Swordsmen are born, not made?

[JeanryChandler]

The percentages cited are hardly accurate.

You can see reviews of the original book, written by an Army officer after WW II, here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806132809/002-2159394-0428840?v=glance

From the reviews you can see it's a very contraversial subject, but I personally think General Marshall's findings were correct, and the training improvements were effective from a military point of view, regardless of the possible socialogical side-effects. There have been a lot of other studies since and I read a lot about it, I think there is something to it.

OR was it just plain old fear and one guy just reloaded and forgot to fire... probably because he drilled the loading so much?

I think this is spot on. Got to remember, in the modern industrialized hell of modern warfare personal bravery and honor, and fighting spirit, though still important, are not as key as they once were in the pre-firearms days.

Statistics show that by a vast percentage, most soldiers are not killed by small arms fire, but by artillery, mines, heavy weapons, and heavy machine gun fire, not to mention disease etc. In a war like somalia or the gulf wars, personal initiative is important, but in something like Verdun, where whole battalions are being eliminated in minutes, it's kind of irrelevent how tough you are. Similarly, I saw an anecdote on the Discovery channel where a WW II Veteran from an Armor unit described 200 green replacement soldiers arriving in the morning to man new tanks, being trained for a few hours, and then being sent 'down the road' that evening. 19 of the 20 tanks were knocked out by the next morning. Not really much you can do there. Same in the the B-17 crews flying in formation being knocked out of the sky by flak, or crews on one of the many Naval vessels like HMS Hood, say, when it was blown up. At that point you are more like a cog in a machine than a 'warrior'.

JR

[JeanryChandler]

Not to overly emphasise the cynical, but I think it should be pointed out that historically, a large factor in motivating the ordinary soldier to not only kill, but face the terrors of combat, was booze. The warrior spirit came from 'spirits'. Armies were routinely liquored up before combat. In North Africa in WW II the Brits could often smell the schnapps on the wind when the German soldiers were getting ready to attack. The Russian Army issued a liter of Vodka per day at one point in the battle of Stalingrad.

I know on a personal level, booze has played a major part in my own courage in several violent encounters <img src="http://www.thearma.org/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

All in all though, i have to agree with the nature premise to some degree. I remember as a teenager growing up in New Orleans, there was a group of about 10 of us who used to run around together. We were very tight and talked about unity and an 'us against them' ethos. On a couple of occasions in we were attacked by tough thugs from the 'gangster', shook down for lunch money or bus fare, or just pushed around, sucker punched in the back of the head, that sort of thing. There were a handful who fought back ferociously, we stuck together and held our own. The rest though always just stood there no matter what, and wouldn't do anything to help themselves or each other.

It's a shame but it eventually split up our little group of friends permanently.

JR

[Randall Pleasant]

Tim Sheetz wrote:
...results far beyond the mere sum of it's parts.

Amen! We should not forget that men are not the real killers in a battle, units are the killers. Ten individual master swordsmen are nothing compared to a unit composed of ten well trained soliders with swords. Two types of men are found in all good units, those who kill and those who support those who kill, both are required. Men holding shields in a shield wall might not have been the real killers, rather the spear men, pike men, and ax men behind the shield wall might have been the real killers. Units are not born, they are trained. The glue of a unit may be called many things, such as honor, duty, glory, etc., but at its root level is peer pressure.

[George Turner]

Victor Davis Hanson relates that the Greeks had more respect for a soldier who held his place in the ranks, despite being terrified, than someone who would break ranks to ostentatiously charge the enemy alone, which endangered the cohesiveness of the formation.

And S.L.A. Marshall's statistics on WW-II firing rates have come under some fire, then and now. In some cases nobody can find any records that he was in some of the places he claimed, and people who he allegedly interviewed can't recall any such interviews, and don't even recognize his descriptions as being the same battle.

More here and a pretty interesting look is also is also here.

However, there had to have been some "slackers" in the old formations, because during a route, somebody had to break and run first. <img src="http://www.thearma.org/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />