Re: [eia] US Memorial Day remembrance

[MICHAEL P GORMAN <mpgorman@xxxxxxxx>]

It's kind of relative.  Rifleman was very dangerous for the army, but certain roles in every service were insanely dangerous.

The bomber losses only hit that level for one week and that one week was almost enough to end daytime bombing over Europe since they were at the point where they would have to rebuild the entire 8th air force every month.  Once the P-51D's came online though, that loss rate plummeted.

That week was also a major issue in cold war policy making.  The German air defense in WWII was considered to be about as tight a defense as could be made and it was only able to stop about one bomber in 6.  That led to the doctrine that the bombers will get through no matter what and there is no practical way to stop a massive bombardment of nuclear weapons.  

----- Original Message -----
From: Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, May 31, 2007 4:32 pm
Subject: Re: [eia] US Memorial Day remembrance
To: public list for an Empires in Arms game <eia@xxxxxxxxx>


> Thus spake MICHAEL P GORMAN:
>  > You really saw the effect of being on a ship in the wounded 
> information.  Mos
>  > t sailors were killed outright or not harmed at all.  Deaths 
> outnumbered inju
>  > ries by a fair bit.  Very different from land combat figures where 
> the wounde
>  > d usually far outnumber the killed.
>  
>  If I had to take a guess, being a rifleman in the Army was probably 
> one of
>  the least dangerous combat roles overall, at least during WWII. There 
> was
>  one point in the war when bomber crews had something like 17% attrition
>  per mission, and being in a tank crew made you a big target for the Tigers.
>  
>  -- 
>  J.
>  _______________________________________________
>  eia mailing list
>  eia@xxxxxxxxx
>  http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/eia
>  
_______________________________________________
eia mailing list
eia@xxxxxxxxx
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/eia