"The factors that impact Combat Efficiency" Topic

I'm sure we all have our own opinion on this one so here's my list in order of importance. Feel free to come up with your own.

1 How well fed I am
2 How much sleep I've had
3 How reliable my equipment is
4 How much trust I have in my fellow crew/squad members
5 What the weather is
6 How much fuel/ammunition I've got
7 How much trust I've got in my chain of command
8 My appreciation of the enemy's capabilities

When the shooting starts it's how good is my training and how well I'm "motivated" by leadership. Warriors don't care about anything else.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag, so when the shooting starts you don't care if you have 30 rounds or 300 rounds? Everyone cares about supply and resupply(food, ammo, medical, fuel, etc.)

Only "warriors" I ever saw were on Battlestar Galactica. But I did sometimes see and read soldiers who called themselves "warriors" when they were trying to justify not obeying orders and regulations.

But I'd add training and experience to Mark's list, and specify training and experience pertinent to the situation. There are many sad stories about trained and even veteran soldiers caught in a fight of some different sort.

As for "order of importance" I don't think there is one in the abstract. A bad night's sleep and marching before breakfast is workable: 48 hours without rest and starving is not. You can say something similar about every item on the list. Everything has a "no problem" level, a "workable" level and a "catastrophic fail" level. (If you want to see "catastrophic fail" on "appreciation of enemy capabilities" read about the first tank attacks on good units who had never even heard of such things.)

Good question – at least from some examples I can think of rest and food are pretty important – for example, at Shiloh if the Confederates had not spent time looting Sherman and Prentiss' camps Prentiss probably would not have able to get his troops north

How tired I am. Cold, wet and haven't slept any appreciable length of time in the last x number of days wears on anyone. All the training and motivation in the world cannot fully overcome exhaustion.