We Cannot Allow a Sleep Gap!

[jcustis]

I think a point of clarification is in order. At "my prime" so to speak, I could function off of intermittent sleep that amounted to about 1 1/2 to 2 hours total. Not 96 hours straight. I may have been a little tired when I wrote that.

[reed11b]

Another factor is that our jobs are often highly "scripted" or regimented, which allows us to "function" despite sleep deprivation. If you found yourself needing to do complex formulas or compared reaction and actual choices to what you did when you were not sleep deprived you might not feel the same way. I find myself seeing ghosts and second guessing my actions after being awake for 48hours or longer.
Reed
P.S. I agree whole heartedly with Carl

[Jedburgh]

Another factor is that our jobs are often highly "scripted" or regimented, which allows us to "function" despite sleep deprivation. If you found yourself needing to do complex formulas or compared reaction and actual choices to what you did when you were not sleep deprived you might not feel the same way. I find myself seeing ghosts and second guessing my actions after being awake for 48hours or longer.
Reed
P.S. I agree whole heartedly with Carl

Many years ago, when I was working tac nukes, the relevant USAREUR reg dictated that any of us about to work on a nuke round had to have had a minimum of 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep prior to slapping it together.....

[Adam L]

One thing I have not heard yet is the definition of "combat effectiveness."
This claim of maintaining "full combat efficiency" is idiocy. There is no way that efficiency after 7 days isn't lower than after 1.

The way I see it is that we should look for ways of increasing human performance in periods of extreme sleep deprivation by chemical or other means. Also, we need to come up with a better concept than simply "combat efficiency."

My personal experience with sleep deprivation.

No Sleep: 72 hours...after that you start to go down hill very quickly. I've been out to 5 days without sleep a number of times, but my personal record is 7 days 6 hrs. Most people will be completely useless on day 5.

1-3 hrs/day: You can actually survive for quite a long time this way. you can maintain near full efficiency for 3 days. After this point there is a steady decline until 5-9. After that point you tend to level out. You won't start to hit bottom for a while. That comes somewhere from 3-14 days later. At that point you will have a hard time telling the difference between when you are sleeping and when you are awake. Somewhere between 21 and 30 days you will lose that ability. At this point you still are functional to some degree, but you will start to lose your sanity soon.

(I should note that my experiences with sleep deprivation were during periods of extreme pain. I'm sure that in some way impacted my ability to stay awake. Still, in times of non extreme pain I've found this to still hold true, but I have never had to go past 10 days since then.)

Adam L

[carl]

Adam L:

You can do that. I can't. Therein lies the problem. If you are going to give a task to a group, how effective will that group be if there are many more people who can only go as far I can and only a few who can go as far as you? How do you judge?

Also even if I was dealing with just you, how would prudence dictate my actions? If you showed up at an airplane not having slept for 24 hours, I wouldn't let you touch the controls. I'd fly the airplane and your job would be to sleep. If you were a crew member who had not slept for 36 to 48 hours I would flat out refuse to fly with you and I'd advise everybody else to get off the plane.

You say you can function with those levels of sleep deprivation. I have no reason to doubt you. But...knowing what I know about how humans function when sleep deprived, I'd have to be in extremely desperate straits to bet my life on it. If I were in a leadership position and had to trust you to lead a group effectively, would it be responsible for me to allow you to do so at such high levels of fatigue?

[Adam L]

Carl: I agree with you 100%. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I think where we are seeing things differently in that you are viewing this in terms of practically giving a task to a group of men. I'm looking at it with regard to what is the absolute limit we can push men to in combat. A conflict may very well be decided because of the endurance of the soldiers on one side. Of course I would never want to plan, on someone lacking sleep to go out and perform a mission. On the other hand I do want to know the point when a man becomes completely and utterly useles in unrelenting combat and how if possible we can delay that point in time.

Adam L

[carl]

Adam L: Very well stated. I can see your point.

[Ron Humphrey]

I think a point of clarification is in order. At "my prime" so to speak, I could function off of intermittent sleep that amounted to about 1 1/2 to 2 hours total. Not 96 hours straight. I may have been a little tired when I wrote that.

You at least have the catch up 5-6 hour power coma once every few days or so when scheds running like that.