Bernd
07/18/2017 (Tue) 17:27:08
No.
9004
del
Some hit rate:
Richard Holmes, in his superb book Acts of War, examines the hit rates of soldiers in a variety of historical battles. At Rorkes Drift in 1897 a small group of British soldiers were surrounded and vastly outnumbered by the Zulu. Firing volley after volley into the massed enemy ranks at point-blank range, it seems as if no round could have possibly missed, and even a 50 percent hit rate would seem to be low. But Holmes estimates that in actuality approximately thirteen rounds were fired for each hit.
In the same way, General Crook's men fired 25,000 rounds at Rosebud Creek on June 16, 1876, causing 99 casualties among the Indians, or 252 rounds per hit.
And in the French defense from fortified positions during the Battle of Wissembourg, in 1870, the French, shooting at German soldiers advancing across open fields, fired 48,000 rounds to hit 404 Germans, for a hit ratio of 1 hit per 119 rounds fired.
And the trend can be found in the firefights of Vietnam, when more than fifty thousand bullets were fired for every enemy soldier killed. " One of the things that amazed me," stated Douglas Graham, a medic with the First Marine Division in Vietnam, who had to crawl out under enemy and friendly fire to aid wounded soldiers, "is how many bullets can be fired during a firefight without anyone getting hurt."
There's an endnote here which says that this 50 000 bullets were fired from automatic weapons, much of these was used to suppress the enemy or as recon probes. Also crew-served weapons, like machine guns are add much to this tally. The more noteworthy part is the observation of the quoted medic.
Feel free to add your radishes.