But when you look at historical battles from pre-firearms days, you find certain things:
casualty rates were WAY below what we have today
many of the infantry-square-vs.-infantry-square battles essentially became shoving matches, with surprisingly little death or injury, even at the front of the square
most of the battle casualties (as opposed to disease-caused casualties, which were the biggest factor) occurred when an opponent was fleeing. Like dogs chasing a running victim, people seem a lot more instinctually able to kill fleeing foes than ones that face them head-on. Cavalry wasn’t so deadly because it could break apart infantry squares—in fact, it was lousy at that, since horses aren’t stupid and won’t run straight into a wall of pikes. But cavalry was GREAT at getting forces behind an enemy–and the psychological impact of being “surrounded,” even if, realistically, the cavalry might not pose a deadly threat to a disciplined infantry square, is terrible. Once forces got behind you, soldiers were much more likely to break ranks and flee–and then, the cavalry did their best work, which was slaughtering fleeing soldiers.
[ETA: This was directed at ivn and thirdname’s posts]
Lt. Col. Grossman’s claims about psychopathy and elite military units have to be examined very closely. From an interview:
Emphasis mine. Grossman is stating that soliders who are willing to kill seem to share some characteristics of aggression with what some would consider a psychopathic personailtiy, not that our elite combat units are literally filled with clinical psychopaths. True psychopaths are much more likely to steal a jeep and go AWOL than they are to distinguish themselves in combat, and more likely to be found in Leavenworth than in special forces. Dr. Robert Hare gives this bit about true psychopaths in combat in his book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us:
ok so who are we going to believe - the long history of mass armies or the claims of some guy with an anti-military agenda? How about the existence of street gangs where you go and kill somebody to rise above a certain rank? How about the similar institution among Spartans Crypteia - Wikipedia where reputedly every young man at some point went out and killed some defenseless peasants, if you want to look at the more pathological examples?
To me the claims of this guy sound like an attempt at medicalizing a fairly normal human behavior. First lets announce that ability to perform a soldier’s duties effectively is evidence of mental illness, then lets start giving them extra “counseling” and surveillance. Maybe even declare them potential extremists and a danger to the State, while we are at it.
You are reading too much into this. It is really just basic psychology and sociology. Humans are pack animals. The part where the sociopathic notion breaks down is assuming that people in lots of situations that may end in violence is that that most people don’t want anyone to get hurt but they are thrown into a situation where they can stand neutral, stand up for who they know in their pack, or let themselves and those they know to be hurt or killed themselves. This could be as simple as a schoolyard confrontation, a bar fight, or an all out war where people get killed.
I was reading Chuck Yeager’s biography last night. He was an extreme war hero and an Ace several times over. He didn’t like killing people but it was either he or them and sometimes they simply threatened his friends in their planes. He wanted to kill as many ‘Krauts’ as possible, not because he hated Germans as a whole, but because he loved dogfighting and wanted to protect his pack and his country and there was no way that he would sacrifice even one of his friends for five German deaths.
I have never met you in person Wesley, but I know you from this board and, if we ever got together at a pool hall or something and someone threatened you, I would be willing to go down to the mat for it without a formal judge and jury hearing. That is just the way human psychology and alliances work at every single level.