# Of all the soldiers who survived the Civil War or WWII, what percentage of them had killed someone in battle by the end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066 "2024-06-19T19:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TJEckleburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@TJEckleburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJEckleburg)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/1 "2024-06-19T19:55:34Z")
Only _American_ soldiers in WW2; naw, heck, German soldiers in WWII also. 😄 What percentage of American soldiers who survived a) the Civil War and what percentage of American soldiers who survived b) WWII had killed at least one person in battle (or other skirmish) by the war’s end, and what percentage of German soldiers who survived WWII had killed someone by the end? Friendly fire incidents count, as do genocides (the Germans in WWII) and holocausts, but medical casualties (“I was a WWII soldier but also a medic, and I messed up and killed 3 different people by accident trying to help them”) doesn’t count, and neither do car accidents or other accidents. Murders of civilians counts (war crimes), but a guy who murdered or manslaughtered a fellow soldier during a fight doesn’t count. That’s three different questions. Any info whatsoever is appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/2 "2024-06-19T20:01:03Z")
I don’t think there is a way to calculate an answer, but those soldiers who actually did kill an enemy combatant are probably overwhelmingly operators of artillery. ---
**Author:** ![Jegpeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jegpeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jegpeg)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/3 "2024-06-19T20:30:21Z")
I agree there isn’t a way to calculate the right answer, but you would also need quite a detaile ddesciption of what counts: For example say a B29 Superfortress drops a bomb that killed people which of the following would be classed as “killing someone”: - The B29 Bombardier - The B29 Pilot - The B29 Commander - The rest of the B29 crew - The General who ordered the raid - The support who who enabled the B29 to get where it needed (radio operators, engineers, etc) - The people who supplied the intelligence that led the general to decide this site should be targeted. ---
**Author:** ![TJEckleburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@TJEckleburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJEckleburg)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/4 "2024-06-19T20:40:53Z")
I know that only an extremely, extremely rough, estimated, biased, ballpark, subjective, and hazy number can be given for anything like my questions above. Elmer and Jegpeg, you guys are right about a lot of what you’re pointing out; I can’t provide a super-specific answer to your critiques, but nothing about my three-pronged question is super-specific or unbiased, as I said above; let’s just wing it like a B29 and give it a shot like a Lee-Enfield rifle, shall we? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/5 "2024-06-19T21:27:46Z")
Since we’re dealing with very vague parameters lets start with these numbers. [German military casualties in WW2](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war) - 5.5 million, civilian casualties on top of that 1.1 - 3.3 million. Their enemy troops totalled [UK - 2.9 m; US - 12.2 m; USSR - 11.3 m + others]. Not all of these were fighting Germany, and most were not frontline troops. [And I’m too lazy to bother seeing if ‘Army’ includes airforce and navy]. For our fuzzy purposes lets say 8.8 m casualties caused by potential 26.4 m aggressors - about 30% as your maximum, if everyone was lined up and died from a neat bullet, rather than being killed en masse in horrific ways by frightened conscripts shooting wildly towards other frightened conscripts or being deliberately detached by the mechanics of war to drop bombs or artillery on ground that may or may not have people on it. I actually feel a bit sickened by reducing this to equations. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/6 "2024-06-19T21:49:40Z")
[Moderating] While there might be some factual questions here, I think that lumping in the Holocaust in the same breath as Allied soldiers is unrepairably poisoning the well, here. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-all-the-soldiers-who-survived-the-civil-war-or-wwii-what-percentage-of-them-had-killed-someone-in-battle-by-the-end/1003066/7 "2024-06-19T21:49:45Z")