if 10% of the troops cause 90% of the casualties, then . . .

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

I don't want to start a war or anything by bringing this up, but I read in some recent book (not sure which due to hazy memory, but it might be Doubler's Closing with the Enemy) an extensive critic of SLA Marshall's research and conclusions. The gist of the critique was that Marshall hadn't done all of the research and interviewing that he claimed to have done, [snips]

Quite right. Marshall is still extensively quoted (often at second or third hand by people who have never read "Men Against Fire") and his findings seem to have acquired the status of received wisdom, depite the fact that his research methods have been thoroughly debunked by Professor Roger Spiller (and his character has been pretty well assassinated by Colonel David Hackworth).

Curiously, the fact that his methods are worthless does not necessarily mean that his conclusions are, because the observation that there are (say) two keen lads, seven average blokes and one knacker in every ten-man section is a fairly commonplace one. I think Marshall achieved an intuitive understanding of his subject, and then made the error of judgement of trying to justify that understanding with fabricated numerical evidence. I also think he commits a grave error by ignoring the effect of terrain; just as the "Lucky Alphonse" effect depends largely on being in a place with lots of LOS opportunities to targets, I expect that much "non-participation" is explained by the same mechanism resulting in some people getting no fire opportunities.

Marshall also says some very interesting things in "Men Against Fire" about the lateral sharing of information, which he did not seek to justify with spurious numerical "evidence"; for anyone who has the book to hand, I recommend reading the chapter "The Multiples of Information" while thinking about what it implies for the design of Battlespace Management Systems.

All the best,

John.