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| 5/23 |
| 2007/10/2-5 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Reference/History/WW2] UID:48224 Activity:moderate |
10/2 Check this out, it's awesome:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21105586
Ratio of wounded in action to killed in action:
WW2: 1 killed to 2.40 wounded
Vietnam: 1 to 3.12
Current: 1 to 8.3
\_ All Hail Western Medical Science! Amen!
\_ If you stick a tube in a vegetable, it'll be alive
indefinitely. Case in point... the veggy woman case.
\_ A lot more soldiers get wounded than before? "Ouch, I just got
poked by that cactus and my pinky is bleeding. I'm out of the
mission."
\_ No, it is really because doctors can patch up and save the lives
of soldiers with all sorts of gruesome wounds that would have
been certain death in Vietnam or WW2. Same thing for Vietnam
vs. WW2. If you go back to the Civil War, things we consider
a scratch or minor wound would be almost certain death.
\_ Advances in medicine certainly helped a lot, but it's not the
only thing going on. For one thing, the ammunition size
has decreased over the years (we used to use 7.62 rounds in
our assault rifles). The decrease was driven by limits on
soldier carrying capacity (as soldiers were called upon to
carry more and more equipment), by the fact that the
crucial thing is to disable, not kill, and by noting that
most engagements were fought at distances where larger
rounds were not necessary to achieve decent ballistics.
-- ilyas
\_ Uhm... ok *our* rounds are smaller but doesn't it really
matter what the *other* guys are using? I suspect your
typical AlQ/Iraqi/Whatever gun toter is not carrying the
same load as an American solider in combat.
\_ The russians moved to a similar smaller round (which
is what the AK-74 fires). There are still a lot of
AK-47s in circulation in Iraq, of course. My point is,
the reduced fatalities are not due to medical advances
alone, but the changing realities of modern engagements.
-- ilyas
\_ "Alone"? No. But a huge and seriously major part of
the reason why more solider survive combat wounds?
Absolutely. Think of the Civil War era. Shoot one
of those poor no-medical-bastards with a round of
any size you like. The odds that what we now think
of as a simple infection kills them is extremely
high. It doesn't matter how big a wound. Medicine
gets better every year and what used to mean death
is now a routine fix.
\_ Let's not let justified loathing of the war diminsh the
achievements of the people fighting to keep our soldiers alive.
I'm against the war, but I think the advances in medicine have
been amazing and laudable.
\_ I don't think anyone was dimishing medicines achievements.
Without them there'd be a lot more dead soldiers and others. |
| 5/23 |
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| www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21105586 Military Affairs GI's gear costs 100 times more than in WWII Pentagon spends $17,500 per soldier for high-tech protection, weapons Image: US soldier Karel Prinsloo / AP Troops are outfitted with advanced armor and other protection, including high-tech vests, anti-ballistic eyewear, earplugs and fire-retardant gloves. WASHINGTON - As Washington lawmakers argue over the spiraling price of the war in Iraq, consider this: Outfitting a soldier for battle costs a hundred times more now than it did in World War II. The cost was $170 in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars then, about $17,500 now and could be an estimated $28,000 to $60,000 by the middle of the next decade. "The ground soldier was perceived to be a relatively inexpensive instrument of war" in the past, said Brig. Mark Brown, head of the Army agency for developing and fielding soldier equipment. Now, the Pentagon spends tens of billions of dollars annually to protect troops and make them more lethal on the battlefield. In the 1940s, a GI went to war with little more than a uniform, weapon, helmet, bedroll and canteen. He carried some 35 pounds of gear that cost $170, according to Army figures. That rose to about $1,100 by the 1970s as the military added a flak vest, new weapons and other equipment during the Vietnam War. Today, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are outfitted with advanced armor and other protection, including high-tech vests, anti-ballistic eyewear, earplugs and fire-retardant gloves. Night-vision eyewear, thermal weapons sights and other gear makes them more deadly to the adversary. In all, soldiers today each are packing more than 80 items -- weighing about 75 pounds -- from socks to disposable handcuffs to a strap cutter for slashing open a seatbelt if they have to flee a burning vehicle. Newer gear around corner Several items were added since 2002, when troops in Afghanistan complained that their equipment was outdated and not best suited to the new campaign. Between 2012 and 2014, officials want troops to have head-to-toe protection, a weapon that can shoot around corners so soldiers don't have to expose themselves to their enemy and a helmet-mounted 15-inch computer screen showing maps of the battlefield. Blackwater founder defends Iraq role Drawings of the gear -- some parts already in prototype and in the field -- look like futuristic "Master Chief," the human ber-soldier who battles aliens in the popular sci-fi video game Halo. Researchers prefer to call it "the F-16-on-legs concept," a nod to US fighter jets. The wide range in price -- an estimated $28,000 to $60,000 a person -- is partly because not all troops will have all of the equipment. Some of it, such as a planning tool, is only for unit leaders. The ensemble makes the soldier a highly protected "walking computer hub" who can send out and take in information such as maps showing where all friendly and enemy forces are arrayed, said Dutch DeGay, equipment specialist at the Army's research and development center in Natick, Mass. Each week in The Daily Nightly,' NBC's John Rutherford pays tribute to the men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. |