Morality And Killing

[Furius Venator]

But a modern battle/pursuit may last days or weeks. Consider two encirclements, Cannae and Stalingrad. Now being on the losers side in either would not be good, massive losses in both cases, though (and this is off the top of my head) I think percentage wise Stalingrad's are worse. But for the winner's, huge contrast. The Russians suffered heavily, the Carthaginians minimally.

 

So overall, battles are more dangerous and further in modern war an infantry unit will rapidly suffer 100% casualties in a drawn out battle/campaign. In an ancient campaign, infantry units did not suffer this degree of attrition.

[Pertinax]

I have this link for dispersion , what do you think?

 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/table2.gif

[Furius Venator]

Good so far as it goes (I have a soft spot for Dupuy). But I'm not sure it actually tells us much we didn't know, it's sort of compiling statistics for the sake of it.

 

For instance a Roman legionary had a space three feet wide allocated to him (six feet in open order). Yet a british private at Waterloo had about two feet. He's actually in closer order, although Dupuy's table would have you believe otherwise.

 

Now there's no doubt that post WW1 fighting troops actually used much more open order than they had before when six/twelve feet per man was pretty typical for troops in skirmish order and units still tended to form 'firing lines'. But this certainly didn't mean they were at less risk (though they were at less risk from small arms fire than previous musket/rifle troops).

 

So I suppose your question is are small arms less effective (in terms of killing power) today than previously? Certainly in Napoleonic times the musket was a big killer, more so than artillery whereas today artillery rules with heavy infantry weapons following. Rifle fire brings up the rear. But did the gladius/pilum bring down more men (percentage wise) in battle than the modern rifle? Perhaps, yes (though I'd really have to look at some figures to be convinced). But the gladius/pilum was less effective than the Brown Bess was in Napoleonic times. I'm beginning to ramble a bit now but I think you get my drift.

[Furius Venator]

I'll stick my neck out and suggest that the battlefield/campaign is far more dangerous for the infantryman today but that he is at less risk from opposing infantry than his predecessors (but only if we consider small arms, possibly including light machine guns).

[Virgil61]

I'll stick my neck out and suggest that the battlefield/campaign is far more dangerous for the infantryman today but that he is at less risk from opposing infantry than his predecessors (but only if we consider small arms, possibly including light machine guns).

 

Well that's a rough one to calculate, there are so many variables today. Take Iraq and Afghanistan. It's been hell on the Iraqi army, resistance, Sadr's army and the Taliban. Not sure of their losses but it's got to be in the tens of thousands. The 1880 Americans killed in combat (deducting non-combat losses) represent several hundred thousand troop rotations since '03. Includes about 17,000 wounded with no data on how many of those lived because of advancements in combat evac and medical technology

 

Add to that the US Army's tendency to use infantry to fix the enemy's position and bring in the big guns like Bradley's, arty, air etc., to eliminate them and it brings infantry casaulty rates down. Contrast that with the Marines who tended to get more close-up and personal at the company level with fewer resources and their infantry casaulty rates were higher.

[Pertinax]

FV has actually hit the point I was thinking about-though I was trying to go back and forth in time and work out if therefore he thought the Roman battlefield might be more or less dangerous....the point about dispersion (I assume ) is that nowadays you must be dispersed or dug in deeep otherwise you will get a real stonking.Actually belay the dug in part, look at the hull down Iraqi AFVs..they didnt do too well. By the way is dispersal really a response to artillery/mortar interdiction? or is air power omnipotent? Correct me but wasnt mortar fire the deadliest battlefield element in the two WWs?

 

Weve touched elsewhere also on ancient armies when considering the alleged "casualties" , ie: break a tribal army and everyone runs off home and you have no army left to muster, so in effective terms all the combatants are "lost" as any sort of fighters. So as we know an army may be "destroyed" but not actually suffer total elimination.

[Furius Venator]

There are just so many more ways to die today...

 

The Roman was at risk from sword/spear or slingshot/arrow, very occasionally ballista. They pretty much killed/disabled in that order too. Melee weapons caused most fatal or disabling wounds, then missile weapons, artillery a distant third. This holds true right up to gunpowder (yes, including the much over-hyped longbow). The reason that artillery killed so few is because it was very rare, melee and missile weapons were ubiquitous.

 

Once we've moved into musket armed armies, melee weapons are pretty much redundant. The order now goes musket shot, artillery and bayonet (with the bayonet maybe inflicting as many as 1% of dangerous wounds.

 

Slowly, artillery gains in power until by WW1 it is the main killer. Rifles are still second obviously but the machine gun has probably overtaken it by the war's end. we can now ignore melee weapons entirely.

 

Artillery starts coming in all sorts of forms. The howitzer and mortar are old weapons but indirect fire now rules, all the way from the company/platoon mortar up to the really big guns.

 

But airpower starts to make an appearance too. And land mines. And more lethal machine guns. The poor old rifle slips right down the ever growing list.

 

So in modern war, the real killers are artillery, bombs dropped from the air, guided missiles, vehicle mounted guns (bothdirect fire artillery and chain guns), cluster bombs, Virgil's the man to describe all the modern ways of dealing death really.

 

Obviously the rifle still kills, especially in the kind of skirmish that Virgil gave a link to above (but note that it's the machine guns that have the most impact). As an aside, skirmish makes it sound trivial, I wish there was a better word for that sort of small scale engagement. Those men and women did incredibly well.

[Virgil61]

...

Once we've moved into musket armed armies, melee weapons are pretty much redundant. The order now goes musket shot, artillery and bayonet (with the bayonet maybe inflicting as many as 1% of dangerous wounds.

 

Slowly, artillery gains in power until by WW1 it is the main killer. Rifles are still second obviously but the machine gun has probably overtaken it by the war's end. we can now ignore melee weapons entirely.

 

Artillery starts coming in all sorts of forms. The howitzer and mortar are old weapons but indirect fire now rules, all the way from the company/platoon mortar up to the really big guns.

 

But airpower starts to make an appearance too. And land mines. And more lethal machine guns. The poor old rifle slips right down the ever growing list.

 

So in modern war, the real killers are artillery, bombs dropped from the air, guided missiles, vehicle mounted guns (bothdirect fire artillery and chain guns), cluster bombs...

 

In "The Art of War in the Western World" Archer" Jones has some insight into the development of warfare. Essentially he states it's been a contest where infantry, missiles or cavalry have vied for influence on the field dependent on technology and organizational factors. Each new advance in one arm is met by a counter in another. Legionaries develop into modern infantry, missiles into MLRS and cavalry into tank divisions. It's been awhile, I've forgotten how he intergrates air power into this mix.

 

The theory isn't airtight but it's a worthwhile read that shows how the best armies maintained a constant drive to get most efficient mix of these three combat-arms dependent on the era.

[Furius Venator]

It's certainly not airtight in my view, though it is an interesting way of looking at things. It of course ignores cultural factors in ancient/medieval times which were what largely determined the prominece of certain troop types.

 

It holds better, as many of these 'general theories' do for the gunpowder age, but even then it only works if 'infantry' includes artillery (which is really a separate arm).

 

One could argue that from Napoleonic times onward the 'evolution' of most effective units has been

 

Infantry giving way to armour which gives way to air power which is still dominant.

 

The Swiss for instance were one of the best armies of their time, but they had very few cavalry or missile troops.

 

The English of the early-mid Hundred Years were missile/heavy foot dominated with cavalry having a very minor role.

 

There's just too much variation in ancient/medieval to draw a general theory like this I think, except that missile heavy armies were generally poor performers, their being mitigating factors in the successes of for example, the Huns and English.

[Kosmo]

If ancient soldiers were heavy armored and today soldiers dig and disperse the most nerve breaking was the musquet fight when lines of unprotected soldiers fire at each other, slowly reload and fire again.

This is why the drill was invented in this era and why it played such a vital part. And, I believe, this is why the french soldiers of the Revolution and Empire with very high morale were almost invincible.

[Furius Venator]

The French revolutionary troops won because they manoeuvred so quickly in column (despite a lack of discipline). The rigid slow moving but better disciplined linear formations of the C18th armies opposing them just could not cope. Modern war is almost certainly the most trying on the nerves, because there are so many 'remote' hazards to cope with.

[Pertinax]

The essence of the columnar assault was the plentiful supply of men-we know Napoleon was not squeamish about spilling anyone's blood.the battlefield mortality rates were not particularly heavy in relation to other ages.

[Furius Venator]

But heavier for winners than at any time previously, surely?

 

By the end of the Napoleonic era, virtually every nation was manoeuvring/assaulting in column (except in the case of counter attacks upon the repulse of an enemy column by a line).

[Pertinax]

would we all agree that the column is the "conscript" army weapon? And yes its a costly thing , in lives, to use.

[Furius Venator]

Not exactly...

 

Column was used by the revolutionaries because their men could not manoeuvre at all in line (though sometimes two revolutionary columns would be supported by an ancien regime regiment in line).

 

Column had gone out of favour in C18th Europe because the small professional, ludicrously well drilled armies could actually manoeuvre regiments in line reasonably well, if slowly and hence bring more muskets to bear.

 

The elan of the French columns and their more rapid assault with the bayonet, pushed home after skirmishers had cecimated the skirmisher-free lines of the old style troops tended to make the other armies rout before contact.

 

The distinction became blurred as the other armies modernised and adopted skirmish tactics to counter those of the French (the British excelled at this early on) and also began to manoeuvre in column for more rapid mobility (the Allied reserves at Waterloo spent much of the battle in column), meanwhile the French troops became more disciplined and able to fight in line.

 

 

But if you meant that column was the only real option for conscripts then, yes I agree (though their screen of skirmishers was crucial.).