"Hope on the Battlefield" Topic

"During World War II, U.S. Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall asked average soldiers how they conducted themselves in battle. Before that, it had always been assumed that the average soldier would kill in combat simply because his country and his leaders had told him to do so, and because it might be essential to defend his own life and the lives of his friends.

Marshall's singularly unexpected discovery was that, of every hundred men along the line of fire during the combat period, an average of only 15 to 20 "would take any part with their weapons." This was consistently true, "whether the action was spread over a day, or two days, or three."

Marshall was a U.S. Army historian in the Pacific theater during World War II and later became the official U.S. historian of the European theater of operations. He had a team of historians working for him, and they based their findings on individual and mass interviews with thousands of soldiers in more than 400 infantry companies immediately after they had been in close combat with German or Japanese troops. The results were consistently the same: Only 15 to 20 percent of the American riflemen in combat during World War II would fire at the enemy. Those who would not fire did not run or hide—in many cases they were willing to risk greater danger to rescue comrades, get ammunition, or run messages. They simply would not fire their weapons at the enemy, even when faced with repeated waves of banzai charges…"
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Amicalement
Armand

S.L.A. Marshall was a good writer, however, some of his facts are a little lose with the truth.

ok

Amicalement
Armand

Yup; not very critical about evidence.

Nevertheless, his works had great influence on the army. Post-WWII training emphasized the fact that the enemy was coming to kill YOU and unless you killed him first he would.

No, Marshall was entirely correct. The USMC had a psychologist in the line for it's fighting on Guadalcanal. He reported that only about 15% of the troops fired their weapons while some sat on the ground and watched like it was a football game or something. Others just hid in their holes. The other activities observed and recounted above were also seen there.

I think he was less critical than he should have been, but I don't think the premise was far wrong. I think of men not actually doing anything as part of the massive casualty outcomes in wargames. They're not dead, but they're only there in body, not in spirit. There again I used to be a university lecturer so I'm kind of accustomed to that among colleagues.

Yeah, military training changed a LOT after WW2. No more round rifle targets, everyone trained to aim at human silhouettes.

If only 15-20% of the US infantry ever fired their weapons in anger we would not behaving this conversation. At least, not in English

"If only 15-20% of the US infantry ever fired their weapons in anger we would not behaving this conversation"

My books remain packed up due to a house move, but I do have a modest collection of SLA Marshall material, including a copy of his first (IIRC) book "Island Victory", which relates to his intensive post-action face-to-face interviews with groups of US Army infantry that fought in the battle for Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. His approach seemed reasonable to me inasmuch as he was interviewing tactical units as a group, whereby the commentary of one soldier could be corroborated or corrected by other men who had participated in the particular firefight under discussion. I personally consider it next to impossible to develop a perfectly accurate account of any life and death engagement between opposing groups of men; for example, Marshall was unable to interview any of the Japanese opponents. But I do believe that he approached the challenge from as sound a basis as was practically possible.

Anyways, enough of my defense of SLA Marshall.

Regarding the famous 15-20 pct participation figure, that referred to individual riflemen. Marshall noted that crew-served weapons, whether as a result of mutual reinforcement of multiple crew members or their close supervision by a non-com in command of the weapon team, displayed a much higher participation rate … to the degree that they represented the principal firepower element of the squad or platoon. And indirect artillery (the big casualty producers in a real war environment) displayed practically full participation rates.

FWIW.

B

Indeed. It became very apparent in WW2 that the main source of firepower in infantry units were crew served heavy weapons – machineguns and mortars, especially mortars. The riflemen were really just there to suffer and die in their holes or walk slowly forwards towards the enemy.

With mass conscript armies, this is hardly surprising.

As noted above, training regimes after WW2 changed, and perhaps more importantly, the 'better' armies all used long service regulars. Participation rates rose considerably.

For all of SLA Marshalls bending of the truth, his overall conclusions were correct and backed up by numerous OR studies. Rowlands and Speight is a good starting point, the force equivalence models largely discount rifles altogether, it is all MGs, mortars, tanks, artillery and aircraft.

One startling observation they made in numerous analysis of AiW tank battles and NATO exercises, is that tank crews exhibit the same behaviour as their infantry colleagues – only a relatively small fraction of crews (in a given Squadron) actively participate, and a very small minority (around 10%) account for the vast majority of the kills. The rest just trundle around the battlefield slightly lost, confused and functioning as targets.

Similar observations have been made about fighter pilots.

So maybe it is just human nature.

See Grossmans 'On Killing'.

Interesting video on this topic here:

YouTube link

"See Grossmans 'On Killing'."
+1 to MP. A book well worth reading. I believe that Grossman also wrote a book "On Combat".

Martin – a very interesting comment regarding tanks. Can you provide a source reference for further reading?

B

"The riflemen were really just there to suffer and die in their holes or walk slowly forwards towards the enemy." No, they were there to hump ammo for the heavy weapons.

I've heard the same thing about fighter pilots -- most of them were just targets, only a few aggressive ones were the real killers.

As for the infantry, from what I've read, even the ones who fired their weapons seldom took careful aim -- they just banged away in the general direction of the enemy.

I don't think this was exclusively an American phenomenon.

Thanks Bangorstu!

Amicalement
Armand

To quote Sidney Jarry:
"On contact with the enemy I always told my men to drop to the ground and fire 5 rounds rapid. It gave them something to do and gave me time to think"

Some old vets have crtizied Marshall's work which indeed was a bit ancedotal. Still is overall conclusions were ground breaking and over time have been borne out by other studies.

As to why we still won the war – it wasn't all about riflemen…to say the least.

These issues also applied to other armies – the Germans may have gotten around 50% participation (at best) so it wasn't 100% of them v. 20% of US.

Its yet another reason why platoon as the atomic unit make sense for WWII – you assume out of a platoon you get some firepower – some tanks are shooting etc. though this may not be true for the majority of the platoon. In a 1-1 game you really need rules that prevent most of the individaul soldiers or tanks doing anything to reflect confusion and risk aversion.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame and Glory Games

When you factor in everything, out of 30ish men in a platoon, at any given time:

How many know what is going on?

How many are scrambling for cover or hiding from near-misses?

How many have functioning and supplied weapons?

How many can actually identify a target to fire at?

How many are inclined to actively fire and draw attention to themselves?

How many are confused or awaiting orders?

How many are trying to help out a squad member?

etc.

I imagine the number dwindles quite dramatically.

Weasel I think that's spot on…that's why I think it kind of rationalises huge wargame casualties.

Well, it would make sense. Humans don't actually enjoy killing. We're not psychologically purposed towards killing other people. It's not a natural impulse for the majority of people… And the people that do it, a lot of them become emotionally damaged by the act. Of those that aren't, I think two types of people can kill and make it out to the other side: Psychopaths and the spiritually solid.