Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[wolflance]

yes, this is super important. There is an incredibly persistent myth or trope of heavier = better for swords but that isn't how blades work.

Also two things:

1) Skilled vs. unskilled fighters. Musketters may know how to shoot but most will not have much training in hand-to-hand combat (Alexander Dumas notwithstanding) and they are probably pinning their hopes on one devastating attack.

2) Two of the basic things a skilled fencer or fighter will do effectively but unskilled will not is defend themselves with their weapon (something left out of most RPG's which don't have any way to parry - but it's real important in a sword fight) and do follow up attacks.

With something real unbalanced and heavy like a musket, you can get an attack off which can certainly kill if they don't void (dodge) or parry it, but your follow up may be pretty slow. with a sword you can parry, cut, parry again, and cut two more times in the same amount of time that it probably takes to swing a musket around a second time.

If you use the musket two-handed and train to compensate for it's limitations this can help a little, but you will still be at a disadvantage against a skilled opponent with a real hand-to-hand weapon.

Swordfights are fast if you know what you are doing. Not like game of thrones or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esI1fIAHNgY

I think some musketeers may have preferred striking with their musket than their sword because it was bigger and because they weren't really trained for hand to hand fighting, as by the 17th or 18th century (etc.) you had a lot of guys who were sort of cannon fodder. Wouldn't belong to a fencing guild the way some 15th or early 16th century Landsknecht might.

This is probably why you will notice a lot of artwork showing elite mercenaries like Swiss Reislauffer walking around with longswords on their hip.

Spoiler: Swiss mercenaries carrying longswords on their hips

Show

The other thing is sidearms in the 17th-18th century were sometimes fairly flimsy weapons like sideswords or spadroons which probably couldn't parry a strike from a heavy object like a musket.

G

So, to sum it up, it makes sense to use a much heavier blunt weapon, but not sharps.

BTW are there other examples of soldiers using very heavy blunt weapons? I heard that English longbowmen resorted to mauls during Battle of Crecy, and Russians did use a type of iron clubs called "Oslop" that weighs 6-12kg (!). Chinese monks also apparently used 9kg full-iron quarterstaffs for actual combat.

[snowblizz]

One other interesting possibility i've come across is that military treatises repeatedly stress the "honor" of being a pikeman Because carrying a gun was more popular and they wanted to shift that opinion. In the military thinking of the time the pike square was still the 'moral strength' of a battalion, ie if the pikemen broke then the shot nearby also broke and ran but if the pikemen held fast then the naked shot can seek safety with them and potentially rally if they start to waver. Thus battles were still won by quality pikemen even if shot were "the fury of the field". Normally officers like seargents and those guarding the ensigns would be carrying "short weapons" such as halberds, but writers specify that captains themselves should carry a pike, apparently as an example.

Been thinking about this a bit now and obviously there's a lot of things that go into it. But it seems a fairly common idea that shooters aren't as good as meleers. But it should always be kept in mind that practice and theory differ a lot. We can see similar thoughts in the distillation of samurai ideals
that to this day (incorrectly) thinings guns were banned and so forth.

Some thoughts. To use closecombat weapons you need strength, skill and bravery (you are pitting yourself against another man afterall). To use a bow you need skill (strength depending a bit on context) but you are generally in less immediate danger, so bravery you can skimp on, to do damage you kinda need to hit well. To use a gun as time goes on you really need less and less individual skill as it turns into a every shoots generally in that direction. Also a gun will kill or hurt independent of how good you are at aiming, as long as you get it sort of right. This kinda works to the concept of "well, anyone can kill with a gun" and how shooting is more down to luck than personal prowess.

Starting with the ancient Greeks and Romans matters were decided by heavily armed meleers, whereas the ranged component were poorer and less well thought of people. Shooters naturally were easier to shift on the battlefield and "flightier". These are cultures the west large builds it's identity on. In an English 100YW army the nobles were the dismounted core, the rock around the army formed, wheras archers, as strong and skilled as they were, were mostly commoners.
So there's certainly historical baggage to the idea that melee = betters.

As you say rrgg pike were the rock of the army, cavalry and shooters needed the pikes to protect them which sorta says "pikes are more important". Cavalry ofc benefit from other societal factors giving prestige which are largely lacking for shooters. Though a period army doesn't really function at all without all three (or four if considering artillery separate) components.

Other cultures ofc work a bit differently, most notably steppe nomads. Which is part of why they did so well against "civilised" cultures, they weren't playing by similar rules.
Samurai are interesting here since they start out on the shooting side of things, though as an individual skill, but as shooting becomes more broad and "luck based" (i.e. volleying) they migrate to melee as a way to show their skills.

I short there is some historical baggage to being someone exclusively armed for ranged combat. The degree to which (it is perceived) "anyone can do it" will reduce the prestige of what you do which tends to matter for "warrior cultures".

[gkathellar]

So, to sum it up, it makes sense to use a much heavier blunt weapon, but not sharps.

BTW are there other examples of soldiers using very heavy blunt weapons? I heard that English longbowmen resorted to mauls during Battle of Crecy, and Russians did use a type of iron clubs called "Oslop" that weighs 6-12kg (!). Chinese monks also apparently used 9kg full-iron quarterstaffs for actual combat.

There's the kanabo/tetsubo, of course. I think the biggest reason to develop super-heavy blunt weapons is that you expect to go up against a lot of very effective armor, and if you go up against a lot of very effective armor, you're going to learn that super-heavy blunt weapons are less effective than stuff like war hammers and flails.

Even with blunts, weight is probably more useful in a military setting than a civilian one. If you're just looking to bash an unarmored guy's skull in, a length of sturdy wood will generally do just fine. In something like singlestick, where the fingers and wrists do most of the work, you're not getting any mileage out of a heavier weapon. Another amusing case was the Japanese jo, a staff three or four inches longer than an Edo-period katana. The idea was to take advantage of the katana's standardized length by using a lighter weapon with slightly better reach - allowing a warrior to fight very aggressively.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Some thoughts. To use closecombat weapons you need strength, skill and bravery (you are pitting yourself against another man afterall). To use a bow you need skill (strength depending a bit on context) but you are generally in less immediate danger, so bravery you can skimp on, to do damage you kinda need to hit well. To use a gun as time goes on you really need less and less individual skill as it turns into a every shoots generally in that direction. Also a gun will kill or hurt independent of how good you are at aiming, as long as you get it sort of right. This kinda works to the concept of "well, anyone can kill with a gun" and how shooting is more down to luck than personal prowess.

Except not nearly everyone can kill with a gun.

Research done after WW2 indicates about a quarter of soldiers did as much as shooting in the general direction of the enemy, only about 2 percent of them could actually under real battle circumstances shoot to kill. And this wasn't a new trend. In the musket era people had already noticed how accuracy over 70 meters was decent on a shooting range, but on a real battlefield hardly anyone on the other side dropped dead.

Officers tried to explain this by citing musket smoke obscuring the view and adrenaline foiling people's aim. But the biggest culprit was probably this: people don't like killing other people, we are very hardwired against doing it. But there are four main circumstances known under which we can overcome this instinct. 1 When drilled to fire at anything that looks like an enemy. This is the modern solution of the problem. Modern armies claim up to 98% of their soldiers can shoot to kill. If another world war breaks out, so many people are going to die. 2 When we are a psychopath or sociopath, and don't automatically and instinctively attribute as much value to human life as "normal" people. (Side note on this below.) 3 When we are conditioned to do absolutely everything for our friends. A disproportionate amount of combat heroes turn out to have had a ****ty youth where they were effectively responsible for the well being of their younger siblings. It turns out that those are the people who will actually kill for any surrogate family they end up in. Most other people saying that are just talk, or psychopaths. 4 When we are directly threatened ourselves.

And this last bit is where I wanted to go. When there's a hundred guys shooting at your lines from a hundred meters away there is not as much of a clear threat as when someone is charging at you screaming holding a sharp weapon. And you can't make the threat of a hundred guys shooting go away by killing one of them. While in melee either you stab them or they stab you. Melee combatants I figure stayed so important for such a long time because they were more deadly, because it's easier for people to stab a stabber than to shoot a shooter. I don't know how many people back then would have figured this out (I certainly didn't think of it myself), but an officer who sees their archers melt away when charged while their stabbing guys take out most of the resistance is going to add more stabbing guys next time.

This would also explain why bayonet charges were for a long time popular, as well as the counter charge tactic of "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes". At that point your own guys feel threatened enough by the oncoming stabbers to actually shoot them. If they fire while the guys are still 70 meters out they all semi-intentionally miss yet still don't have time to properly switch to melee for defense, particularly in the plug bayonet era. The flip side of this all is that it might be harder to get a melee fighter to go to fighting range in the first place. After all, when you're close enough to stab them, they're close enough to stab you. And nobody wants to be stabbed. This was a problem with bayonets. People in a close quarters environment would often choose to reload and shoot again when running up and stabbing the other guy would have been quicker or even more likely to end well for them. If you can fight from a distance, you would be mad to get in close.

The promised side note: You know the popular idea in news media that a relatively high amount of spree shooters would be autistic or show symptoms of autism? It's extremely controversial and clear data is lacking, so don't take this as a confirmation of the idea, merely some thoughts about it. As someone on the spectrum myself I kind of think there might be some truth to it. Not because autistic people are more likely to want to shoot people to death than regular folks, maybe even the opposite (I mean, have you met normal people?), but because similar to how there's a bunch of us with ADD and ADHD like behavior, there's also a chunk with mild sociopathic tendencies, related to the common general tendency for not being able to deal with social situations and the thing you often see in young kids where they can't properly attribute value to stuff and end up "fighting" another person over what should happen to some dumb inanimate thing they made. (Some grownups do stuff like this too, that's mostly about attributing too much value to money and is unrelated to autism.) That might enough to let those people cross the line others can't, and make the difference between someone who chickens out or gets arrested walking around their school with a can of gasoline and someone who can actually go through with it. Please do note that this is not supported by the previously mentioned data from WW2, so it could just as well be the other way around: sociopaths get mistaken for autistic because they act weird around other people, and doubly so after they shot a whole bunch and got caught. Awkwaaaaaard.

[Brother Oni]

I heard that English longbowmen resorted to mauls during Battle of Crecy...

They actually used wooden mallets for knocking in stakes and tent pegs, so heavy blunt objects designed for maximising force on a comparatively static object, which is basically what a mud-mired French knight was. Never underestimate a British soldier's tendency to use whatever's at hand to fight the enemy (a famous example is the Gloucester Regiment during the Battle of the Imjin River from the Korean War, where encircled and out of ammunition, they resorted to throwing tins of food at the Chinese).

Another amusing case was the Japanese jo, a staff three or four inches longer than an Edo-period katana. The idea was to take advantage of the katana's standardized length by using a lighter weapon with slightly better reach - allowing a warrior to fight very aggressively.

The jo is a bit of an oddity as I've seen it used as both a sword (ie one or both hands holding it at one end) and a staff inter-changeably (hands spaced apart), often as part of a single technique (at least, that's how I was taught).

[Gnoman]

Except not nearly everyone can kill with a gun.

Research done after WW2 indicates about a quarter of soldiers did as much as shooting in the general direction of the enemy, only about 2 percent of them could actually under real battle circumstances shoot to kill.

Hate to break it to you, but that much-touted study has been thoroughly discredited.

To sum up the problems with it:

1. The author had already formed the theory well before the war, and explicitly set out to prove it.

2. The number of units the study claimed to have investigated in-depth is literally impossible - the author would not physically had time to give that many men even a brief interview, let alone the claimed in-depth one

3. The study makes no distinction between various types of not-shooting or missing. According to him, every bullet fired without a hit was a deliberate miss, and every time a soldier had the opportunity to fire his weapon and did not was because of reluctance to kill. The possibility that soldiers were missing because of tactical circumstances (taking hastily-aimed snap shots to minimize exposure time, poor visibility, etc) or suppressive fire (bullets fired that aren't meant to hit, just to get close enough to an enemy to keep them in cover so they can't see well or shoot back) was ignored, as was the possibility that people were holding fire because of fire discipline (only firing your weapon when it is tactically useful to do so, something the Canadian Army in particular spent a great deal of effort beating into their trainees) or simple fear.

4. There are no reliable reports from officers or senior noncoms of the area regarding this problem, despite the fact that weakening a unit's fire to this degree would be a huge liability in combat, and men have been court-martialed for less. Quite the opposite is observed - the most common complaint about raw soldiers of the time is that they were far too eager to open up on anything they saw, which wasted ammunition at best and invited enemy fire at worst.

[Max_Killjoy]

Hate to break it to you, but that much-touted study has been thoroughly discredited.

To sum up the problems with it:

1. The author had already formed the theory well before the war, and explicitly set out to prove it.

2. The number of units the study claimed to have investigated in-depth is literally impossible - the author would not physically had time to give that many men even a brief interview, let alone the claimed in-depth one

3. The study makes no distinction between various types of not-shooting or missing. According to him, every bullet fired without a hit was a deliberate miss, and every time a soldier had the opportunity to fire his weapon and did not was because of reluctance to kill. The possibility that soldiers were missing because of tactical circumstances (taking hastily-aimed snap shots to minimize exposure time, poor visibility, etc) or suppressive fire (bullets fired that aren't meant to hit, just to get close enough to an enemy to keep them in cover so they can't see well or shoot back) was ignored, as was the possibility that people were holding fire because of fire discipline (only firing your weapon when it is tactically useful to do so, something the Canadian Army in particular spent a great deal of effort beating into their trainees) or simple fear.

4. There are no reliable reports from officers or senior noncoms of the area regarding this problem, despite the fact that weakening a unit's fire to this degree would be a huge liability in combat, and men have been court-martialed for less. Quite the opposite is observed - the most common complaint about raw soldiers of the time is that they were far too eager to open up on anything they saw, which wasted ammunition at best and invited enemy fire at worst.

That is a classic example of forcing the evidence to fit the conclusion, conducted by someone who clearly didn't know a damn thing about combat.

And yet it's still cited routinely in the pop media.

[Vinyadan]

4. There are no reliable reports from officers or senior noncoms of the area regarding this problem, despite the fact that weakening a unit's fire to this degree would be a huge liability in combat, and men have been court-martialed for less. Quite the opposite is observed - the most common complaint about raw soldiers of the time is that they were far too eager to open up on anything they saw, which wasted ammunition at best and invited enemy fire at worst.

Ever read Calvino's Last Comes the Raven? It also deals with this.

[Storm Bringer]

4. There are no reliable reports from officers or senior noncoms of the area regarding this problem, despite the fact that weakening a unit's fire to this degree would be a huge liability in combat, and men have been court-martialed for less. Quite the opposite is observed - the most common complaint about raw soldiers of the time is that they were far too eager to open up on anything they saw, which wasted ammunition at best and invited enemy fire at worst.

just to add to this, a point Gnoman didn't mention was that rookie troops often didn't spend much time checking the identity of potential targets they could see, so they had a nasty habit of shooting at their own side thinking it was the enemy trying to flank them.

This was particularity true for aircraft, as rookie troops tended to assume they were under air attack whenever they saw a plane in the sky.


thiers a poster form WW1 that was posted around American* sectors showing the UK/USA roundrel, and basically saying "if the plane has this on it, its a friendly plane trying to help you, DONT SHOOT IT!"


*not because the Americans were extra trigger happy or anything, just they were uniformally green in 1918 when every other army had been fighting for years, and thus had a leavening of experienced NCOs to keep the rookies in check.

[Kiero]

Starting with the ancient Greeks and Romans matters were decided by heavily armed meleers, whereas the ranged component were poorer and less well thought of people. Shooters naturally were easier to shift on the battlefield and "flightier". These are cultures the west large builds it's identity on. In an English 100YW army the nobles were the dismounted core, the rock around the army formed, wheras archers, as strong and skilled as they were, were mostly commoners.
So there's certainly historical baggage to the idea that melee = betters.

As you say rrgg pike were the rock of the army, cavalry and shooters needed the pikes to protect them which sorta says "pikes are more important". Cavalry ofc benefit from other societal factors giving prestige which are largely lacking for shooters. Though a period army doesn't really function at all without all three (or four if considering artillery separate) components.

Just on Greeks, before the rise of Makedonian thinking via Philip/Alexander, cavalry was regarded as untrustworthy. After all, a man on horseback could easily flee an engagement they were losing. If an aristocrat wanted to demonstrate his commitment to a fight, he did so on foot, preferably in the front rank of the phalanx.

[snowblizz]

Just on Greeks, before the rise of Makedonian thinking via Philip/Alexander, cavalry was regarded as untrustworthy. After all, a man on horseback could easily flee an engagement they were losing. If an aristocrat wanted to demonstrate his commitment to a fight, he did so on foot, preferably in the front rank of the phalanx.

Right. Conditions and restrictions may apply. There's alot of things going into who is given pride of place. I was mostly thinking of the early pike and shot era and where their opinions would come from. The ancient Greek weren't much of a horse culture and until Alexander's days didn't really deploy better than light cavalry and those woudl have usually been mercenaries I think. The Romans were only little better though did value their barbarian cavalry at times, like Ceasar did IIRC.

Most armies have some kind of pecking order, and I'd hazard to say it's usually based on perceived danger. Not necessarily about who is actually the most effective. Cavalry e.g. generally kept a status it's usefullness may no longer have warranted.
Finnish WW2 troops didn't think highly of the horsehandlers who were blamed for half their ills at the frontline. In the ACW reluctance to use black troops was strong on both sides, in the North in particular because white soldiers didn't want to share the glory (and some other reasons I'm not sure we can discuss here). It's not really until after WW2 the US starts to use black troops "for reals" IIRC? One would have thought they'd be willing to share the burden of dieing equally.

Light cavalry was usually considered little better than bandits, which of course is what they often were since people whose lifestyle matches your need are quite effective. It doesn't seem to be until around the 19th century when the concept of hussars are widely adopted that light cavalry's status is elevated. The uniforms probably helped .

[Vinyadan]

If the Greek idea of cavalry was "band of raiders", then it is not surprising that they did not have a high view of them in battle.

However, in Athens at least, being part of the cavalry was an aristocratic thing, and there are tombs depicting the buried as a heroic rider. If the cavalry was seen negatively here, it probably was also because of the constant conflict between classes, with aristocrats being subjected to suspicion of wanting to overturn democracy.

[Kiero]

Right. Conditions and restrictions may apply. There's alot of things going into who is given pride of place. I was mostly thinking of the early pike and shot era and where their opinions would come from. The ancient Greek weren't much of a horse culture and until Alexander's days didn't really deploy better than light cavalry and those woudl have usually been mercenaries I think. The Romans were only little better though did value their barbarian cavalry at times, like Ceasar did IIRC.

Most armies have some kind of pecking order, and I'd hazard to say it's usually based on perceived danger. Not necessarily about who is actually the most effective. Cavalry e.g. generally kept a status it's usefullness may no longer have warranted.
Finnish WW2 troops didn't think highly of the horsehandlers who were blamed for half their ills at the frontline. In the ACW reluctance to use black troops was strong on both sides, in the North in particular because white soldiers didn't want to share the glory (and some other reasons I'm not sure we can discuss here). It's not really until after WW2 the US starts to use black troops "for reals" IIRC? One would have thought they'd be willing to share the burden of dieing equally.

Light cavalry was usually considered little better than bandits, which of course is what they often were since people whose lifestyle matches your need are quite effective. It doesn't seem to be until around the 19th century when the concept of hussars are widely adopted that light cavalry's status is elevated. The uniforms probably helped .

If the Greek idea of cavalry was "band of raiders", then it is not surprising that they did not have a high view of them in battle.

However, in Athens at least, being part of the cavalry was an aristocratic thing, and there are tombs depicting the buried as a heroic rider. If the cavalry was seen negatively here, it probably was also because of the constant conflict between classes, with aristocrats being subjected to suspicion of wanting to overturn democracy.

Greeks had native cavalry pre-Philip/Alexander, it just wasn't very good for the most part. A bunch of aristocrats on an extended hunting expedition might be the best characterisation of them. They were skirmishers and had a bad reputation for fleeing any battle that wasn't going their way, but were happy to cut down fleeing men if they were winning - still ultimately useless in the main clash of infantry. They were high-status, they just weren't well regarded.

The exception was the aristocracy of Thessaly, who had excellent cavalry. They were the model Philip used when he reformed the Makedonian military, which then became the template for all Hellenistic powers. Heavy lancers who could close with the rear and flanks of engaged infantry, as well as drive off lighter cavalry.

Romans were generally terrible cavalrymen (worse than Greeks, even), which is why they tended to trust others to provide their cavalry, whether Italic tribes, Celts, Iberians, Thracians or Numidians. They knew what they were good at (heavy infantry) and relied on the auxilia to do everything else.

[snowblizz]

If the Greek idea of cavalry was "band of raiders", then it is not surprising that they did not have a high view of them in battle..

That's not exactly what I said. I'm speaking very generally and broadly over timeperiods. During the 30YW some of the best light cavalry were "Croats" (not necessarily all from what we now call Croatia) probably including a variety of Balkan people used to irregular warfare in the borderlands between Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Mainly used by Habsburg and other Catholic forces. In Italy (and elsewhere) stratioti was used which were similar.
By their opponents considered the epitome of pillaging. Dragoons (sometimes claimed so named because the damage they did) filled a similar niche for other armies.

However, in Athens at least, being part of the cavalry was an aristocratic thing, and there are tombs depicting the buried as a heroic rider. If the cavalry was seen negatively here, it probably was also because of the constant conflict between classes, with aristocrats being subjected to suspicion of wanting to overturn democracy.

For the Greeks I can't say, just that heavy cavalry is not something I've ever seen depicted as part of a Greek force. Mostly more of skirmishing type. Until Alexander abouts. Who ofc wasn't a proper Greek from the perspective of Sparta, Athens and Thebes. You ar ecorrect it seems on the conflcit though, wikipedia suggests the middleclass mass of the phalanx weren't too keen on the aristrocratic horsemen. Classical Greek combat didn't have that much room for horsemen anyway.

Horse and nobility goes way back though, didn't know ancient Greeks had much of both but it makes sense there was some. What we see of ancient Greek tends to be very phalanx (and Athens) focused anyway. Which sorta was my point, perception of what's proper soldiery. Note though that I contrast to later Western culture which was fairly horse-centric compared to ancient Greek and Romans in it's outlook. My impression is that comes from Germanic and ultimately steppe culture. Or nobility were just regarded higher?

Romans were generally terrible cavalrymen (worse than Greeks, even), which is why they tended to trust others to provide their cavalry, whether Italic tribes, Celts, Iberians, Thracians or Numidians. They knew what they were good at (heavy infantry) and relied on the auxilia to do everything else.

The Romans always struck me as very pragmatic in their approach, and something of a rolemodel when it came to using "tribal abilities" wholesale. However, they do describe those not quite part of the legion, ie the heavy infantry, as "auxilia". To me that sorta rings of "those others", useful as they may have been, weren't quite "proper".

[Kiero]

As I said, the Thessalians were notable for having a "proper" cavalry tradition even before Philip - he copied them when reforming the Makedonian cavalry (particularly for the Hetairoi/Companions). The whole business of horse fighting in a diamond formation was a Thessalian innovation.

On dragoons, it's notable that the original Swedish ones weren't actually cavalry. They were mounted infantry (or even "mounted labourers") and had a status and pay as such. Their job was to be able to get to the fighting, dismount, fight on foot, and remount if they needed to be somewhere else. They could be better relied upon to perform all the boring-but-necessary campaigning jobs like scouting, screening and skirmishing than the "real" cavalry who thought themselves too good for that sort of thing.

From the Napoleonic era, the British military used the conversion of cavalry units into dragoons as a sly way to cut their military expenditure, since dragoons were paid less than "proper" cavalry.

[Brother Oni]

1. The author had already formed the theory well before the war, and explicitly set out to prove it.

Wasn't the author an USMC Lt.Col or am I thinking of a different study?

[Vinyadan]

About class conflicts in Athens, there is an article about the stele of Dexileos that delves into how representation of a cavalryman was bound to aristocratic status, and also talks about a shared tomb (Polyandron) that was decorated with the images of a hoplites and a cavalryman striking the enemy in unison, probably inviting to unity of different classes for the sake of the polis. https://www.ancient.eu/amp/2-631/

[Mike_G]

Wasn't the author an USMC Lt.Col or am I thinking of a different study?

Not if it's Gen Marshall's study "Men Against Fire," which does state that only about 20% of US troops in WWII fired their weapons at the enemy.

Buit he then stidied Vietnam and found that 80% of troops fired on the enemy.

This article sums up the study, and offers a lot of counterpoints, with a lot of explanation.

http://www.historynet.com/men-agains...ietnam-war.htm

I think that green, scared troops might not fire. But I think a lot of the rest of the data is people trying to reconcile rifle range hit percentage to combat hits. I think that's explained better by poor accuracy due to adrenaline, make, noise, etc, or just a lack of a good view of the enemy to shoot at.

If only 20% of men in combat were contributing, the military would have found a way to address that.

[LordEntrails]

..
If only 20% of men in combat were contributing, the military would have found a way to address that.

Contributing may not be the right word. I believe the PBS series "The Vietnam War" state that only 20% of the members of the soldiers (*) saw combat.

Which in such a conflict seems reasonable to me, if you count soldiers in a certain way (i.e. my asterisk).

So, are you just counting combat trained troops? Don't forget about those in logistics, training, medical and administrative billets. And except for the riverboat crews, the Navy sailors really didn't see combat. And then the Air Force, Do bomber pilots counts? Or only if they get shot at? All of the support crew in the Air Force wouldn't count.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is 20% of what?

[rs2excelsior]

I remember reading references to similar studies that found some percentage of soldiers would actively seek out engagements--i.e. some percentage (20 or 30%) would fight to kill the enemy, most of the rest would fight to not get hurt. "Killers" and "fillers" were I believe the terms, in case that rings a bell for anyone else regarding what I might have been looking at. I sadly don't remember the source, so I can't really speak to the reputability of the study one way or the other, but to me that seems a lot more reasonable than some percentage just not shooting at the enemy (or deliberately missing)--the difference instead being that not all soldiers will go out of their way to inflict harm on the enemy but will fight back if fired upon. If I recall correctly it was a modern study, but the site was applying it to ancient battles--explaining that most soldiers would likely have stayed within the shield wall, possibly just outside of the enemy's reach, while the few more aggressive soldiers would actually press the engagement, possibly encouraging others forward with them, leading to spurts of small combats up and down the line after the initial clash. It's been a while so I may be misremembering details.

[Gnoman]

Not if it's Gen Marshall's study "Men Against Fire," which does state that only about 20% of US troops in WWII fired their weapons at the enemy.

Thank you. This allowed me to find the detailed rebuttal of Marshall's claims that I thought I had had bookmarked. A choice excerpt:

The case for Marshall’s work is further compromised when one abandons the assumption that his ratio of fire data represent trustworthy evidence. There is little evidence to support the claims made in Men Against Fire about infantry non-firing being a universal phenomenon. Contemporary Canadian evidence of weapons’ usage on the battlefield does not correlate with how Marshall claimed soldiers behaved in battle.

There are also troubling questions about Marshall’s reliability as a scholarly source. A real possibility exists that the famous ratio of fire numbers were fabricated on the basis of Marshall’s preconceptions of combat. For all his fine historical work – and there was much of it – Marshall was a man who suffered from a scholarly myopia, and saw precisely what he wanted to see. In his memoirs Marshall described how during his very first assignment as a combat historian, at the US amphibious assault on Makin Island in 1943, he witnessed not the “universal” low firing ratio he later championed, but green US Marines with jittery nerves hitting the beach and blazing away with their weapons at anything that moved and many things that did not.

It was the opposite of the ratio of fire: frightened soldiers employing too much fire to help calm themselves and assert power over their situation. Most importantly, Marshall wrote that he decided not to report on this at the time, because at that point he believed it was low firing ratios that were the most serious problem of modern infantry warfare.

Marshall wilfully disregarded important evidence because he had already made up his mind that non-firing was the “real” problem – at his very first deployment as a combat observer! He allowed his preconceptions to govern his findings. According to those who knew him, this was not unusual for Marshall.

Colonel E.M. Parker, a fellow analyst during the Korean War, wrote that Marshall conducted his interviews and research in such a way as to support his tendentious ideas. One of his aides during the Second World War, John Westover, made similar comments: “Marshall was an intuitive thinker. He did not gather evidence, weigh it ponderously, draw tentative hypotheses, then test them.
If he did, it was not in an organized manner. Usually, from ‘out of the blue’ he stated a principle. Then he marshalled his evidence and statistics to back his concepts. Some of his statistics are subject to grave question as to source.”

Another former aide was David Hackworth, who wrote in his controversial memoir that, “Veterans of many of the actions [Marshall] ‘documented’ in his books have complained bitterly over the years of his inaccuracy or blatant bias. It was a conscious effort on his part to give the audience the impression he was there...he didn’t seem to care that what he wrote was totally inaccurate and easily disproved. He seemed to have relied (and successfully so) on the notion that no one would ever dare to correct him.

[Mr Beer]

I remember reading references to similar studies that found some percentage of soldiers would actively seek out engagements--i.e. some percentage (20 or 30%) would fight to kill the enemy, most of the rest would fight to not get hurt. "Killers" and "fillers" were I believe the terms, in case that rings a bell for anyone else regarding what I might have been looking at. I sadly don't remember the source, so I can't really speak to the reputability of the study one way or the other, but to me that seems a lot more reasonable than some percentage just not shooting at the enemy (or deliberately missing)--the difference instead being that not all soldiers will go out of their way to inflict harm on the enemy but will fight back if fired upon. If I recall correctly it was a modern study, but the site was applying it to ancient battles--explaining that most soldiers would likely have stayed within the shield wall, possibly just outside of the enemy's reach, while the few more aggressive soldiers would actually press the engagement, possibly encouraging others forward with them, leading to spurts of small combats up and down the line after the initial clash. It's been a while so I may be misremembering details.

This matches with what I have read, I believe in works by Anthony Beevor regarding WWII. He didn't use the exact phrase 'killers and fillers' but the premise was the same. A minority of highly aggressive soldiers would press the attack and others would go along with it. Without the presence of these men, soldiers would tend to remain 'pinned' under fire and would not advance to knock out enemy strongpoints (bunkers, machine guns etc.).

[Storm Bringer]

In the ACW reluctance to use black troops was strong on both sides, in the North in particular because white soldiers didn't want to share the glory (and some other reasons I'm not sure we can discuss here). It's not really until after WW2 the US starts to use black troops "for reals" IIRC? One would have thought they'd be willing to share the burden of dieing equally.

it mainly boils down to those reasons you don't want to talk about.

to paraphrase a abolitionist of the era, "I dare any man to look upon a coloured solider, rifle in hand and blood on his bayonet, whose uniform bears the initials of the United States, and can name a long list of coloured soldiers, his friends, who have died for the Union, and then tell that solider that he has no say in how that Union is to be governed".

it was recognised even before the war that arming the free black population (or ex slaves) would inevitably lead to emancipation, and enfranchisement for those same blacks. while many in the north hated slavery, they didn't really like the free negro population.

however, the post war US did keep several regiments of Coloured Troops in service, including 2 regiments of cavalry that helped tamed the West(the "Buffalo Soldiers" that Bob Marley sang of), and several of infantry. several of these were active in WW1, and a few in WW2, but they were generally kept for garrison and rear area duties. it was only in the late 50s that the US army properly desegregated.

[rs2excelsior]

however, the post war US did keep several regiments of Coloured Troops in service, including 2 regiments of cavalry that helped tamed the West(the "Buffalo Soldiers" that Bob Marley sang of), and several of infantry. several of these were active in WW1, and a few in WW2, but they were generally kept for garrison and rear area duties. it was only in the late 50s that the US army properly desegregated.

Fun fact: I do some WWI reenacting, and we have a group that portrays one of these units that fought in WW1. They came over with uniforms but without weapons, gear, or helmets, and Pershing was unwilling to actually use them as combat troops. The French didn't have any issues with doing so, and several of these regiments were basically transferred over to the French. They fight in the French portion of the line, have US uniforms but carry French gear and rifles, and have French helmets. Not really related to anything particular, but I think it's a pretty interesting and little known fact. One of those regiments was the 369th Infantry Regiment, formerly the 15th New York National Guard. They earned the nickname "the Harlem Hellfighters," and if wikipedia is to be believed, "they never lost a man through capture, lost a trench or a foot of ground to the enemy."

[Mabn]

So a question formed in my mind a few minutes ago. I was under the impression that pavises were fazed out by the Napoleanic wars because they couldn't stop massed gunfire without becoming to heavy to carry. Now my question is why would they have to carry them? I can push a wheelbarrow or handcart weighing hundreds of pounds, and I'm fairly out of shape. Couldn't they have attached wheels and handles to very heavy shields and pushed them in front of their formations?

[Mr Beer]

So a question formed in my mind a few minutes ago. I was under the impression that pavises were fazed out by the Napoleanic wars because they couldn't stop massed gunfire without becoming to heavy to carry. Now my question is why would they have to carry them? I can push a wheelbarrow or handcart weighing hundreds of pounds, and I'm fairly out of shape. Couldn't they have attached wheels and handles to very heavy shields and pushed them in front of their formations?

caveat:not an expert

1. It's slow and cumbersome to push massive loads around. I can push a 200lbs wheelbarrow around too but not across rough ground. Even if you're fighting on smooth tarmac, it might be better to forgo a shield that exhausts you if you have move it at sprinting speed.

2. They had cannon in Napoleonic times, probably difficult to make a man portable shield that deflects cannon fire.

[Mutazoia]

They earned the nickname "the Harlem Hellfighters," and if wikipedia is to be believed, "they never lost a man through capture, lost a trench or a foot of ground to the enemy."

And the Tuskegee Airmen were said to have "never lost a plane [they were escorting] to enemy action" which, given the era, seems as unlikely as a ground unit never losing any ground to the enemy.

caveat:not an expert

1. It's slow and cumbersome to push massive loads around. I can push a 200lbs wheelbarrow around too but not across rough ground. Even if you're fighting on smooth tarmac, it might be better to forgo a shield that exhausts you if you have move it at sprinting speed.

2. They had cannon in Napoleonic times, probably difficult to make a man portable shield that deflects cannon fire.

You also need to take into account the ground conditions on most battlefields of that era. Mostly churned mud. If it wasn't when the battle started, it probably was shortly after. Try loading up a wheelbarrow up with 200lbs of junk that is taller than you are, using old wooden wheels, and push it through mud.... Plus, having to push those things around might be great if you are setting up to defend, an not planning to move, but it sucks balls having to try to advance with them. They were also pretty ineffectual against any kind of flanking attack, so once warfare evolved beyond the "form ranks and trade volley fire" phase, anything that couldn't maneuver quickly was instantly antiquated. And then there was the cost in time and materials to make them...if the metal could be better used making a cannon that can kill a dozen or so men, than a huge wall that could protect two or three.....

[DerKommissar]

@DerKomissar: Okay, the work you're going to be looking at was done by William Atwell. He published a series of articles on the idea in 1977, 1882, 1986, and twice in 1988, but the theory was eventually challenged and largely discarded. He wrote a more recent defense of his thesis in 2005, (this I actually have). I've not read any of it yet and cannot speak to its relative merits.

Thanks gkathellar and wolflance for the info!

[snowblizz]

So a question formed in my mind a few minutes ago. I was under the impression that pavises were fazed out by the Napoleanic wars because they couldn't stop massed gunfire without becoming to heavy to carry. Now my question is why would they have to carry them? I can push a wheelbarrow or handcart weighing hundreds of pounds, and I'm fairly out of shape. Couldn't they have attached wheels and handles to very heavy shields and pushed them in front of their formations?

Pavises were mostly phased out well before that really, say 200 years before Napoleon. No one seriously deployed them in Western Europe by the pike and shot period, exceptions may apply (because someone will have an example of them I'm sure, in the same way even though the Irish rebels used pikes at the end of the 18th century that doesn't make it pike and shot period).
Cannons are definitely one thing. But also cavalry. When you get flanked by cavalry who shoot you and then charge you in the flank it matters little what kind of frontal protection you had. From this period and going forwards firepower matters mostly, and pavises get in the way of your troops firing too.

Not only battle field logistic but strategic logistics would be a nightmare, so many additional wagons doing nothing but hauling pavises.

What you describe is normally called siege mentlets. And the clue when they make sense is in the name really.

[rs2excelsior]

And the Tuskegee Airmen were said to have "never lost a plane [they were escorting] to enemy action" which, given the era, seems as unlikely as a ground unit never losing any ground to the enemy.

Oh, definitely, I'm somewhat skeptical of that as well, thus the wikipedia caveat I'm a bit more skeptical about never having a soldier captured, given how much of WWI was small unit raids back and forth. Plus the Germans only really made one major push after the American troops came over (the Spring Offensive in 1918), if I remember correctly. Still, though, their reputation of ferocious fighting was well-deserved, even if a little exaggerated there. A member of that unit was the first American to win the Croix de Guerre, and the unit received several individual and unit citations at the end of the war.