How much do we really want to fight?

[Buff Orpington]

There's an article in the paper today about a new book that examines whether we are naturally combatative. The article includes a couple of illustrative points. An American colonel investigated why his men were hard put to overcome a heavily outnumbered Japanese force. It turned out that only 15 to 25% of the combat troops had actually fired their weapons. Gettysburg was even more revealing. 27,574 muskets were recovered after the battle, almost 90% were still loaded. Now a proportion of those would come from men charging with loaded weapons and others killed before they had a chance to fire. 12,000 were double loaded, 6,000 were more than triple loaded and one had 23 balls in the barrel. Basically, a lot of soldiers only appear to be fighting.

And we wonder why we don't roll a hit every time.

[FreddBloggs]

yes but this is Americans. The level of training Soldiers in the ACW had was laughable. Basically this is a uniform, this is a musket, this is the battleline, fight, for a huge number of them. And there standards have not risen in the years since. Once blooded that is different, they learn quick.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Didn't some US officer called Marshal come up with this post-WW2, and haven't his theories/conclusions been seriously debunked more recently?

[FreddBloggs]

Slam.

A lot of these studies are odd, like the unshot myskets thing, 27,000 were checked out of what, 100,000 or more present.

[Peeler]

I've read similar. A lot of people do hardly any of the fighting (they just try to survive really) and only a few people actually do most of the fighting.

It's as true in war as it is in riots or your average Friday night out in town.

[FreddBloggs]

It also depends on training, cause, and whether your back is against the wall. It also comes into national charicteristics malarky.

[Peeler]

Hmm, more likely to fight in defence than attack.

[FreddBloggs]

Not always, by reputation, australians, scots and irish were careless in defence, but bloody murder in attack, english county and welsh were hard as nails in defence but less elan in attack,english city regiments, new zealanders, canadians and south africans, just avoid if possible in all circumstances. Basically a paraphrase from Prince Ruppbrechts intelligence office during the fighting at ypres.

[grizzlymc]

There is an excellent book, much more recent than Marshall's called "On Killing". It is written by an OR in Vietnam who was commissioned and chose to do a second trip, then becoming a military psychologist.

His view is that in the anonymity of battle, most people prefer not to kill. They will load their musket and either not fire, or aim to miss (possibly turning a certain miss into a possible kill). He cites combat film in WWII to show that most riflemen preferred to pass ammunition, tend to wounded, or other tasks, rather than aim at people and kill them. Crew served weapons are used more aggressively, he surmises because of peer pressure from other crewmen.

This leads onto a question my father used to ask about why PTSD was so much more common amongst Vietnam vets and later. He shows, quite convincingly that we have become much better at teaching young men to kill. What we haven't achieved is the ability to return them to normal settings after we have finished with them.

One of his examples that I found particularly compelling was a comparison between recon (SIC) troops and riflemen in Vietnam. The recon troops had a much more dangerous and stressful job, but the riflemen had higher PTSD rates.

I don't think it is easy to get most people to willingly kill other people. This is why child soldiers are so useful, they have less socialisation than their elders.

[Buff Orpington]

It's highly possible that the author has been selective in his sources, most of them pick whatever suits their viewpoint. It's an old argument, Hobbes reckoned that people are basically vicious savages who's instincts need to be controlled by firm government. Rousseau felt that we are basically social and cooperative creatures, reluctant to be violent unless provoked. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

National characteristics are part of the story. If your society conditions you to see other cultures as lesser or different beings killing them becomes easier. After all, the Japanese on the island were prepared to fight hard. Incidentally, that was the Marshall study so it may be another example of author bias.
The musket survey was of those recovered, not the ones carried off by their users. I don't think that it was all down to incompetent operation. Many of them had probably learnt that invaluable military skill, "Whatever you're doing, look busy and no one will bother you."