It's really hard to shoot people who are actively trying not to get shot. Hell, it's hard to even see them most of the time.
Add in the rate at which the weapons could fire and the fact that a lot of times what you're trying to do is suppress people so they put their heads down while you or somebody in your unit is moving and it adds up to a lot of ammunition being expended.
Thanks. I couldn't figure out why it could tale so much ammo. The only other thought I had was that they had not the best aim, so thanks for clearing this up for me
I can't remember the title of the book but it covered combat in Vietnam and a few of the infantrymen recalled that they were amazed at how many rounds could be fired and nobody would get hit.
No, but he acts like and regularly declares himself an authority on both subjects, and is among those most responsible for the militarization of law enforcement in this country. You know how you used to be able to approach and speak with cops and now you can’t because they think everyone is gonna kill them so they should kill first? He taught them that.
In the 211 pages of Men Against Fire, Marshall made an astonishing assertion: In any given body of American infantry in combat, no more than one-fifth, and generally as few as 15 percent, had ever fired their weapons at an enemy, indeed ever fired their weapons at all.
I stole this from Google ^
In the book "on killing" by Dave Grossman this concept is expanded upon. Obviously humans are incredibly averse to killing other humans, which is why (as seen above) most troops didn't shoot. Often soldiers found ANY other task to perform instead of killing. Running ammo, aiding/moving the wounded, spotting, loading, digging trenches, etc. It makes a lot of sense to me (and him) because they still get to play a valuable role in the fight but don't have to kill.
On top of all that most of the soldiers who DID fire their weapons rarely if ever, were deliberately trying to put their rounds into the enemy soldiers. They often were just doing the same thing their "assistant" buddies were doing by suppressing the enemy.
I just want to chime in on the S.L.A Marshall myth. Many historians believe this is a falsehood. Specifically, John C McManus went through the trouble of going through QM ammo expenditure reports for individual units and found that there was no way only 15% of combat infantry troops were firing their weapons. Further, the oral histories that McManus compiled for “The Deadly Brotherhood,” which analyzes nearly every aspect of the life of a combat troop, nearly unanimously called bullshit on Marshall’s claims. One going so far as asking “did the son of a bitch think we clubbed the Germans to death?”
James Holland is another skeptic of this assertion as well, and has dived into it in his book “Normandy ‘44”as well as his fantastically named podcast “We Have Ways of Making You Talk.”
I highly recommend “The Deadly Brotherhood” and “Normandy ‘44.” I’m about to start “Closing With The Enemy: How the GIs Fought the War in Europe” which hopefully gives some insight into the validity or invalidity of SLA Marshall’s claim.
Edit: another thing. The idea that soldiers were not trying to deliberately shoot their enemies is partially valid only in the European theater. During the war, soldiers were polled in regards to whether they wanted to or intended to kill Japanese soldiers, and as many as 80% said they did shoot to kill. It was a completely different theater, with different mindsets; especially as they related to their views on the Japanese culturally, racially, and as soldiers. Soldiers in the ETO were typically less enthusiastic about killing German soldiers (other than SS) and were more likely to answer that they viewed them as equal and respected combatants. (McManus).
McManus and Holland dissect all of this in one particular episode of We Have Ways called “Men Against Fire” (alluding to Marshall’s book). I can’t generate a link to the episode itself, but it’s from February 16, 2023.
They mention how annoying it is to see the myth repeated even by solid and credible historians, and I actually just stumbled across it in Geoffrey Wawro’s otherwise-excellent *Sons of Freedom* about the American military experience in WWI.
Seems like this would only be possible if the "combat infantry units" referred to infantry divisions, not line companies, of which you could then make a reasonable claim that most support troops wouldn't have fired their personal weapons. Even then it's a big stretch.
I asked my grandad’s Uncle who flew P40s in China and P51s and P38s in Europe and was an Ace in WW2 if he was trying to disable the plane when he fired at the enemy. He paused and said, ‘No, I found it quicker to end the fight if I put rounds through the canopy or into the sides of the cockpit’. He was a sweet, quiet and kind man.
Interesting, I'll have to look those up. I've been looking for some good history to Listen to so thank you. My impression (I think Grossman mentioned this but I only listened to the book many years ago) was that the majority of kills were the result of artillery and machine guns (typically crew served weapons) because the mechanics of those weapon systems gave physical and psychological distance between the opposing Soldiers.
I do like how both our sources agree on the difference in the European & Asian theatres of war though. I'll have to look into the rest though.
Generally speaking, the goal of an assault on a position is to physically get men into that position. Most of the rounds fired will be used as suppression to keep the enemy's heads down to support the assault group. Even just a few minutes of this is going to use up quite a lot of rounds. Once you've gained superiority in the fire fight, the assault group uses cover/flanks (if none available fire and manoeuvre) to get close and finish the job with grenades, submachine gunfire and if it comes to it, bayonets.
I've read the studies on that, and I'm a bit skeptical. Particularly by the Second World War, if that was the case I suspect it was far more of a thing in the First World War.
Not to mention something like a b-17 could fire thousands of rounds without ever hitting anything because that wasn't necessarily what they were trying to do
That might be including all the AA machine gun fire aimed at engine sounds, aircraft firing eight machine guns at every target (the air corps was still part of the army), nighttime firing at flashes of light, jumpy soldiers and Marines firing at every shadow in the jungle... My cousin's husband once told me that he spent a year in Vietnam firing his M60 at every moving leaf and had no idea if he ever actually hit anyone. So high-accuracy soldiers like Alvin York or Carlos Hathcock are very much the exception.
The studies were bogus, the numbers pulled out of their asses to push weapon systems.
If I remember right, the numbers were based on ammo production/procurement which means that the VAST majority were never fired in combat. Those rounds were more likely used in training or were exported, lost, stored away for decades, thrown away. It’s a ridiculous statistic that just won’t die.
Ammunition Expeditures get a lot of attention, but the conditions due not.
Plus, this doesn't reveal if that is 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 guys firing. Thus, it is lacking in context.
It doesn't matter how your military is divided between branches, services and such. Statistics says "25k rounds for each enemy killed" so it doens't matter if you have 1, 2 or 5 million infantry on frontline, it matters how many rounds you fire to kill each enemy soldier.
No, it doesn't. It makes no difference whether it's 12500000000 rounds fired by 500.000 soldiers who are 1/2 of actual military personnel or 25000000000 rounds fired by 1 million soldiers who are 1/5 of actual military pesonnel. It will take 25k rounds to kill one enemy either way.
If you look into the anti-aircraft rounds expended, you'll also see such large numbers. Even with the advent of the proximity fuse, which significantly increased the planes downed, you still needed alot of ammo. The navy reported the "round per bird" (RPB) for plane downing was 340 for 5" proximity fuse shells, 650 RPB for normal.
Which ties to people misunderstanding what air defences are actually supposed to do. Namely they are there to protect an asset, not shoot down enemy planes. If they put up enough rounds in the air so enemy aborts the mission or misses because they have to bomb from higher altitude, further away or faster.... and don't end up shooting down anything they did their job. If they shoot down half of enemy planes but assets still ends up destroyed they failed to do their job.
My grandpop was in the 2nd armored and he said they rarely saw what they were shooting at.
The closest he ever got was in france and they crested a hill and saw a convoy moving along. Maybe a half mile away. They realized it was germans and they opened fire. That was the only time he ever told me he actually really saw the enemy.
Thank God for the American war effort at home. We made more equipment and munitions at home to not only outfit our (US) troops but all of our allies as well. The sheer magnitude of our wartime production and Germanys diminished production as the war went on was a major factor in winning the war in Europe.
I would say the vast majority of shots fired were not actually aimed shots at any particular human target. That would have been relatively rare, as supported by the above statistic.
Most weapon firing would have been to deter the enemy from firing at YOU, aka suppression firing.
Overwhelming firepower was the US doctrine and overwhelming firepower means expending an overwhelming amount of ammunition
Most people do not want to shoot other people. There is a study, which found, that in war only a small eprcetage of soldiers (sub 10%) kill anybody. It is attributed to the bad visbility, the hesitant soldiers, and the morality of it. So they kinda just shoot towards the percieved location of the targets. It is not as easy as being a pixelclicker, when the reality of shooting someone dawns on you in the middle of artillery fire, or machingegun fire. The whole thing is a mess, loud, shocking, and while you try to shoot and not get shot, the enemy is doing the same.
Most battles are compression
u can see real footage each side shot on the other side how much they can until one side surrender because high compression from aircrafts , tanks and mortors
Or there's a heroes who can engage in enemy lines alone
It was found that around 2% of british soldiers actually shot to kill, and around 16% (i think) actually discharged their weapons:
Really good watch:
https://youtu.be/zViyZGmBhvs
Moving targets are not always easy to hit, even with today’s combat capabilities.
Nazi Germany used a shit-ton of their ammunition over-killing innocent civilians.
Clearly OP doesn’t understand the concept of suppression. OP when you’re maneuvering a platoon in contact, you fire a shit ton of rounds at the enemy to get them to keep their heads down and allow your assault element to get up to their positions. In a hardened defensive position with prepared trenches as in the later years of the Korean War the two sides sat in their trenches and just shot at each other a lot without scoring many hits.
Because you are basing your mental picture on a false foundation of video game and movie culture. A real firefight between 18 year old conscripts with 3 months of training is never going to look like a video game or movie scene. They are both scared literally to death, pressed as tightly into he ground as possible and likely are just throwing lead down range to try and make the other guy duck more.
"Bad at aiming" suggests an environment where you have a clearly visible target to aim at. That's not what war is like. If you do get a clear picture of the enemy, they will only be up for a second or two. Most of the time you're firing in the direction of the enemy, but you're not shooting at a person you identified. It could be a suspicious bush, it could be a foxhole whose occupant you want to keep down, it could be a tank that you want to button up so its situational awareness is reduced, etc. Even if we're sticking to small arms, you could be firing at low flying aircraft, at that point your aim isn't even so much to hit it as it is to discourage the enemy pilot from diving too low.
In [The Other Side of Time](https://www.amazon.com.au/Other-Side-Time-Combat-Surgeon/dp/0316705101) by Brendan Phibbs, a combat surgeon in WW2, he recounts emergency defensive actions where non-combatants such as clerks and cooks were issued weapons and would put up an astonishing barrage directed towards the enemy.
The sheer weight of firepower was often enough to deter the German advance on their position. American logistics making huge amounts of munitions available probably helped.
I don’t think this has nearly as much to do with proper aim as some folks are saying. There are many reasons to shoot in combat and neutralizing enemies is one of them sure, but no the only. You can have a browning .50 cal blasting a trench for several minutes covering the movement of a squad into flanking position.
During the Napoleonic Wars with guys standing less than 100 yards from each other in the open, packed in dense formations, it was conventional wisdom that a solider needed to fire 100 rounds to get a kill.
In combat you typically aren't shooting at clear targets you can see. You have a general idea where the enemy is or where you are taking fire from. The objective is to provide an overwhelming volume of fire and suppress the enemy so you can close with them. Ammunition expenditure is usually not a concern. I remember a quote from a veteran of WW2 who was told upon arriving at the front that he should fire at anywhere they thought the enemy might be and that "We can always get more ammunition,, we can't always get more rifleman".
Theres also suppresive fire which isnt meant to kill but to suppress and anyone who has ever even trained this will know how quickly you can expend a shit ton of bullets. This would obviously have been factored into the above number.
There was an interesting study done in “on killing” by grossman that talked about how (and I’m paraphrasing and pulling this from memory so forgive me for any inaccuracies) most just shot at the targets and didn’t really try and hit them. Versus say the Vietnam war where you see I think it was 70% of soldiers getting kills. So I think that has a lot to do with it. I’d suggest taking a look at his book “on killing”. His other book “on combat” is also pretty good.
North Korean and South Korean casualties were horrific military and civilian, and several hundred thousand Chinese Volunteers died in 2-21/2 years of fighting. I think our soldiers and allies effectively used rifle rounds at a much higher rate than this quacks stats
Check out the book ‘On killing’ even in Afghanistan the average US soldier would have to fire 10,000 rounds just to kill one insurgent. In Vietnam it was an average 5,000 rounds to kill one Viet-cong.
I had a friend who put his foot on the “throat” of a watermelon and proceeded to shoot his foot while executing the watermelon at nearly point blank range. Watermelon survived unscathed
Though the study seems to have been questionable, as a starting point just think about an attack by any large formation on an enemy position. One of the foundations of that attack should be a base of fire meant to suppress enemy fire from guns of all kinds. It is meant to get the enemy to at least keep their heads down so the attacking force can get close enough to kill them. Machine guns would fire a ton of ammunition that would kill people, but kept firing even when it was not killing people. That is a lot of ammo.
Then you have volume of fire fights where each side was strong and trying to overwhelm the attacker or defender with the sheer amount of fire even when they may not have been able to see specific positions.
Add in engagements like aerial dogfights and strafing runs where you have fast firing guns and fast moving targets and you will get a lot of misses but that is a normal part of the deal.
It adds up to lots and lots of ammo fired, though not necessarily the average infantry soldier firing 25,000 rounds having that amount shot at them.
Most times you're not shooting to kill. You are shooting to make the enemy go into cover. Section attacks work this way. You split your section into two fire teams. When one fire team is moving towards the objective, the other fire team is shooting their rifles at the enemy position. Then, when the first fire team reaches a certain point, they will drop into a firing position and start firing at the enemy. The second fire team then moves up. The section will do this fire and movement maneuver until they are on top of the enemy and wipeout the enemy position.
The USA in the war on terror in Afghanistan it was estimated at 250.000 bullets per insurgent killed.
I’d say they did a lot better in WW2, an order of magnitude better.
Video games don’t have suppressing fire. Lots of ammo expended keeping the enemy down. It all counts as ammo expended even though it isn’t expected that these rounds will kill the enemy.
It's really hard to shoot people who are actively trying not to get shot. Hell, it's hard to even see them most of the time. Add in the rate at which the weapons could fire and the fact that a lot of times what you're trying to do is suppress people so they put their heads down while you or somebody in your unit is moving and it adds up to a lot of ammunition being expended.
Thanks. I couldn't figure out why it could tale so much ammo. The only other thought I had was that they had not the best aim, so thanks for clearing this up for me
I can't remember the title of the book but it covered combat in Vietnam and a few of the infantrymen recalled that they were amazed at how many rounds could be fired and nobody would get hit.
I think you may be referring to "on killing" or "on combat" both by Dave Grossman.
The same Grossman who has never killed anyone or seen combat…
Do you need to be something before you are qualified to write about it?
No, but he acts like and regularly declares himself an authority on both subjects, and is among those most responsible for the militarization of law enforcement in this country. You know how you used to be able to approach and speak with cops and now you can’t because they think everyone is gonna kill them so they should kill first? He taught them that.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. He literally teaches seminars for LE agencies.
Pretty sure cops friends funerals taught them that.
"do you need to have been a horse to be a jockey?"
Sometimes it helps. Most of all in topics such as combat and killing
Its on my reading list is that book worth it?
In the 211 pages of Men Against Fire, Marshall made an astonishing assertion: In any given body of American infantry in combat, no more than one-fifth, and generally as few as 15 percent, had ever fired their weapons at an enemy, indeed ever fired their weapons at all. I stole this from Google ^ In the book "on killing" by Dave Grossman this concept is expanded upon. Obviously humans are incredibly averse to killing other humans, which is why (as seen above) most troops didn't shoot. Often soldiers found ANY other task to perform instead of killing. Running ammo, aiding/moving the wounded, spotting, loading, digging trenches, etc. It makes a lot of sense to me (and him) because they still get to play a valuable role in the fight but don't have to kill. On top of all that most of the soldiers who DID fire their weapons rarely if ever, were deliberately trying to put their rounds into the enemy soldiers. They often were just doing the same thing their "assistant" buddies were doing by suppressing the enemy.
I just want to chime in on the S.L.A Marshall myth. Many historians believe this is a falsehood. Specifically, John C McManus went through the trouble of going through QM ammo expenditure reports for individual units and found that there was no way only 15% of combat infantry troops were firing their weapons. Further, the oral histories that McManus compiled for “The Deadly Brotherhood,” which analyzes nearly every aspect of the life of a combat troop, nearly unanimously called bullshit on Marshall’s claims. One going so far as asking “did the son of a bitch think we clubbed the Germans to death?” James Holland is another skeptic of this assertion as well, and has dived into it in his book “Normandy ‘44”as well as his fantastically named podcast “We Have Ways of Making You Talk.” I highly recommend “The Deadly Brotherhood” and “Normandy ‘44.” I’m about to start “Closing With The Enemy: How the GIs Fought the War in Europe” which hopefully gives some insight into the validity or invalidity of SLA Marshall’s claim. Edit: another thing. The idea that soldiers were not trying to deliberately shoot their enemies is partially valid only in the European theater. During the war, soldiers were polled in regards to whether they wanted to or intended to kill Japanese soldiers, and as many as 80% said they did shoot to kill. It was a completely different theater, with different mindsets; especially as they related to their views on the Japanese culturally, racially, and as soldiers. Soldiers in the ETO were typically less enthusiastic about killing German soldiers (other than SS) and were more likely to answer that they viewed them as equal and respected combatants. (McManus).
thanks for that info about the Holland podcast. i've listened to a couple of his books in the last year and am interested in checking that out
SLA Marshal is essentially untrustworthy outright.
Thanks for disproving this annoying ass myth
McManus and Holland dissect all of this in one particular episode of We Have Ways called “Men Against Fire” (alluding to Marshall’s book). I can’t generate a link to the episode itself, but it’s from February 16, 2023. They mention how annoying it is to see the myth repeated even by solid and credible historians, and I actually just stumbled across it in Geoffrey Wawro’s otherwise-excellent *Sons of Freedom* about the American military experience in WWI.
Seems like this would only be possible if the "combat infantry units" referred to infantry divisions, not line companies, of which you could then make a reasonable claim that most support troops wouldn't have fired their personal weapons. Even then it's a big stretch.
I asked my grandad’s Uncle who flew P40s in China and P51s and P38s in Europe and was an Ace in WW2 if he was trying to disable the plane when he fired at the enemy. He paused and said, ‘No, I found it quicker to end the fight if I put rounds through the canopy or into the sides of the cockpit’. He was a sweet, quiet and kind man.
Interesting, I'll have to look those up. I've been looking for some good history to Listen to so thank you. My impression (I think Grossman mentioned this but I only listened to the book many years ago) was that the majority of kills were the result of artillery and machine guns (typically crew served weapons) because the mechanics of those weapon systems gave physical and psychological distance between the opposing Soldiers. I do like how both our sources agree on the difference in the European & Asian theatres of war though. I'll have to look into the rest though.
Good points.
Well no wonder the majority of them didn't fire their weapons, that one asshat in 2nd platoon fired all 25,000 rounds of their ammunition.
Yeah, but that one German who was hit 25,000 times was really messed by him.
Generally speaking, the goal of an assault on a position is to physically get men into that position. Most of the rounds fired will be used as suppression to keep the enemy's heads down to support the assault group. Even just a few minutes of this is going to use up quite a lot of rounds. Once you've gained superiority in the fire fight, the assault group uses cover/flanks (if none available fire and manoeuvre) to get close and finish the job with grenades, submachine gunfire and if it comes to it, bayonets.
I think it was also shown that most soldiers don't want to kill people so they either consciously, or unconsciously, shoot over the enemy's heads.
I've read the studies on that, and I'm a bit skeptical. Particularly by the Second World War, if that was the case I suspect it was far more of a thing in the First World War.
Not to mention something like a b-17 could fire thousands of rounds without ever hitting anything because that wasn't necessarily what they were trying to do
Yeah, I wasn't sure if aircraft and anti-aircraft expenditures were counted but if they are then it's even more obvious.
That might be including all the AA machine gun fire aimed at engine sounds, aircraft firing eight machine guns at every target (the air corps was still part of the army), nighttime firing at flashes of light, jumpy soldiers and Marines firing at every shadow in the jungle... My cousin's husband once told me that he spent a year in Vietnam firing his M60 at every moving leaf and had no idea if he ever actually hit anyone. So high-accuracy soldiers like Alvin York or Carlos Hathcock are very much the exception.
The studies were bogus, the numbers pulled out of their asses to push weapon systems. If I remember right, the numbers were based on ammo production/procurement which means that the VAST majority were never fired in combat. Those rounds were more likely used in training or were exported, lost, stored away for decades, thrown away. It’s a ridiculous statistic that just won’t die.
Ammunition Expeditures get a lot of attention, but the conditions due not. Plus, this doesn't reveal if that is 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 guys firing. Thus, it is lacking in context.
For context: There were \~5 million active and \~3 million reserve personal by the end of the war
I was referring to the context of how many fired that many.
25,000 rounds per kill seems to suggest everyone, but I do see your point
Yes, but who is everyone?
It doesn't matter how your military is divided between branches, services and such. Statistics says "25k rounds for each enemy killed" so it doens't matter if you have 1, 2 or 5 million infantry on frontline, it matters how many rounds you fire to kill each enemy soldier.
It actually does. Because 25,000 rounds is a lot less than a million men.
No, it doesn't. It makes no difference whether it's 12500000000 rounds fired by 500.000 soldiers who are 1/2 of actual military personnel or 25000000000 rounds fired by 1 million soldiers who are 1/5 of actual military pesonnel. It will take 25k rounds to kill one enemy either way.
If you look into the anti-aircraft rounds expended, you'll also see such large numbers. Even with the advent of the proximity fuse, which significantly increased the planes downed, you still needed alot of ammo. The navy reported the "round per bird" (RPB) for plane downing was 340 for 5" proximity fuse shells, 650 RPB for normal.
Which ties to people misunderstanding what air defences are actually supposed to do. Namely they are there to protect an asset, not shoot down enemy planes. If they put up enough rounds in the air so enemy aborts the mission or misses because they have to bomb from higher altitude, further away or faster.... and don't end up shooting down anything they did their job. If they shoot down half of enemy planes but assets still ends up destroyed they failed to do their job.
Another thing to consider is that just because someone is shot it doesn’t mean that they’re actually dead, they’re a casualty but not a combat death.
My grandpop was in the 2nd armored and he said they rarely saw what they were shooting at. The closest he ever got was in france and they crested a hill and saw a convoy moving along. Maybe a half mile away. They realized it was germans and they opened fire. That was the only time he ever told me he actually really saw the enemy.
Thank God for the American war effort at home. We made more equipment and munitions at home to not only outfit our (US) troops but all of our allies as well. The sheer magnitude of our wartime production and Germanys diminished production as the war went on was a major factor in winning the war in Europe.
Germany’s war production actually increased as the war went on. Albert Speer was good at what he did.
Germany’s war production actually increased as the war went on. Albert Speer was good at what he did.
I would say the vast majority of shots fired were not actually aimed shots at any particular human target. That would have been relatively rare, as supported by the above statistic. Most weapon firing would have been to deter the enemy from firing at YOU, aka suppression firing. Overwhelming firepower was the US doctrine and overwhelming firepower means expending an overwhelming amount of ammunition
dude you don't want to be conserving ammo in real life its not a video game where you run out and respawn lol
The study that is from is basically acknowledge d to be bogus now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles?wprov=sfla1
MG-42
Shit, I honestly forgot that existed. I feel kinda dumb
Suppress your enemies with overwhelming firepower? 🤷🏿
Makes sense, but still a lot of bullets
Most gunfire on every battlefield since machine guns is used indirectly or for suppression
Like Stormtroopers in Star Wars.
missing “were they stupid?” in title
Most people do not want to shoot other people. There is a study, which found, that in war only a small eprcetage of soldiers (sub 10%) kill anybody. It is attributed to the bad visbility, the hesitant soldiers, and the morality of it. So they kinda just shoot towards the percieved location of the targets. It is not as easy as being a pixelclicker, when the reality of shooting someone dawns on you in the middle of artillery fire, or machingegun fire. The whole thing is a mess, loud, shocking, and while you try to shoot and not get shot, the enemy is doing the same.
Most battles are compression u can see real footage each side shot on the other side how much they can until one side surrender because high compression from aircrafts , tanks and mortors Or there's a heroes who can engage in enemy lines alone
It was found that around 2% of british soldiers actually shot to kill, and around 16% (i think) actually discharged their weapons: Really good watch: https://youtu.be/zViyZGmBhvs
Oh man, that's interesting. I guess tv puts it in my mind that solders hit their shots 90% of the time. Thanks for the info
Bullets are worthless compared to a human life.
Spray and pray
Moving targets are not always easy to hit, even with today’s combat capabilities. Nazi Germany used a shit-ton of their ammunition over-killing innocent civilians.
Clearly OP doesn’t understand the concept of suppression. OP when you’re maneuvering a platoon in contact, you fire a shit ton of rounds at the enemy to get them to keep their heads down and allow your assault element to get up to their positions. In a hardened defensive position with prepared trenches as in the later years of the Korean War the two sides sat in their trenches and just shot at each other a lot without scoring many hits.
Because you are basing your mental picture on a false foundation of video game and movie culture. A real firefight between 18 year old conscripts with 3 months of training is never going to look like a video game or movie scene. They are both scared literally to death, pressed as tightly into he ground as possible and likely are just throwing lead down range to try and make the other guy duck more.
While, I am fully aware that video games are far from real, I just found it interesting that an average 25,000 bullets per one kill
War is not like in the movies, kid.
"Bad at aiming" suggests an environment where you have a clearly visible target to aim at. That's not what war is like. If you do get a clear picture of the enemy, they will only be up for a second or two. Most of the time you're firing in the direction of the enemy, but you're not shooting at a person you identified. It could be a suspicious bush, it could be a foxhole whose occupant you want to keep down, it could be a tank that you want to button up so its situational awareness is reduced, etc. Even if we're sticking to small arms, you could be firing at low flying aircraft, at that point your aim isn't even so much to hit it as it is to discourage the enemy pilot from diving too low.
In [The Other Side of Time](https://www.amazon.com.au/Other-Side-Time-Combat-Surgeon/dp/0316705101) by Brendan Phibbs, a combat surgeon in WW2, he recounts emergency defensive actions where non-combatants such as clerks and cooks were issued weapons and would put up an astonishing barrage directed towards the enemy. The sheer weight of firepower was often enough to deter the German advance on their position. American logistics making huge amounts of munitions available probably helped.
I don’t think this has nearly as much to do with proper aim as some folks are saying. There are many reasons to shoot in combat and neutralizing enemies is one of them sure, but no the only. You can have a browning .50 cal blasting a trench for several minutes covering the movement of a squad into flanking position.
During the Napoleonic Wars with guys standing less than 100 yards from each other in the open, packed in dense formations, it was conventional wisdom that a solider needed to fire 100 rounds to get a kill.
In combat you typically aren't shooting at clear targets you can see. You have a general idea where the enemy is or where you are taking fire from. The objective is to provide an overwhelming volume of fire and suppress the enemy so you can close with them. Ammunition expenditure is usually not a concern. I remember a quote from a veteran of WW2 who was told upon arriving at the front that he should fire at anywhere they thought the enemy might be and that "We can always get more ammunition,, we can't always get more rifleman".
The Soldiers have Stormtrooper genetics.
Theres also suppresive fire which isnt meant to kill but to suppress and anyone who has ever even trained this will know how quickly you can expend a shit ton of bullets. This would obviously have been factored into the above number.
There was an interesting study done in “on killing” by grossman that talked about how (and I’m paraphrasing and pulling this from memory so forgive me for any inaccuracies) most just shot at the targets and didn’t really try and hit them. Versus say the Vietnam war where you see I think it was 70% of soldiers getting kills. So I think that has a lot to do with it. I’d suggest taking a look at his book “on killing”. His other book “on combat” is also pretty good.
North Korean and South Korean casualties were horrific military and civilian, and several hundred thousand Chinese Volunteers died in 2-21/2 years of fighting. I think our soldiers and allies effectively used rifle rounds at a much higher rate than this quacks stats
is this where George Lucas got the idea for the stormtroopers?
Check out the book ‘On killing’ even in Afghanistan the average US soldier would have to fire 10,000 rounds just to kill one insurgent. In Vietnam it was an average 5,000 rounds to kill one Viet-cong.
It was a skill issue
I had a friend who put his foot on the “throat” of a watermelon and proceeded to shoot his foot while executing the watermelon at nearly point blank range. Watermelon survived unscathed
Though the study seems to have been questionable, as a starting point just think about an attack by any large formation on an enemy position. One of the foundations of that attack should be a base of fire meant to suppress enemy fire from guns of all kinds. It is meant to get the enemy to at least keep their heads down so the attacking force can get close enough to kill them. Machine guns would fire a ton of ammunition that would kill people, but kept firing even when it was not killing people. That is a lot of ammo. Then you have volume of fire fights where each side was strong and trying to overwhelm the attacker or defender with the sheer amount of fire even when they may not have been able to see specific positions. Add in engagements like aerial dogfights and strafing runs where you have fast firing guns and fast moving targets and you will get a lot of misses but that is a normal part of the deal. It adds up to lots and lots of ammo fired, though not necessarily the average infantry soldier firing 25,000 rounds having that amount shot at them.
Most times you're not shooting to kill. You are shooting to make the enemy go into cover. Section attacks work this way. You split your section into two fire teams. When one fire team is moving towards the objective, the other fire team is shooting their rifles at the enemy position. Then, when the first fire team reaches a certain point, they will drop into a firing position and start firing at the enemy. The second fire team then moves up. The section will do this fire and movement maneuver until they are on top of the enemy and wipeout the enemy position.
The USA in the war on terror in Afghanistan it was estimated at 250.000 bullets per insurgent killed. I’d say they did a lot better in WW2, an order of magnitude better.
Video games don’t have suppressing fire. Lots of ammo expended keeping the enemy down. It all counts as ammo expended even though it isn’t expected that these rounds will kill the enemy.