MAJ Ehrhart - Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afgh.

[Ken White]

Sorry Fuchs, but I have read many many AARs that suggest that the "lethality" of arty is not even close to what the manual says.

Sorta make one wonder why the 'manual' would say something different...

Tima and again, troops that have gone to the ground have survived arty and gotten back in the fight.

Now that's true. Done it myself. Also have just charged right through it and survived. Unfortunately, I had a number of friends who weren't so lucky.

Combat is weird -- you can find examples to prove almost anything. I saw a guy in Korea take a 76mm round that passed through his stomach, you could literally see through him -- he was back to duty in about six weeks...

Saw a Viet Namese with an undetonated 40mm Grenade HE round in his thorax, the Medics removed it. Wuithout blowing him or themselves up...

On balance, Artillery was the biggest killer in WW I and WW II, averages generally running between 65 and 80% if Artillery was involved in the action. There's this:

""The cause of wounds suffered by soldiers varied widely depending on specific circumstances. A British Corps reported 42.8% wounds caused by bullets during the El Alamein offensive. However the percentage of battle wounds to british soldiers by weapon 1939-45 overall was:

Mortar, grenade, bomb, shell ...........75%
Bullet, AT mine................................10%
mine & booby trap...........................10%
Blast and crush.................................2%
Chemical.......................................... 2%
other............................................. ...1%

from J Ellis WWII Databook table 57 p257""

Recall also that those figures and the ones of which the 'manual' cued were based on those who received medical treatment; in a war, no one does autopsies to determine what killed Johnny. Nor do they do memorial services or ramp ceremonies -- too many casualties for all that stuff.

Example: the actual impact area of an arty round is small and most of the blast energy goes up and is dispersed.

Uh, yeah -- unless they're using VT or Proximity fuzes. Then, as Fuchs said, they pop overhead and rain down. Also, don't discount the damage of fragements deflected from that upward dispersion -- or from the rocks and dirt thrown out of the crater at high speed. I've still got little pebbles and flecks of steel that pop out of my bod from Korea. The piece of steel under my kneecap is a handy weather predictor....

WOW, where do these mega soldiers live and how do we recruit them!

No mega bods required. Presented with the opportunity, you'd do it...

Seriously now, your concept of lethality is not shared by historic or modern AARs.

If you mean AARs from Afghanistan or Iraq (IIRC, 44% of Medevacs in Iraq during 2003-06 were for disease or accidents) or even Viet Nam, they don't really count cause the bad guys didn't really have much in the way of HE support and were generally outnumbered heavily by us (though one could say that their IEDs are poor mans artillery...). Perhaps you can find me some from Korea or WW II that corroborate what you say?

As UBoat 509 said the other day, anyone who thinks the 60mm mortar isn't dangerous hasn't been on the receiving end.