COMBAT CASUALTIES AND MISSION ACCOMPLISHMENT

Abstract

The study describes an academic reconnaissance in force conducted by selecting a sample of World War II rifle companies, determining their mission accomplishment and associated casualties, and analyzing the results statistically. This analysis reveals no indication of correlation between incidence of mission success and casualties. Since the study uses data at the small unit level, it is obvious that even though the Army as an institution holds assigned mission to be paramount, the individual commanders and leaders who are members of this institution do not actually behave accordingly. Such a 'reality gap' can have significant consequences.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1970
Accession Number
AD0713373

Entities

People

  • Wallen M. Summers

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Casualties
  • Combat Operations
  • Command And Control Systems
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Databases
  • Doctrine
  • Group Dynamics
  • Military History
  • Military Operations
  • New York
  • Operations Research
  • Second World War
  • Students
  • Training
  • Training Devices
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Military Training and Readiness Simulation