troop effectivness in Wars

Having looked hard at the WW2 soldiers in the 101, effectiveness really dropped off in January 45 at Bastogne compared to December. Same thing happened at Opheusden. The amount of combat exhaustion on morning reports really spike toward the end of deployment. Generally 101 wounded that recovered made it back to the original regiment. Being a replacement was really hard and at Bastogne when they actually took on replacements the casualty rate among them was quite high though I don't have the stats.

I don't think you can compare being in a combat zone in a compound, though under pressure to being in reserve, on the line and back in reserve just yards behind the front in an open foxhole. During a battle with a front line, the enemy artillery would lift and when the infantry came, the artillery would hit reserve.

 

My dad was in Operation Buffalo as well with 3d Reconnaissance Battalion. It started with the NVA wanting to annihilate a Marine unit for propaganda/morale purposes. 1/9 was the unit they selected and that's how it got it's nickname "The Walking Dead".




They assigned a regiment (the 90th NVA) to trap and wipe out one of the two Marine companies operating near Con Thien, A and B companies 1/9. They did trap the forward platoon of B company and chewed up the other platoons when they tried to extract them. C company was at Dong Ha and was ordered to make an assault by helo to rescue B company. It would take time to arrange the helo lift so a platoon from D company and four tanks were sent from Con Thien to effect the relief. Both sides fed troops into the fight eventually, 1/9, 3/9, 1/3 and 2/3 were involved. 1/3 was the SLF Alpha and 2/3 SLF Bravo, the Special Landing Forces were aboard ships off the coast and were a kind of quick reaction force. Col. Peter Wickwire commanded 1/3, he was the Recruit Training Regiment Commander when I was at Parris Island. The first day the NVA hit the Marines with 1,065 of artillery and mortar fire, (up to 122mm howitzer) 700 rds hit 1/9 alone. A Co. 1/9 got a little payback on the 6th when they ambushed a battalion sized NVA element and pretty much wiped it out.



Marine bodies recovered during Operation Buffalo.



In Korea at Chosin it was a similar situation, the Chinese had decided they would surround and destroy a Marine Regiment. Unfortunately for them the Marines had consolidated the 5th and 7th Marine regiments at Yudam-Ni. Mao still thought he could destroy the consolidated units and it would provide a huge morale boost for the communists and a shock to the UN forces. 5th Marines had already made a name for themselves as the Fire Brigade at Pusan and for seizing Inchon. Both 5th and 7th Marines were key players in the recapture of Seoul, and 7th Marines had recently wiped out the CCF 124th Division during fighting around Sudong (Nov. 2-6, 1950), the only defeat the Chinese suffered during their First Phase Offensive. Chairman Mao himself directed that the two regiments be destroyed (the 1st Marine Divisions third regiment, 1st marines was garrisoning various key points along the divisions MSR.


"The American Marine First Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround and annihilate its two regiments. (You) should have one or two more divisions as a reserve force."
MAO ZEDONG's orders to Chinese General Song Shilun.

Unfortunately, the US Army units east of the reservoir, Task Force McLean/Faith were surrounded and destroyed.

 

Re 1. The Vietnam war was a long counter insurgency. WW2 was a high intensity general way. There was no tour of duty for troops in the Mediterranean theater or for the formations which started in North Africa and ended in Germany. They were in it for the duration. The statistics for infantry divisiopn casualites make grim reading See the table on page 80 here. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-1.html

About a dozen infantry divisions suffered casualties greater than their total manpower establishment. The 3rd suffering 25,000 casualties , approaching twice its establishment of some 15,000. These casualties were disproportionately suffered by the some 5,600 men in the rifle companies of the infantry regiments. The chances of survival look better in 12 months in Vietnam than 9 months in the ETO. The 12 month tour was a post WW2 calculation based on the limits that soldiers could susrive the stress of battle before running their bank of courage down.

Re 2. Can you explain those figures and reconcile them with the numbers from the WW2 casualty analyis about?

Re 3 That is a big difference. Service in the infantry is seen as honourable in the C21st US Army. In WW2 and Vietnam it was identified as the place for people who could not find a better and safer role. Body armour, massive fire power, excellent medical services and lightly armed opponents may also limit the down side of service in that arm.

 

Well most of the people in Vietnam "in a compound" were support troops. The Fire Bases were for supporting arms (artillery and heavy mortars) and command elements, the infantryman spent most of his time out in the field. So yes they do compare.

 

As they do for Vietnam, and we are talking sheer numbers here, the number of soldiers in WWII dwarfs Vietnam, but amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II. Part of this is because of more rapid evacuation due to the helicopter and advances in medicine, but in WWII many in this category would have died of wounds.

And those are total casualties, including those wounded and returned to duty, not killed. Many individuals were casualties on more than one occasion, as they were in every war. How do combat deaths compare? What are the facts?

If you're wounded you do survive. You're taking an overall casualty rate and equating it to a mortality rate. The fact is;

"Overall casualty rates in Vietnam were actually 2 1/2 times greater than those suffered in WWII.. 92 Army & Marine Infantry Divisions fought in WWII. They suffered an average of roughly 1,600 battle deaths per division. Roughly 10 Army and Marine Divisions fought in Vietnam and averaged 4,600 deaths per division."

And you don't think the casualties in Vietnam fell disproportionately on the rifle companies? Roughly 75% of Vietnam casualties were to the men in the rifle companies.

Of course the situation is different for British and Soviet troops, but the discussion is about US troops. The bulk of US forces in Europe were not engaged until after D-Day. Those units that had fought in North Africa and Sicily did have more total combat days than those whose war started in July 1944, but enough additional days to make up the 62% greater time?, and you're assuming all US troops in Vietnam only served one tour, many served multiple. We can argue exceptions but as an average, as a general rule a US infantryman in Vietnam was exposed to more days in combat than a US infantryman in WWII.

I think one of the things that leads to the perpetuation of many Vietnam myths is the sheer number of frauds claiming to be Vietnam veterans. In the 2000 Census there were 1,002,511 actual living Vietnam Veterans, during the same Census there were 13,853,027 that claimed to be Vietnam veterans. According to the DoD only 2,709,918 US Military personnel actually served in Vietnam. How does that work?

 

maybe I told this story before...I read Nolan's Operation Buffalo before I knew what unit my "Uncle" was in...I knew he died in Nam.....Buffalo was brutal......2nd and 3rd platoons B Co were the hardest hit--destroyed......about 1994, I received letters he wrote in Nam and the return address was 2d PLT B Co 1-9...when I was active, we'd always hear about 1-9, the biggest ambush....I never knew it was the highest loss day....84 killed, 190 wounded, 9 missing.....they did a ceremony for him, here, long ago....

 

My point was that it was different. Not better or worse but different which makes comparison difficult. Long term exposure to trauma does quite a bit to the human brain.

One thing for sure. The idea that WW2 vets had it better than Vietnam vets because of various reasons is plain out not true.

 

There is a huge psychological and motivational difference between "You can go home in 365 days" and "You can go home when the war is over." One motivates you to keep your head down and the other motivates you to be victorious. The political philosophy of invading and defeating the enemy nation was the goal in WWII. In Vietnam, the enemy nation was off-limits. Victory wasn't the strategy in Vietnam. Stalemate was the goal. The political idiocy of sending men to die, but not allowing them to win affected everything and everybody from top to bottom.

 

Huge bunch of bonk. The WW2 guys were 19-21 yo's mostly. They knew only what was in front of them, nothing more. The 327 guys, after France were dealing with the loss of buddies, not thinking of boy were sure kicked Jerry's butt and can't wait for Berlin. G Co went into Holland with nearly 200 men and trucked out with 105. Suicides happened in Mourmelon. At Opheusden, they became depressed thinking they were going to die for nothing, the didn't see an objective except kill or be killed. At times they felt bad for their enemies whose bodies kept piling up. After the enemy brought in mortars on stretchers to pick up dead and wounded they quit allowing that and the smell of death was revolting. Rain, mud, killing, shelling. 1000 rounds fell on Co C alone in one evening/night.

G Co leaving right away w/o recovery took on 75 replacements after the siege was lifted. When they attacked Foy/Noville the chaplain pleaded with command to take them off the line. They stopped caring and were dead emotionally. Oh yea, they marched to the trucking zone with 42 men. Co's A and C were so chewed up at Champs and Foy the were fashioned into ACe Co.

They weren't thinking, we're saving the world from Hitler. They were trying to survive. Depression again set in when they were sent into combat in Alsace and Dusseldorf as they began to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the thought of survival. They became terrified again that they might not make it.

The PTSD these guys suffered was immense. John Wayne movies don't apply. War is hell. Soldier's Heart is what they called it in the Civil War. WW2 vets if one really got to know them, even as frail elderly men could go from 0 to 100 emotionally.

Comparing the two is just plain silly. One of the biggest fallacy is how brave and tough these guys were. They were normal human beings in terrible circumstances.

 

I've read that the average age of the GI in WW2 was 26. This was due to the influx of older men in reserve and guard units, and the raising of the draft age to 45.

 

Guess you really don't understand bravery or toughness. Bravery is where a normal human being goes against all his built in survival instincts to do what needs to be done. He places mission or duty or doing what's right or his comrades above his own well being. Most brave people don't tout their actions, they don't think themselves extraordinary, they don't brag about it, they downplay what they did. The more terrible the circumstances the more bravery it takes to do what needs to be done, the worse the situation the more toughness it takes just to keep going, physically and mentally.

 

Yes, and I believe it was the late, great John Wayne who put it like this;

courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.

There was a lot of "saddling up anyway" going on then.

 

Very true. But to quote Lord Moran (?) 'A man's courage is like a bank account that can be run down but not replenished.' The Anatomy of Courage: The Classic WWI Study of the Psychological Effects of War. Almost everyone has a breaking point. Even those who "screwed their courage to the sticking point" started to have physical or psychological side effects.

The 101st Airborne in General and the 327th Glider Infantry in particular are not really representative of the USA Infantry experience. The 101st were the very best of the US Infantry. Volunteers, selected and trained for the standards of an airborne units where there was a premium on individual motivation. Despite being in the thick of the fighting and taking heavy casualties in the D Day drop, the 101st's casualties were less than half those of regular infantry Divisions. The 101 deployed for specific operations for limited periods. They were taken back to the UK after D Day and out of the line before Bastogne. They did get time off to recover, retrain and integrate new recruits, a luxury for the infantry of the divisions needed to hold the line

 

Sheldrake wrote:

I agree, and there are as you say physical and psychological costs associated with it. I don't think I fully agree that it can't be replenished, perhaps not fully, but cetainly to a degree. Rest and time out of the combat zone does restore much of the soldiers ability to function at higher levels. You're never fully back but can recover to a large degree.

Well stated.

KB wrote:

You're right. The problem with WWII rotation policies was tha the old timers figured they'd used their luck up and it wasn't a matter of if they'd be killed or wounded, but when. They became overly cautious and less aggressive. They (the US military) thought by giving a fixed end of tour they could mitigate that fatalistic mind set. Unfortunately it led to "short timers disease", when a man neared the set end of his tour and he was counting down the last month or so he adopted the same take no chances, don't press your luck attitude his WWII forebearers had.
As for the strategy, you're not considering the Korean War. In Vietnam we intended to hold the communists at bay until the South Vietnamese government and military could defend themselves. In Korea it had worked, in Vietnam it didn't. We unfortunately, too often, refight the previous war. In Korea it was MacArthur's widening of the war into North Korea (against the desires of the JCS and President) that led to the communist Chinese intervention, the near destruction of our forces, and brought us to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. No one wanted to repeat that, so they were extra careful not to allow for an uncontrolled widening of the war. Then you can throw Robert McNamara in, his policies and ideas caused many problems, he was an efficient manager but a pitiful Secretary of Defense, more often than not ignoring military advice.

 

That really depends on what you mean by that. Certainly the post combat experience of the WWII vets was better than that of the Vietnam vets. Being welcomed homed as heroes by the nation at large rather than the more complex reactions to the Vietnam vets made a difference to some.

 

Nolan. in Operation Buffalo, says the Marines went through leaders like 'sand through fingers', because of deaths, wounds, and the rotation policy...the captain of B Co 1-9 was only with the company for a week before the 2 July 'ambush'....he goes on to tell of the 'laziness' and dangerous habits they got into such as faking night patrols....
the Marines had to endure arty bombardments from the NVA just across the border, and were not allowed to go into that area to destroy those NVA--this is an example for Kodiak's post

exactly...good call here....

I think everyone agrees, rotating officers every 6 months, is a recipe for disaster, no??....

 

a huge difference between Korea and Nam is SKorea was 'stable'..in SNam they had a coup every ''month''! no stability at all...Thieu was a general at the first [ ! ] coup against Diem where Thieu backed Diem...then at the second coup against Diem, Thieu backed the 'rebels'...after that, they had 2 coups in less than 3 years !! then the coups against Thieu.....this is not counting the coups in planning, and coups planned during Thieu's time.....the US should've known in 1964, SVietnam was trouble
...again, not only was the SVietnam leadership unstable, they antagonized their people...Diem was Catholic, while the majority were Buddhists...Diem favored catholics, etc and then then the Buddhists did the protests by burning themselves..., and then you had the presidents giving top jobs to political favorites, etc etc
no matter what we did in Nam, it would not work.....
other differences 1. reserves called up in Korea
2. the NVA were fighting for their homeland, freedom--the Chinese were not
3. many restrictions regarding bombing of NVietnam early on--where as NKorea anything goes
4. see post # 39
weren't there more WW2 [ combat ] vets in Korea?

 

Having lived with a father who went through WWII, had older friends who went through VN, and now know younger men in the recent wars I'd say there is a difference. Not a difference in courage or pride in doing their duty, but there is more of a sense of loss or betrayal among the VN vets. There is no doubt that if they lined up on the DMZ they could have been in Hanoi in a week.
The reason that didn't happen was political - Washington didn't want a repeat of Korea where the Chinese poured over the border. At the soldiers level, it was just pointless. They were killing and dying to maintain a stalemate. They could (and do and should) feel proud for doing their duty, but it's like some of these school games today where nobody keeps score - they just get an attaboy for participating. Nobody is allowed to win because it might hurt the self-esteem of the losing team.
War is not a game, but if you are going to start killing people you ought to have a goal (victory). Watching those young men on their way to Baghdad was inspiring. They were given a goal and their morale was terrific. They fought like lions.
The soldiers and Marines in VN often fought like lions as well when they needed to, when attacked or given a specific mission. But, without a general goal morale was generally low and most were just counting off the days until they could rotate home.

 

here is a massive, huge difference, strategically, between Nam and Korea......in Korea, you can't infiltrate on the left flank, it's ocean

 

The point I was trying to make was that in Korea when we got near the Chinese border (when we were on the verge of victory), the Chinese poured down and pushed us back dividing Korea.

The same was true in Vietnam - the northern border is China. So, the political strategy was not to invade the north and repeat the Korean experience, but to remain in an endless stalemate.

That concept might have seemed sound to LBJ, but it was hardly inspiring for the grunts slogging through the rice paddies.