EDIT: For one of the replies to my earlier post, I’m going to disagree with how survivable an ejection over Nunavut would be, nuclear explosions near by or not. I think you’d just be trading a quick death from drowning or hypothermia, to a much slower death from starvation or exposure. Assuming you didn’t fatally injure yourself during the ejection or parachute landing.
Different type of job, that’s for sure. I’m glad we never had to find out what it would have been like.
When I first read this I thought you meant “tanker crews” as in tanks, like, the kind of tanks that are on the ground…I was like, “how the fuck is that supposed to work exactly?” (Then I read the rest of it.)
The anthem of the Spanish Legion is El novio de la Muerte, “Death’s bridegroom”; that doesn’t mean they’re expected to get to the marriage bed any time soon.
Recruitment papers used to include the question “¿valor?” (bravery?) to which the traditional answer was “se le supone” (assumed). Note that again this means the ability to do what you ought’a in a situation of danger; dying isn’t generally considered to be either an optimal result or a requirement.
So how do war games work during army exercises? Do they ever end up in situations where large percentages of the participants are “dead”? As in “This regiment attacked this well defended enemy position and suffers 75% casualties. 40% of you are now dead and can sit around considering what this would be like if this was real war”
Right. A pilot isn’t going to have the kind of clothing or survival gear needed to survive on tundra or a snowfield overnight even in the summer. And in the event of nuclear Armageddon retrieving single pilots far from any base is likely to be a low priority even if finding them were possible.
Spot on!
Appreciate all your answers.
Oh, yeah. All the time.
It depends on the scale of the exercise, but the largest actual field exercises are done at the Brigade level in places like Fort Irwin and Fort Polk. When someone is declared ‘dead’ they are moved to a holding area. I’ve never been there, but apparently it is exceedingly unpleasant. The soldier gets a few hours - or days - to contemplate their fate. Mostly they just catch up on sleep or bitch about the ‘referees.’
These exercises suck, but they do so by design. The referees use an adjustable ‘difficulty setting’ much like a video game. They used to tell us, “If it seems like you are doing well, that means your unit sucks and we dialed it back.” If the unit is good at what they are doing, they should be taking heavy casualties because that means the referees are using maximum aggression. It is entirely normal to see entire battalions lose 50-75% of their combat power. Then the commanders have to reconstitute by moving in new convoys of fresh soldiers (ie the guys who got killed are allowed to ‘respawn.’)
The first time I got killed in one of these things it did make me contemplate my own mortality. After that, my attitude was pretty much “let’s get this stupid crap over with.”
What was your MOS?
Except that the reason people die in “war games” (or as the industry calls it, “Combat Training Center rotations”) is directly related to what they did, or what the enemy did, on the battle field. The Observer, Coach, Trainers (OCTs), or “referees” as JB99 called them, do not arbitrarily decide that 40% of the people are dead. All of the personnel–friendly and enemy–as well as all of their vehicles and weapons systems, are outfitted with lasers and sensors. If a small group of enemy shoot their laser-equipped Javelin missile system at the friendly tank, that tank is going to register as destroyed. The occupants will be adjudicated as killed, or wounded. The only way a unit will take 40% casualties is if they legitimately would have suffered a similar fate in real life. Everything is integrated. If a unit calls for artillery fire at a specific location, the OCTs will throw explosive simulators and smoke grenades at the location, personnel in that area will be assessed as casualties based on their protective posture and the type of artillery used, etc.
So there would never be a reason to articulate, “Okay, this unit attacked this heavily defended unit, so this unit suffers whatever casualties…” It is entirely possible for a unit to do such a thing and actually be successful. It all comes down to the skills of the soldiers, and even more importantly, the competence of the battalion and brigade staff! A good staff can make or break a unit during a CTC rotation.
With that said, when soldiers die on the battlefield: for some people, that is where their job actually begins. So much has to happen to process a casualty, you might be surprised (but not if you actually think about it). Someone has to prepare the paperwork, process the body, coordinate transportation and movement of the corpse, etc. All of that occurs during a CTC as well. Things just don’t stop when the soldier dies. There is a lot left to do. JB99 mentioned “respawning”. In order to get a soldier back into the fight, the unit has to completely process the casualty, and then send up the proper paperwork requesting replacement personnel. Only then can soldiers be “respawned” back into the fight. But when they come back to life, it is to simulate a new soldier arriving, just as it would happen in reality.
And that’s if the soldier is dead. If the soldier is adjudicated as an injury, he/she much be processed as such, making it from the battlefield to the various levels of care. Each stage of treatment must happen within the necessary timeframe or the soldier “dies of wounds”.
It’s actually very complicated. It’s not just a bunch of people running around yelling “pew pew, I got you!”.
British chaplain addressing ANZAC troops newly arrived at Gallipoli:
“Some of you men will have come here to die”
To which the reply came, “Nah mate, we came here yester-die”.
I was talking about my experiences in basic. My MOS was 91W.
The attributions predate the film. Variants and similar themes used by others actually predated Patton but there’s some record of him using the theme on multiple occasions. (Cite)
Except for things such as being in the first wave of an amphibious attack. There would be lower casualty rates for the entire operation, but it really sucked to be in the first wave.
Here’s one account of Omaha Beach
In Japan, even with the tokkotai kamikaze, the pilots were dying for their comrades or family and not the country or the Emperor.
“If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines. And then you will be in a world of shit. Because Marines are not allowed to die without permission! Do you maggots understand?”
Gallipoli peninsula, 1915.
It sounds better in Turkish.
I got arbitrarily killed by an attack helicopter. In the last hour of the game, the refs decided to just maul us, so they just spawned a shit ton of opponents to “sweep the board.” The enemies were all fictional and computer-played. They killed us all. My section sergeant told me I was dead, and…
This.