03-05-2013, 05:33 AM
Quote:Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you here, but don't these figures support the point I was making above, i.e. that battles are not 'more or less suicidal'?
They rather tell something different:
That in modern warfare proportion of combat troops to support troops and rear troops is very much in favor of the last two categories (i.e. that only a relatively small part of entire - let's say - army, are people who actually fight with rifles in hands as infantry). It also says that most battles do not involve entire available forces of the opposing sides, but only some parts (and while casualties of those parts might be very high, overall casualties for entire force will be much smaller). And also that modern battles generally take much longer time than Ancient battles. Dispersion of troops is also much bigger.
Actually on the daily basis Ancient battles were much more bloody than 20th century ones.
The first day of the battle of the Somme in 1916 - the last such bloodbath in history of warfare - was still much less bloody than the battle of Cannae in 216 BC (which also lasted only for 1 day).
First day of the Somme - some 24,000 dead (including died of wounds later) on both sides.
Battle of Cannae (one day) - at least 60,000 dead on both sides, perhaps much more.
In terms of percentage of forces involved becoming casualties, Cannae is even more tragic.
