It colored the thinking of the Army -- to no good end, consumed massive amounts of research and development money and produced -- nothing.

Other than harm.

It was a farce and it has adversely impacted my thinking about about statistical analyses by academics on combat matters since it hit the street in the mid-50s. The '59 and 60s date mentioned are from the time it was declassified, the study was completed in the early 50s.

Combat is not a numeric exercise and 'statistics' gathered invariably reflect specifics at a time and place -- those may or, more likely, may not be applicable at another time and place with different people doing ostensibly the same thing in a setting only slightly modified. Numbers and metrics should be used to assess combat efforts with great caution.

This study was also the lever for much US Army foolishness in attempting to use technology to compensate for poor training, a disastrous failure that is still entirely too prevalent.