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Subject:
The 20:80 'The significant few against the insignificant many' (Pareto's Law)
DragonReborn
9/7/2003 5:36:42 AM
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This post is a follow on from a thread I made in fighters, bombers recon.
There have been several exhaustive studies into the effectiveness of troops (army, air force, navy) following action.
During the American Civil War it was noticed that many muskets and rifles strewn across the battlefield had multiple shots loaded into them (remember they were old breach loading), i.e. they had been loaded, not fired, and then loaded again, repeatedly.
This is just one example.
The reason?
Most studies have found that in a battle 20% of soldiers/airmen etc do 80% of the fighting (the 20:80 law is something that reoccurs repeatedly in the analysis of all human behaviour). These 20% have the fighting spirit or "killing nature".
So what about the other 80%!?
Most people do not relish the idea of taking another human beings life, and given the time to think about it and the opportunity to have the choice (i.e. having a gun and a target at range is different from 400 years ago when you had a sword or spear and the enemy was right in your face) many people will hesitate and/or choose not to engage. This is especially true of newbies who are seeing their first combat. Once you have been bloodied, it gets easier.
So what have our militaries done to solve this problem, i.e. you want 100% of your force to be combat effective, not just 20%!
The result of this research is the realisation that the problem is psychological.
The answer?
Today soldiers are exhaustively trained on firing ranges/simulators etc to fire at targets that suddenly pop up into their view.
This is repeated. Repeated to the point where it becomes a reflex response... enemy with weapon appears in view, you shoot. Effectively soldiers today are brainwashed to make shooting an enemy with a weapon, an instinctual response, ie as a reflex, the person doesn?t think about what they are doing in that instant, they just do it.
This dramatically increases the effectiveness of the troops. Obviously the more time spent on the range/simulator, the better, and so troops such as support troops etc who spend little time on the range etc will be less effective because that reflex response is probably not so well established in their minds.
What do people think about this? Do you agree there is this 20:80 rule and what are your opinons on ways to make forces more effective? |
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