These are dated statistics, but around 1994 I read an article in either Time or Newsweek on “gays in the military”. It outlined the price of training military personnel as part of the debate it covered.
Enlisted miliary personnel cost something like $180K to make service-ready.
Officers had in excess of $1M tied up in their training and wages by the time they could enter service (I’ll assume that includes paying for college.)
Assuming enlisted training costs haven’t gone up and officers haven’t gotten cheaper, training everyone as an officer sounds like a Da*nFoolIdea ™ to me.
You’ll note the OP said
The made no statement about casualty RATES, merely wondered about it.
As an aside, when I was in Gulf War, Episode One, I was the Battery Executive Officer of a Stinger unit, or the Battery XO. I joked with the boss, the CO, that I was sent on all these different assignments (recon a missile firing position in front of 99.99% of US Forces; go up and collect the bodies of two of our guys blown up in a cross-border incursion into occupied Kuwait - they ended up being quite alive, although bruised and a bit deaf) because I was the “Expendable Officer”. He did not think that was funny in the least.
Leaving casualty rates aside, there are more enlisted casualties because there are more enlisted at the front. Let me write that again becuase you missed it in a previous post: there are more enlisted people than officers in the danger spots.
And you are basing your view on the premise that the casualty rate is unacceptable. I disagree with you. I would never say it in front of a grieving loved one, but I believe the US military has a spectacularly low casualty rate. Especially considering that in the last few years it has fought two wars in some of the more difficult terrain: mountains and dense urban areas.
I don’t have the numbers, nor do I have talent as a researcher, but I would be shocked if our casualty rate was more than 1%. Look at how many troops have been deployed to the hostile fire zones. Now look at the casualty numbers. Please include wounded.
It is a very low percentage.
Which is why we have done so, nearly every year since the end of the Vietnam war.
Which is why we have done so; our regular infantry have overall stronger capabilities (when considered as a unit with supporting resources) than any unit during Vietnam. Look at our casualty rates during the heavy fighting of this last gulf war. There were entire companies that didn’t lose a man during more than three months of heavy fighting.
If we did it, and didn’t continue to develop our special forces wouldn’t you say the special forces needed even more training, equipment and support since their missions are more specialized and often more dangerous?
I don’t think so. I think this is a troll.
The amount of training isn’t a factor in deciding who gets put in danger. Forward artillery observers, both those acompanying infantry and those in the little Stinson and Tayor light planes, were officers with a lot of training. They had to be right up front or they couldn’t do their job of calling in artillery support and correcting aim when the infantry ran into a jam.
The casualty rate of officers in which the US had invested a full year’s training was higher in the Air Force than the casualty rate of enlisted. The casualty rate of higher ranking officers, like Major and above was also high relative to the casualty rate of other ranks.
I agree with Cooper that the idea that officers are sheltered because of the investment in their training and their relative value is wrong because it doesn’t square with the facts in the case of the Air Forces.
Anecdotically, one of my brothers used to be a forward artillery observer. He told me once “Our job is running ahead in a light armored vehicle with plenty of antennas on it. We’re looking for various things on the other side, and in particular light armored vehicles with plenty of antennas on them, since they’re the first thing which must be destroyed when spotted. What worries me is that these other guys are probably told the same.”
[QUOTE=David Simmons]
The casualty rate of officers in which the US had invested a full year’s training was higher in the Air Force than the casualty rate of enlisted. The casualty rate of higher ranking officers, like Major and above was also high relative to the casualty rate of other ranks.
[QUOTE]
Many people have commented on the fact that unlike the rest of the armed services, the Air Force send their officers off to die, while the enlisted stand back in the rear with the gear.
Today, few people fly into combat unless they are an officer. Bomber crews used to be more enlisted than officer, but today’s planes need fewer crewmembers. The only thing needed, is for someone with informed judgement to call the shots from the scene.
The reasons for this are probably obvious. You don’t give someone command over a fifty-million dollar aircraft unless you trust them, and you don’t trust them without a heck of a lot of education and training. Anyone with that much education and training is an officer.
I’m not really sure this informs the OP, since AF and Navy Pilot casualties don’t make the slightest dip in the total armed-service casualty ratios.
[QUOTE=Cooper]
[QUOTE=David Simmons]
The casualty rate of officers in which the US had invested a full year’s training was higher in the Air Force than the casualty rate of enlisted. The casualty rate of higher ranking officers, like Major and above was also high relative to the casualty rate of other ranks.
No, but one of the OP’s points was that because of the high value of the investment in officer training and their greater value to the services they were more shielded from being casualties. This is just not true in the case of forward artillery observers and Air Force officers. I think therefore that it is a good assumption that is is also not true in the case of infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, signal corps and other operational units. If the job requires the training and experience of an officer of whatever rank up to and including General, an officer is used irrespective of danger.
I think the casualty ratio is because of the nature of the job. Higher rank means you are directing more units which means you are further from enemy contact which means less chance of being a casualty.
And, by the way, this site gives European AF combat deaths in WWII as 36320 which was 65.5% of all European combat deaths. So I guess in that case AF pilot casualtites did make some difference.
Medium bombers had a crew of 6 of which 3 were officers. Heavy bombers usually had a crew of 11 of which 3 or 4 were officers depending on whether or not a navigator was on board. Figher planes had a crew of one officer. Fighter losses were quite high (I don’t have the figures) particularly among the ground attack units of the 9[sup]th[/sup] AF. My WAG, until I can find better info, is that roughly half of the European AF combat dead were officers.
I’ll repeat. The US investment in training and the value of officers to military operations isn’t the thing that determines who gets sent on dangerous duty.
You might want to take a look at your premise about the ratio of officer vs. enlisted deaths. This site (scroll down a little way) gives the numbers for Vietnam. Enlisted deaths: 50274. Officer deaths: 6598. That’s one officer for every 7.62 enlisted. I think the ratio of all commissioned officers to enlisted in combat units is probably more like 1 in 10.
In any case I don’t think the numbers support your claim that there is a wide disparity in officer/enlisted deaths.
Look, officers take less casualties than enlisted folks because by the nature of their job, they are further away from combat. A battalion commander doesn’t lead from atop his tank at the front of the formation. He is not the first guy to storm a bunker. He doesn’t go on daily combat patrols. He has to be in a relatively protected position so the whole unit isn’t decapitated.
A military headquarters has to be in a relatively central location. Close enough to the action to command all the units under his command while far enough away to not be directly attacked and become distracted from his job - commanding the unit.
Obviously the more junior the officer, the more likely he will be closer to the front lines. A lieutenant commanding a platoon on patrol has a much more hazardous job than the generals staff 20 miles (or about 32 “clicks”) behind the line.
Ah - no. That’s 65% of all USAF combat casualties (ever), not 65% of all European combat deaths. Total combat deaths in Europe were much higher than that.
I would just like to note that the casualty rate for the Army/Marines/Navy differs from the Air Force in that for the most part the officers do the fighting, with the exceptions of enlisted C-130 crew (of which I am one) and assorted other stuff like AWACS and JSTARS where enlisted people handle the comms and radar. However, even with that you must consider that the pilot, copilot, navigator, and mission control officers constitute a pretty large percentage of the crewing on those types of planes. But as far as fighters and the newer bombers go it’s entirely officers in those aircraft, so the officer casualty rate is much, much higher.
There’s also the thing that except in rare situations like at Baghdad the Air Force is usually outside of actual combat zones (we fly in-country to do our thing), so the bases are very rarely attacked, reducing the overall casualties further.
Oh, well. Too little, too late with my comments, but what the hell. I didn’t catch anything about the Air Force in my quick scan. That’ll teach me to read more closely. Maybe.
To try and clear up a misconception the OP has been spouting, enlisted men aren’t going into battle with less combat proficiency.
An officer receives more training, but the extra training you receive as an officer is basically training which tries to teach you how to lead a unit in combat, and teach you things which relate to leading a unit in combat.
You aren’t taught special fighting techniques that are unknown to the enlisted man.
The enlisted man and officer alike both receive infantry training on an equal level. Officers receive more training overall, but you don’t receive special training that gives you a training advantage when it comes to surviving combat. You have a vast advantage when it comes to leading men because the enlisted aren’t trained that way.
But when it comes to combat procedure, how to fire, where to fire, when to fire, how to move, how to seek cover and maintain cover et cetra the enlisted know just as well as an officer.
One big difference is that officers are better trained to remain cool under fire (although all the training in the world won’t teach you how to be cool under fire as well as actually having combat experience.) The enlisted man may know to take cover in a particular situation but if it is their first combat experience they may not THINK to do it, their decision making may be poor. In this case an officer can quickly tell the enlisted man to take cover.
But this is something any veteran soldier whether he be a commissioned officer, an NCO or lower will be able to help in that regard.
My mistake. However the figures for WWII are that the Army had a total of 238000 combat deaths for all theaters. That is the Med (North Africa, Sicily and Italy), CBI (China, Burma, India) Southwest Pacific (McAurthur - Indonesia, Phillippines) Central and West Pacific (such as Okinawa).
I can’t find any immediate numbers but it wouldn’t surprise me if ETO combat deaths were no more than about 80000. It must be remembered that fighting by the army in the Pacific and CBI started on 7 Dec 1941 and continued right through to August 1945. In the Med, early in 1942 until May 1945. In Europe, the ETO or Ike’s theater, the Air Force started in 1942 but ground action didn’t start until 6 June 1944 and ended mid May 1945 or just under a year.
In any case it seems to me the Air Force officer combat deaths and the fact that forward artillery observers were officers plus the Vietnam officer/enlisted ratio I cited negate the OP’s claim that officers are specially protected.
And, by the way, I looked up the TOE for a light infantry company. There are 85 enlisted and 6 officers. That’s a ratio of 1 in 14 whereas in Vietnam officers were killed in a ratio of 1 in 7.6.
I don’t think there is a lot of evidence to back up the OP speculations about enlisted ranks being sacrificed to save more valuable officers.
Several things are drawing my attentions in the OP’s theories and questions here.
He doesn’t seem to grasp that more enlisted personnel are killed and wounded in ground combat because there are more enlisted personnel in the military. It just makes sense that if fewer officers are present, fewer will be wounded.
He asks why all military members aren’t made officers. The simple answer is the same reason that all employees of every company aren’t made managers and directors. In order to have effective leadership and get things done, you have to have a rank structure. A top-heavy rank structure gets nothing done. If everybody’s a decision-maker, no decisions get made.
He also seems to believe that the only thing the military does is fight - hence the questions about why all units don’t receive special forces-style training. The actual combat units in the army are a relatively small fraction of its uniformed personnel - there are thousands and thousands of soldiers whose job functions are everything from administrative duties (someone’s gotta keep track of those personnel files and supply requisitions) to vehicle maintennance to hospital orderlies. Should these folks be excluded from this “special training”? They receive the same basic combat training as the rest of the Army, and on several occasions (the Battle of the Bulge in WWII comes to mind) it has saved hundreds of lives when non-combat support troops have been able to pick up weapons and repulse attacks. Granted, they don’t train as often, but that knowledge is there and can be recalled if it’s needed.
No “socio-economics” come into it. A sensible command structure and the nature of military combat do come into it. When someone is shooting at 9 guys named “Bill” and one guy named “Fred”, someone named “Bill” is more likely to get hit.
Nobody is considered “expendable” - that idea went away some time around 1918. There are also no floggings or press gangs in the Navy anymore, if you were wondering. :rolleyes:
Can we change that to have Fred get hit?
Don’t worry, Bill - there’s safety in numbers. Remember your training, and keep your head down. 