Can’t find this on the Googs, so wanted to throw it out here: what war, between industrialized opponents (so not Pizarro vs the Incas, for example) had the most lopsided ratio between combatants in terms of casualties?
In other words, the Korean War saw 150k allied (American+S Korean) deaths vs 800k for the Communists, for a 1:5.3 ratio*. (Let’s not argue if my specific cite is correct, thanks.)
The war doesn’t have to be America vs. xxx, just between industrialized opponents. And I’m not interested in civilian deaths, not for this question at least.
I believe that the Pig War’s only fatality was the pig. Since the pig was Canadian, that puts it at 0:1, which is an undefined magnitude greater losses on the Canadian side than the American.
While not the most lopsided casualties for a war as a whole, the Pacific theater in WWII had some horrifically one sided battles. On Guadalcanal the Ichiki Detachment essentially committed suicide at the Battle of the Tenaru River with over 800 dead and only 15 prisoners taken out of the detachment’s size of 917, American deaths were 41-44 killed, so about a 20-1 kill ratio.
Th Japanese counterattack on the US beachhead at Bougainville was also particularly horrific. Unfortunately I don’t have my copy of Touched with Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific by Eric Bergerud handy, it has some really haunting descriptions of what happened to the Japanese in it. One thing that sticks out and I can unfortunately only paraphrase is that American artillery fires caught the Japanese infantry in the open while they were forming up, thinking themselves safe from such fires and entire companies were being obliterated in very short order. Japanese casualties were at least 3,500 killed and 5,500 wounded and may have been higher, compared to 263 Americans killed, so at least a 13-1 kill ratio.
Figures for Japanese casualties during the attack differ. The U.S. Army’s official history, which was published in 1959, puts Japanese losses at “over 5,000 men killed, more than 3,000 wounded”.[2] In contrast, Australian historian Karl James wrote in 2012 that “the Japanese estimated that they lost 3,500 men killed and another 5,500 wounded” and noted that many of the wounded subsequently died from starvation or disease,[1] Shindo stated in 2016 that of those directly involved in the battle 2,700 were killed; however, he provides total figures of 5,400 dead and 7,100 wounded, which include units other than the 6th Division involved in fighting around the same time.[3] Shindo’s figures of 12,500 killed or wounded over this period are also supported by Kengoro Tanaka.[84] Several units were disbanded due to these losses, and morale among the surviving Japanese personnel on Bougainville slumped.[85]
I discovered that I actually do have my copy of it handy, this is the passage I was thinking of:
When the smoke literally cleared, the Americans began to realize what had happened. American losses on the eastern flank were seventy-eight killed. Although the Americans counted hundreds of dead Japanese inside the little salients they seized, when they moved into the Japanese rear areas they realized what had been taking place. In the gullies and ravines along the eastern sector of the perimeter, the Americans found nearly 3,000 Japanese dead. As the units pushed carefully forward off the hills, they found many more. Altogether Americans counted 5,522 Japanese dead. Most of the men were not killed on the line, but rather they died in the approach. There is almost nothing in the world of battle that is more feared or more catastrophic than being hit by artillery while moving forward. This is precisely what happened several times to the Japanese. One must understand that whole companies were dying in the blink of an eye. Interrogations with several prisoners led American intelligence to believe that artillery had obliterated several rear-service units. Considering the fact that the Japanese made strenuous efforts to retrieve their dead, American intelligence estimated that 8,500 Japanese troops died at Torokina.
Well there was the Battle of Hiroshima and the Battle of Nagasaki …
The Americans did have the element of surprise… in that the Japanese did not know the battle was of such significance.
Battle of Pearl Harbour, 64 to 2350 (absolute statistics)
Battle of Philippine Sea , 30 : 1 ratio (allies win)
Battle of Bismarck Sea was 100 :1 ratio ( allies win ) … This was an air raid on a Japanese transport fleet to Lae, there were 1000’s of army personnel in the transports .
Battle of Savo Island… 58 Japanese to 1077 allies … American and Australian cruisers wiped out in a major loss for the allies.
Battle of the Java Sea, 36 to 2300 … Allies wiped out , this was during the Japanese rush to expand in the weeks after Pearl Harbour
Sink the Bismarck… well the brits lost the Hood, but thats at the Battle of the Denmark Strait… which was 0 dead vs 1428 deaths, with only some injuries to add to each side. So actually no ratio can be calculated for deaths for Denmark Strait , But for the Last Battle of the Bismarck, 5 to 2200 in revenge… Although the ratio is only 2 to 1 in total …
Battle of the North Cape, the sinking of the Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst did make hits on the allies, so it was only 100 to 1 ratio. ( Most Scharnhorst crew that abandoned ship didn’t survive the cold of the North Sea…) Scharnhost could have sunk Belfast and escaped, so it was’t a simple destruction run for the Brits… it could have gone either way.
If you’re going to count individual battles, then there will be plenty where one side suffered no casualties at all. The highest kill counts from any of these are probably the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The 1999 Kosovo War was the first (and only?) true “war” in which the United States didn’t suffer a single enemy-caused military death. Zero American deaths vs…about 1,300 Serb military deaths.
If we’re going for smaller engagements, then the 2018 Battle of Khasham saw 200-300 Wagner and Syrian hostiles killed vs. zero American deaths (in fact, not even any American wounded).
So in both cases, it’s division by zero. But Asuka’s arguably got the best example if we need something other than zero; the 171 Iraqis slain per American dead.
Note that several Allied POWs were killed in the atomic bombings. Searching around it seems that at least 12 US servicemen died at Hiroshima with other estimates going up to 20.
Well, Hiroshima was a major military city – the headquarters for the 2nd General Army (western Japan) and the Army-Marine (Transport) Division, and the Kure Naval Base (including the Kure Arsenal, largest arsenal in Japan) was across the bay from Hiroshima. There were between 40,000 - 45,000 military stationed at these various headquarters in the city.
If we count them as ‘combatants’, that’s about 1/6th of the population of the city at the time.
, thank you. Hell, I should have remembered this - it wasn’t like I didn’t exist in 1991.