Body Counts and Metrics

[MikeF]

Sorry, but Body Counts work. That the it has been done it badly in the past by those cannot use the data usefully, does not mean it does not work.
We have to get over rejecting things just because they fail in the hands of people not skilled in their use.

Should it be THE measure of success? No, of course not, but most armies who defeated irregular forces used body counts.

The point is, you do not pursue a score as in judging success by the number you kill, but that you are sure that you are actually killing the enemy, when and as it is required. - that is why Templer used Body Counts, and British Army operations were predicated on "killing the enemy."

Do something well it works. Do it badly and it fails.

Breaking the enemy's will to fight is the real objective. Killing the enemy and the proper application of violence is a big part of that. Ultimately, you want to bring the enemy to the negotiating table at a weakened position. However, it's not a panacea. If the negotiations do not lead to peace, then you have failed. The war to end all wars is a good example of how the accumulation of body counts without formal arbitration instead of retribution can lead to more war.

[Bob's World]

Breaking the enemy's will to fight is the real objective. Killing the enemy and the proper application of violence is a big part of that. Ultimately, you want to bring the enemy to the negotiating table at a weakened position. However, it's not a panacea. If the negotiations do not lead to peace, then you have failed. The war to end all wars is a good example of how the accumulation of body counts without formal arbitration instead of retribution can lead to more war.

If the American Civil War would have been over an issue was that equally difused across the land it would have manifested as an insurgency if at all. In which case Grant's strategy of crushing the will of the enemy populace would have likely failed. As it was a geographic issue, and a separate nation was formed, it worked.

Body counts? Certainly gained a bad rap in Vietnam. I see this as a measure of performance though, not effectiveness. Many factors go into what it takes to break the will of an opponent, so merely counting bodies only tells you that you are killing people.

In COIN operations, where one is trying to regain the support of their populace WHO, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, and HOW one kills is probably far more important than how many. Again, I still see it as a measure of performance that will often lead to an assumption that more is better, when if fact, the opposite may be true.

[John T. Fishel]

about anything he is on to something here. Mike, there are times when you can't bring the enemy to the negotiating table - Hitler and his henchment committed suicide rather than surrender. It was the thierd or fourth echelon that came to the table and certainly did not represent the NAZI regime. I suspect that Bob's World has put the body count issue in the right context - that it can be an useful measure of performance but not of effectiveness/outcome.

Cheers

JohnT

[Ken White]

And he is in this case.

The key item from his post is this:

"Historically best practice body counts were based on recorded kills, verified by physical control and recovery of the body AND Weapons - usually for some form of exploitation. (emphasis added / kw)

I would add that those figures should not be publicized in any way or released to the media because they will either misunderstand or misuse them -- more likely both -- and that will skew the military application (as it did in Viet Nam after mid 1966).

P.S.

Don't give them to the Departmental bureaucracy or Congress either -- because they will then be 'leaked' and really misconstrued.

P.P.S

John and Bob's world are correct also in that it can be a useful measure of performance but not of effectiveness/outcome.

[Rex Brynen]

Given their undoubted utility when used right--and their tendency to promote sloppiness, be misused, fixated upon, politically manipulated, or pushed to do things they aren't meant to do/indicate--are we then saying that...

body counts are the MRAPs of metrics?

[Ken White]

body counts are the MRAPs of metrics?

'Twould seem so...

[BayonetBrant]

Once you start counting something, the reporting of that count becomes a self-licking ice cream cone, and without a clear understanding of why you counted it in the first place (throughout the command) you're counting just because you always counted, and then it becomes some form or mis-construed performance metric or a continual quest to outdo the old record, or some other useless mutated bit of BS.

Counting something in and of itself is not the problem. Misapplication of the count is the problem.

[Fuchs]

About body counts in general:

There's a tendency to get the numbers wrong even with the greatest efforts to have accurate data.
The Germans had very strict reporting rules, nevertheless they overestimated air/air kills over enemy soil by factor two and the Russian tank production by a factor two as well (counting destroyed tanks as killed despite the fact that the Russians were recovering and repairing them).

This error factor of two almost seems to be a constant of warfare.

Historical occupation wars had their analogies; like reporting killed enemies based on killing suspected enemies. There are psychological issues and organizational defects at work that would be difficult to come by permanently. Maybe you could solve the problems and get accurate data; that doesn't solve the uncertainty about the accuracy, so you would still not know what kind of correction multiplier to apply to your data.


Own WIA/POW/MIA/KIA as well as POW taken are reliable metrics.

[Infanteer]

John and Bob's world are correct also in that it can be a useful measure of performance but not of effectiveness/outcome.

Probably sums it up best.

"Body Count" is just a macabre name for a BDA - something we try to do all the time as a measure of performance.

And I agree with Wilf that it is tactical. I kill 6 of the 9 guys that tried to ambush me. Good. Useful data for the AAR. Doesn't tell me anything about how I diminished the Taliban insurgency (except on that road junction )

[Schmedlap]

We should use touchdowns as a metric. After all, look how many teams that score touchdowns win championships.

[Schmedlap]

I think I nailed it in my earlier post...

We should use touchdowns as a metric. After all, look how many teams that score touchdowns win championships.