All weapons in this game . maybe to good .

[Hannibal]

Has anyone seen any statistic on how many shots or shells on average were need to kill someone in combat ?Now I know it would be boring to play a game where you sat around and watched people for the most part .But might this be more realistic ?

[The Commissar]

Hannibal,

Despite what you may have seen in movies, particularly ones staring Bruce Willis, most of the time, a pistol round can kill you pretty easily. A round from a rifle will blow chunks out of you and then you'll die. A SMG burst will throw you back full of lead, and you'll die once more. A machine gun will, with some luck, be able to cut you in half and spill your guts out, effectively killing you. A mortar round, if dropped within a meter of your position, stands a good chance of shredding you with lots of shrapnel. For the larger calibres, you might as well kiss you and your dog tags goodbye, because no one will find them again.

A tank gun or an infantry gun, even a small one, will work much like a mortar except with a direct line of sight to you, and thus a higher chance of killing you (unless you happen to be behind a tough obstacle, like a cement wall). Any sort of rocket will splatter you in small bloody bits over a wide area if it lands close by. An aircraft bomb will do the same.

Have I covered everything? Yeah, I think so.

[Andrew H.]

Well, the 95 "shots" a German HMG carries is equivalent to 2000 or 3000 bullets, as I understand it. It's not uncommon for me to have games where my HMGs do a lot of suppressing, and may cause an occasional casualty...but I'm not sure that the HMG would have caused even one KIA, even if it uses all its ammo.

Note that the above example involves an HMG firing from around 300 or 400 meters or so. If the range drops to, say 100 meters, the enemy casualty count is usually higher.

But typical MG employment ranges were at around 500 meters, IIRC, where the MG will cause few casualties or KIAs, but will be effective (against historical troops, i.e., Greens and Regulars) at suppressing units that try to move in the open. At unusually close ranges, the casualties will be atypically higher.

CM doesn't model all the ways artillery was used. During the Bulge, for example, Germans would typically drop a 30 minute mortar barrage on US positions every night, just to keep people from moving around. This would cause far fewer casualties than the typical CM artillery strike, where the FO is targetting specific units in a specific location. The Allies, with much better logistics, would use much more artillery. Sometimes the purpose wasn't specifically to kill anyone, but to keep them from being able to reinforce troops by covering likely rear areas with artillery. In this situation, you are successful even if the enemy takes no casualties.

[Vanir Ausf B]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

Well, the 95 "shots" a German HMG carries is equivalent to 2000 or 3000 bullets, as I understand it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

4000, actually.

[Fairbairn-Sykes]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hannibal:

how many shots or shells on average were need to kill someone in combat ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ahhh, i think a few different variables might come into play with such a calculation - that is to say, no single number or average would be able to express such a vast realm of possibilities.

[JasonC]

Oh, it is a perfectly fair question. The answer appears to be on the order of 25-50 medium artillery shells or 1000-2000 bullets fired, to inflict one battle casualty. WW II armies expended enourmous amounts of ammo, often at long range or vs. targets only suspected of harboring enemies. And CM fights depict the high end of combat intensity and closeness of approach of the rival sides, no question.

The average US infantry -division- lost 50 men a day to all battle causes, over its whole period in combat. The highest division (the 106th) averaged 112 - it was smashed in the Bulge, with two regiments surrounded in the first days of the attack, and only in the line for 2 months. Units that were in the whole thing from Normandy on are above average, around 60-75 per day. Later arrivals, meaning those that missed both Normandy and the Bulge, have average combat loss figures below 25 per day.

In periods of heavy, sustained offensive fighting, like that through the Normandy hedgerows in the push to St. Lo, the loss rate per division per day would rise to 3-5 times the whole war average, meaning 150-250 per day. In such periods ammo expenditure went up too, with div arty often firing 5000 rounds per day. Losses to defending formations of the same size were comparable; the attackers often had 3:2 or 2:1 odds, with the loss ratio of the two sides about the same size but in the other direction (attackers losing more).

The main differences in CM are (1) players mash their forces together much more recklessly than men did whose lives were at stake, (2) the force matchups are usually far closer to even than they often were in reality, (3) there is much less retreating, and much more stand-at-all-costs fighting for relatively insignificant bits of terrain, (4) players take unit qualities that are probably high, with the real forces mixed regular and green, while players use many vets mixed with some regulars, (5) players use their forces like only the next 30 minutes count, when the real commanders used them as though the next year - or at the least, the next month - mattered more.

I do think that direct fire HE is overmodeled in CM, being too accurate and producing too much combat effect compared to infantry type fire. See the difference between what a 75mm infantry gun can do, compared to an HMG team, for instance. And most anti-tank firing in the war probably took place as significantly longer distances than one typically sees in CM. They made up for low hit or kill probabilities per shot by using companies and battalions of tanks, instead of sections and platoons - and by firing for tens of minutes rather than tens of seconds. Off map artillery was sometimes as responsive as it appears in CM, but rarely so. A lot of artillery firing was done on wider sheafs and at targets much less accurately located. They made up for it by shooting with whole battalions and upwards, instead of 4-gun batteries.

What you see in CM is stuff that did happen and matter, but is on the desperate knife-fight end of the scale. Stand off shooting at km ranges, forces withdrawing rather than standing under such fire, tentative creeping over ground that may or may not have just been evacuated by the enemy, pausing for hours to reorganize or to wait for supporting fires or a wide flanking movement turn the enemy out of his positions - all those are underrepresented in CM, and were a big part of the average soldier's experience of the war. And a big part of each side's ammo expenditures.

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

Oh, it is a perfectly fair question. The answer appears to be on the order of 25-50 medium artillery shells or 1000-2000 bullets fired, to inflict one battle casualty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Correct, but poorly phrased. How many of these bullets or shells were fired at a specific target? Very, very, very, very few.

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

Oh, it is a perfectly fair question. The answer appears to be on the order of 25-50 medium artillery shells or 1000-2000 bullets fired, to inflict one battle casualty...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I bet it took more to kill a Finn.

And you better hope you killed him, 'cos otherwise he's just going to be grumpy. IIRC, the Finns didn't bother with medics and hospitals, either they were good to go, or they were dead. Nothing in between.

Eh, Tero?

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JonS:

I bet it took more to kill a Finn.

And you better hope you killed him, 'cos otherwise he's just going to be grumpy. IIRC, the Finns didn't bother with medics and hospitals, either they were good to go, or they were dead. Nothing in between.

Eh, Tero? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't let's get carried away, shall we?

You are obviously confusing the pernicious olive skinned, sausage-eating, jackbooted Finns with the brave, fresh-faced, corn-fed lads of the Canadian Army.

[argie]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JonS:

I bet it took more to kill a Finn.

And you better hope you killed him, 'cos otherwise he's just going to be grumpy. IIRC, the Finns didn't bother with medics and hospitals, either they were good to go, or they were dead. Nothing in between.

Eh, Tero? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What!!!!????? You actually can KILL a Finn!!!????

BTS, PLEASE, FIX OR DO SOMEFINK.

[tss]

JonS wrote:

I bet it took more to kill a Finn.

A perfect cue...

There were two verified cases (and I've seen photos of both) where a Finn survived a direct hit of a 40 mm mortar. And I really mean direct, as in the actual round hit the actual man.

In both cases the round ended up in lower back just above hip. Both rounds were duds. In one case there was some scrap of debris between the firing pin and detonator. I don't know about the other.

And for those doubting Finnish mortality: the link http://tietokannat.mil.fi/menehtyneet/index.php3 leads to an online database of Finnish military KIAs. The database is not necesserily complete and there are errors in it. (Though, they seem to have corrected my great uncle's record; Esko Voltti, KIA 19.7.1941 at Särkisyrjä, Ruskeala).

- Tommi

[Michael Dorosh]

Canadian Online Virtual War Memorial

We have one, too. Anyone with photos of a Canadian who has died in war, do what I did - donate scans to the memorial. A worthy project.

Photo Collection for Henry Althouse

tss - I am having trouble navigating the Finnish on the site - what is the direct link to your great uncle's page?

[tss]

Michael Dorosh wrote:

tss - I am having trouble navigating the Finnish on the site - what is the direct link to your great uncle's page?

Enter "Voltti" on the box labeled "sukunimi". Then click on "hae". He's the only one with that surname in the database. Though, the record is also in Finnish. The most important lines are "joukko-osasto" (unit), "sotilasarvo" (rank), "kuolinaika" (date of death), "kuolinpaikka" (place of death), and "menehtymisluokka" (classification. In his case it is "kaatui, siunattu ja haudattu" meaning KIA and buried with Christian rites).

Two of my other great uncles are also there: Toivo Syrjänen, MIA 13.2.1940 at Summa [their sapper company was sent in to plug Soviet breakthrough.] and Heikki Syrjänen, WIA 11.3.1940, died of wounds on the next day [a squad-mate fumbled with an AT mine, my grandfather was wounded by the same explosion as were all other men of their squad. There was also a fourth brother in the same company, he survived without wounds].

- Tommi

[JasonC]

Um, you people have migrated beyond wits through involuntary self-parody to mere disruptors. If you have discussion on the topic of the thread, by all means post away. If you want to have an arctic combatant memorial convention, why not start your own thread on the subject? Perhaps under the "general" heading?

As for Michael's comment (the only recent one on the actual subject of the thread), all that firing was definitely directed at enemies. They weren't celebrating New Years. Naturally only 1-2 out of that mass were directed well enough to generate an actual battle casualty; that is sort of what the clause "generated a battle casualty" means. Which means the rest, weren't directed well enough, obviously.

How many were and how many weren't is exactly the question of weapon effectiveness the initial poster asked. A more pertinent observation might be how many infantry formations rushed straight through that volume of ranged fire, heedless of being spotted or of how many men were hit, intent only on closing to within 20 meters from their enemies? Few.

You can tell, because if they weren't taking rather a lot of trouble to avoid that volume of fire, 25-50 artillery shells or 1000-2000 bullets would have dropped rather more than one guy. But they didn't. Ergo, people were staying out of each other's way - down in cellars, in dead ground, at the bottom of slit trenches, staying half a mile or more away from the enemy - rather more than they often do in CM.

[New Age Santa]

I've actually tested how many shots it takes for a Tiger tank to nail a vanilla m4 Sherman at a range of 3,500 meters.

It takes about 20 (!!?!??!)or more shots to actually hit the thing. Not to mention the Shermans never even managed to nail tiger, 1-2 shells hit it but they broke up.

[tss]

JasonC wrote:

As for Michael's comment (the only recent one on the actual subject of the thread), all that firing was definitely directed at enemies.

[Warning! Following lines will contain semantic argumentation that is not really relevant to anything, so feel free to skip to the next post.]

First, I would leave that "definitely" out since it could be argued that a lot of fire wasn't actually directed at anything. I'd categorize firing into the following classes:

<ul>[*]A shot aimed at a visible enemy target (rifleman aiming at a particular soldier, AT gun firing at a tank, FO calling fire on a location he knows has enemies, ...)

[*]A shot aimed for surpression or interdiction. (infantryman firing at the general direction of enemy, MG firing sporadic burst along a road, ...)

[*]A harrasment shot (MG firing a short burst at enemy trench, FO calling few rounds to road intersection at random times...)

[*]A training shot (men examining new equipment, ...)

[*]A comforting shot where a man fires his weapon because it gives him a feeling of security or because he thinks it is expected of him with no real knowledge about enemy locations.

[*]A mistaken shot (man thinks to see an enemy but doesn't, includes friendly fire)

I might come up with more but I'm hungry and not motivated enough. Now, which of these classes should be counted in the total number of rounds fired against enemy? Certainly not training shots, but what about others.

Then again, how would we count the number of casualties? Do we include only those killed directly by enemy fire? What about friendly fire? Accidents with the weapons? Traffic accidents? Traffic accidents while in combat?

The original poster asked about killing someone in combat. Are the millions of artillery shells that were shot far to the enemy rear areas really relevant to that?

Now, what is my point? Not much. Simply that I have my suspicions on the well-definiteness of whole concept of "average number of rounds to cause a casualty".

They weren't celebrating New Years.

Except, of course, on New Years.

[Another warning. Those sick of my examples should definitely skip to the next post]

One Finnish sapper company lost 34 killed in Winter War. Of those, 28 died on the same day. Now, what makes this relevant to the topic? Maybe that at least 22 of them died in the same explosion (6 are classified as MIAs so they probably were not in the same place).

And it wasn't a Soviet shell or bomb that got them, but their own mistake: they were being transported on a truck to construct an AT minefield and someone had made the decision (against regulations) to carry the mines armed. The exact reason of the explosion was never determined, but apparently one of the mines blew off.

So, here we have an unit where 2/3 of KIAs were not caused by enemy. Sure, accidents of this scale were rare in any army, but how rare and how will they affect the averages?

- Tommi

[MikeyD]

First off, it wasn't that the Finns were supermen, it's that the Russian infantry conscripts were sent into battle marching in formation ...standing up! It's easier to shoot them that way.

Now, as to average shots per target, I read something a (very) long time ago about the average number of Sherman tank rounds fired at the average target before it was taken out. The number was very high indeed.

Reminded me of the scene in 'Full Metal Jacket' where a single sniper shot from an open window caused the entire squad to fire on the target, all the rifles on full auto! ...and, if memory serves, not hitting anything.

I can imagine if something were to attract the attention of a platoon of Shermans approaching a village the massed return firing wouldn't stop until that something was on fire or completely demolished. Lotsa shells.