Are Infantry casualties higher in CW than SF2/BS?

[THH149]

I'm exploring CW and noticed that infantry seem to take casualties from small arms fire at a higher rate than other modern CW titles, is anyone noticing a similar pattern?

Similar say to Syrians in SF2 maybe.

I haven't tested this per se, but wondered if US or Soviets lack of body armour could be a cause? 

THH

[Artkin]

Yup

[Halmbarte]

Yes. More effective ways of poking holes in soldiers since WWII and nobody has body armor. 

 

Which is kinda weird that the US troops don't have flak jackets since those were fielded in Viet-Nam and would protect against fragments. They wouldn't do jack-all against bullets but they'd be better than woodland pattern fabric. 

 

H

[Ultradave]

No infantry body armor is likely one cause. We had nothing but our fatigues, helmet and web gear for protection then. Never once saw any kind of body armor, flak jacket or any other kind of protection.

Dave

[Megalon Jones]

12 hours ago, THH149 said:

Similar say to Syrians in SF2 maybe.

Yup.  I just cut down a good 1/2 or more of a Red Army platoon with two fire teams in some good hard cover after about a couple turns.  Got them with enfilade fire. I want to say the M16 is full auto in this title?

Edited May 15, 2021 by Megalon Jones
Morning coffee allowed me to see typo’s.

[Splinty]

9 minutes ago, Megalon Jones said:

Yup.  I just cut down a good 1/2s or more of a Red Army platoon with two fire teams in some good hard cover after about .  Got them with enfilade fire. I want to say the M16 is full auto in this title?

Yes it is. US troops would be using M16A1s which had full auto. 

[Combatintman]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

No infantry body armor is likely one cause. We had nothing but our fatigues, helmet and web gear for protection then. Never once saw any kind of body armor, flak jacket or any other kind of protection.

Dave

We had them in Northern Ireland but I never saw any in Germany at that time.  Youngsters today eh ... they don't know they're born 

[Splinty]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

We had them in Northern Ireland but I never saw any in Germany at that time.  Youngsters today eh ... they don't know they're born 

My unit in 81-84, had the old style Vietnam era flak vests all stacked up in a storage room. But that literally was the only place I saw them. We never used them, even on field exercises or alerts.

[Artkin]

3 hours ago, Splinty said:

Yes it is. US troops would be using M16A1s which had full auto. 

I swear I saw M16A2s when I set the year to 1982 also

[Sequoia]

This is anecdotal, but I was an artilleryman in 7th Corp from 1977 to 1980 and we too had the flak vests which we kept on top of our lockers and always wore on maneuvers. I'm sure the gang has researched this so I'm not saying they're wrong.

[MikeyD]

I read somewhere the flack vests in Vietnam were seen as more of a danger than a help. You wear the vest in the hot jungle environment until it starts to stink then when you get shot the vest not only causes the bullet to tumble, it pulls stinky vest debris into the body cavity. 

[Halmbarte]

10 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

I read somewhere the flack vests in Vietnam were seen as more of a danger than a help. You wear the vest in the hot jungle environment until it starts to stink then when you get shot the vest not only causes the bullet to tumble, it pulls stinky vest debris into the body cavity. 

As opposed to your bacteria laden uniform and skin... 

 

More a difference in quantity than quality I would think. 

 

H

[Megalon Jones]

The original flak jackets were originally handed out to stop low velocity shrapnel caused by air burst munitions.  8th AF bomber crews and USN AA gunners took advantage.

I imagine it’s a mixed bag for infantry with most willing to suffer the extra weight for at least nominal protection.

[Boche]

We had a guy shot in the chest during some iive fire 2 years ago that sadly passed away. We normally wear flaks with kevlar and without plates. Anecdotal but word around is that wearing the flak actually made the wound worse by steering the round offcourse prematurely. Im no scientist so I dont know the validity of that.

I dont know in my years in I have mixed feeling about the vests. I understand why they are there though.

[Erwin]

Sounds similar to the fallacious argument for not wearing seat belts cos some folks have been trapped and got burned up.  For the majority % of probabilities, seat belts are life savers.

[MikeyD]

I recall an old WWII Pacific fighter coworker saying they'd remove the armored shield from their quad .50 mount because the armor was too thin to really stop anything and the rounds that did penetrate would tumble and rip you up like a meat grinder.

[Centurian52]

11 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I recall an old WWII Pacific fighter coworker saying they'd remove the armored shield from their quad .50 mount because the armor was too thin to really stop anything and the rounds that did penetrate would tumble and rip you up like a meat grinder.

Yeah, that matches pretty well with what I've been learning about armor and armor penetration (detailed simulations seem to have exploded on youtube recently). If the armor is strong enough it will be able to stop or bounce the penetrator. If the armor is weak enough the penetrator will "over-penetrate", passing straight through from one end to the other and not doing much damage unless something important is in its path. But there is a dangerous middle ground, where the armor is just strong enough to break up the penetrator or cause it to tumble, but not quite strong enough to actually stop it. So everything behind the armor gets shotgunned by the fragments of the penetrator as well as bits of spalled armor, or torn up by a tumbling penetrator cutting a wider path than it otherwise would have. 

It sounds like the feeling at the time was that the flak jackets were hitting this middle ground. Being effective enough to cause a rifle bullet to break up or tumble, but not effective enough to actually stop it. Resulting in a more lethal wound than if the soldier had just relied on his woodland pattern fabric for protection. Still, given the Soviet superiority in quantity of artillery, I wonder if the protection provided against small fragments would have made wearing flak vests worthwhile anyway, even if they would have been less than helpful in protecting against small arms.

[Erwin]

5 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

I wonder if the protection provided against small fragments would have made wearing flak vests worthwhile anyway, even if they would have been less than helpful in protecting against small arms

It's possible the name gives a hint as to the vest's purpose.  

[holoween]

Soft body armour in the military is intended to protect against artillery shrapnell. Same with steel helmets.

So in CM terms soldiers wearing them should be harder to kill or wound with artillery especially if they are outside of the blast area.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Even if it was true that flak vest made projectiles wounds of certain velocity and mass more deadly you have to remember the whole "table of deadlines" shifts. This means that projectiles of lower velocity that would have been deadly without the vest now are less so.

And now when we remember what causes the casualties on war. That is shrapnel. It is a lot less likely to be hit with a bullet (and this case a full energy, direct hit)

I am sure a helmet also causes some problems where it would be better to be without one. Not hearing many complain about helmets.

 

[domfluff]

Not since 1915, no.