In the war after the industrial revolution, the rapid development of all kinds of heavy equipment has made the rate of heavy equipment on the battlefield high. The power of hot weapons is far greater than that of cold weapons, and a bullet can cause a lot of losses to the army in the whirlpool of hot weapon warfare.
For example, in the Battle of the Somme in World War I, the British army lost 60,000 men in just one day, and even the first-line army was completely annihilated, which is unprecedented in human history.
The reason why such a large-scale ** as the Battle of the Somme is rare is that the army will calculate the "** rate" during the battle, and once ** reaches a certain proportion, the combat effectiveness of the army will be greatly reduced, and at this time the officers will order a retreat.
The army is a collective of soldiers, whether it is the smallest squad, platoon, or the largest group army or army group, whenever the proportion of soldiers reaches a certain level, the army will "lose its combat effectiveness".
So, what exactly does "incapacity for combat" mean? Was it the total annihilation of the army, or the retreat of the soldiers? In fact, in addition to being eliminated by the formation, most military units are "hors capsitol" when they retreat for recuperation.
From the point of view of modern warfare, if the general rate of ** rate reaches 20%, it is possible to face the danger of "loss of combat effectiveness", while 30% is recognized by the world's armies as the limit of ** rate.
Beyond this limit, victory in the war becomes very difficult. Why would the army set 30% as this cut-off? There may be many reasons, such as the survivability of soldiers and the combat effectiveness of the army are interrelated, when the ** rate reaches 30%, the survivability of soldiers will be greatly reduced, which will affect the overall combat effectiveness of the army.
At the same time, 30 percent is also an important indicator of the army's ability to resist strikes, beyond which the army may face unbearable blows and lose its combat capability.
It is difficult for those who have not been baptized by the bloody storm on the battlefield to understand the true meaning of life and death. No matter how the times change, the best rate on the battlefield directly affects the morale of the army.
In ancient times, the level of rescue of the wounded was extremely low, and most of the wounded soldiers could not survive the life-and-death situation. In the era of cold weapons, when the army's ** rate exceeded one-tenth, morale was often frustrated.
At this time, unless there is a famous general who has a good command of the army in the rear, the soldiers may panic, even"Abandon the armor and drag the soldiers away"。In this case, the enemy army often takes the opportunity to pursue, resulting in a large number of ** and prisoners, which are generated in the process of one side being defeated and the other side pursuing.
With the continuous improvement of the medical care system, the wounded and dead soldiers in modern warfare have been quickly withdrawn from the front line, and the new forces have also been replenished, and the situation of soldiers fleeing has been alleviated to a certain extent.
However, the psychological pressure on soldiers is still enormous. If the front-line troops suffer heavy losses, soldiers may develop a "fear of war" or even completely lose their fighting spirit and become deserters.
The way in which the army counts the rate of ** is divided into wartime and post-war. In wartime, the ** rate is the sum of the number of wounded and killed in action, and as long as there is a **, it will be recorded; The rate of post-war statistics includes four types: wounded, killed, captured, and missing.
The damage in these four cases cannot be recovered in a short period of time, so it will actually lead to a reduction in the number of military personnel. If the rate of a unit is too high, it may even be forced to abandon the reorganization and simply revoke the number, and the remaining soldiers will be integrated into other units.
When discussing the issue of army morale, we often mention a concept - * rate. So, how is this cut-off line of 30%** determined?
Could it be that the psychological endurance of soldiers can be quantified? In fact, this figure is not drawn by psychologists, but is related to the establishment of modern armies, and is the default rule of the Western ** teams.
To understand the rate, we need to first understand one thing: not all members of the army are directly involved in combat. In addition to front-line combat units, there are many logistical and technical arms in the army, such as engineers, artillery, signal troops, medical troops, and baggage transport units and command headquarters.
In battle, most of the people who are responsible for storming the top of the hill or guarding the trenches are infantry, so how many of these infantry are there?
During the Second World War, the formation of German infantry divisions revealed to us the limits of the army's ** rate - more than 30%, the troops would lose their combat effectiveness. At the outbreak of the war, each German infantry division consisted of about 17,000 men, including three infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, a reconnaissance battalion, an anti-tank battalion, an engineer battalion, an automobile corps, a communications corps, and division headquarters and guards.
The infantry regiment consists of three battalions, each with about 850 men, so an infantry regiment has about 2,500 men, but this does not include non-combatants. Excluding these people, the three infantry regiments of a division totaled about 7,000 people, and the proportion of infantry by the standards of a fully armed division is exactly 40 percent.
If the ** rate of the German infantry divisions reaches more than 30%, then the number of front-line battles may be more than a thousand people left. In addition, wounded soldiers need to be cared for, the lightly wounded can be cared for on their own, and the seriously wounded need to be carried by two people.
When the ** rate reaches 30%, the remaining more than 1,000 soldiers will also need to be divided to take care of the wounded, so that the number of front-line battles will be greatly reduced, and this infantry division will lose its combat effectiveness.
Historically, the definition of the best rate and combat effectiveness is not static, and the standards of different countries are not the same.
Take Japan in East Asia as an example, they set a high rate for their army to bear, so in the early stage of World War II, the Japanese army's combat effectiveness was amazing, and they were invincible in the two major battlefields of China and Southeast Asia.
Japan's military structure is different from that of the West, and it is in the form of divisions, brigades, brigades, squadrons, and squads from top to bottom. Among them, the Japanese army had a larger number of divisions than the Western"division"There are about 10,000 more people, and the number is about 27,000 people, and the B division also has 25,000 people.
During World War II, the Japanese Division A was extremely fierce in combat, and its division had two infantry brigades, each of which had two infantry wings. According to the establishment at that time, a brigade had about 7,600 people, of which 15,000 were front-line infantry, accounting for more than 50% of the total number.
Such a high proportion of front-line combatants makes the Japanese army's ** rate even as high as more than 40%, but they still have strong combat capabilities. And in the Pacific theater at the end of World War II, the Japanese army no longer cared about the rate"Broken jade"Combat became their only tactic.
At this time, the Japanese army, no matter what kind of troops, as long as they had guns, would be sent to kill the enemy. For example, on Iwo Jima, although there were more than 20,000 defenders, only 1,000 were captured in the end, a rate of more than 95%.
Many people may be surprised by these contents, it turns out that half of the troops on the front line are not directly involved in the war! In fact, this is the result of the precise division of labor in the modern army.
There are many positions in the army that are technical arms, such as signal troops, artillery troops, automobile troops, and so on, and their training is more inclined to the cultivation of professional skills, which requires long-term training to be proficient, and the time cost is very large.
The importance of technical arms to the modern army is self-evident, they exist to provide artillery support and communications, and the loss of them will have a significant impact on the overall combat effectiveness of the army.
Therefore, the technical arms are usually not easily sent to the front, and only when necessary, each soldier picks up a gun to break through.
In this case, **30% is a scientific statistical number, but it is not an iron law, the army will burst out at some moment of amazing combat effectiveness, in the case of ** heavy fight to the death will not retreat, World War II and the Korean War and Vietnam War have similar situations.