stabilise) /very fast moving and as far as I am aware homogenous in armament. The obvious nemesis is rapid ballistic fire before a charge can be pressed home, but what we dont know too much of is intertribal casualty rates during the "Crushing" (as Shaka's drive to domination over all comers was called). The impi had a superior re-invented spear with a greater killing potential than competing designs (Shaka's own invention ) and discipline was fearsome,eg: those refusing or hesitating to harden their bare feet by treading on an arena of thorns being killed instantly. Some units were married some not-I am uncertain if this was a strict prohibition, when applied.Isandalwhana ( from a later period, but effected by impiis) remains, I think, the worst defeat ever inflicted on a machine age army by "native" troops, Rorke's Drift whilst ludicrously heroic was touted so widely as an establishment cover-up for poor leadership.Perhaps the willingness to sustain casualties was the inspired/brutal/later insane visionary genius of Shaka?

 

FV I had read a very short piece on the "mixed unit" problems,I understood male combatants lost all fire discipline in an attempt to gain "revenge" for female casualties.

[Furius Venator]

The Zulu casualties in both engagements seem to fall within European norms. The Zulu War is good because we have a modern missile reliant army for whom close combat is anathema fighting against an army whose whole emphasis was on getting to close quarters. Even the most generous assessment of the Zulus fighting capabilities do not put him outside European norms (they could only press home their attack after the British ran short of ammunition due to their over extended line). Consider the heroic last stand of Captain Younghusband on his wagon. Utterly alone and armed only with rifle and bayonet he held the Zulu off for some time before being shot. If the Zulus were exceptional in their ability to come to close quarters, they's simply have rushed him.

 

Mixed units cause all sorts of issues. I'm not opposed to women in the services but single sex combat units would be the obvious way to go.

Edited April 4, 2006 by Furius Venator