08-06-2013, 08:48 PM
Sempronius Densus,
If I could throw my two cents in, current western military forces generally have a support to fighter ratio of at least 10 to 1, if not more, yet from what I've seen cohesion within the military forces does not suffer greatly due to the disparity from my experiences (though there is some good-natured ribaldry between "grunts" and "Pogues" in the US Army and Marine Corps). And within any company I ever served with, certain squads or even platoons were more commonly used than others, especially for more dangerous missions, mainly due to leadership and performance indications. I got stuck in a platoon one time that was relegated to basically "busy work" missions because my platoon leader was a fool and a coward. No organization is fair even though the men want it.
Food for thought, in terms of sticking your best men in the front lines to fight: Assuming you were a modern day infantry leader, who would you give your most casualty producing weapon, the machine gun, to? An untested and untried private who based on what you've seen is simply an "okay" soldier, not great but not horrible? Or would you be more inclined to hand it over to that maniac soldier, the aggressive guy who is always getting into fisticuffs, who is itching to mow the enemy down, and also is proficient in gun drills?
Within a Roman century, the front rankers were the most casualty producing weapons. Once spent (tired, wounded, dead, poorly motivated and scared), the entire century was combat ineffective and would need to be replaced by another.
If I could throw my two cents in, current western military forces generally have a support to fighter ratio of at least 10 to 1, if not more, yet from what I've seen cohesion within the military forces does not suffer greatly due to the disparity from my experiences (though there is some good-natured ribaldry between "grunts" and "Pogues" in the US Army and Marine Corps). And within any company I ever served with, certain squads or even platoons were more commonly used than others, especially for more dangerous missions, mainly due to leadership and performance indications. I got stuck in a platoon one time that was relegated to basically "busy work" missions because my platoon leader was a fool and a coward. No organization is fair even though the men want it.
Food for thought, in terms of sticking your best men in the front lines to fight: Assuming you were a modern day infantry leader, who would you give your most casualty producing weapon, the machine gun, to? An untested and untried private who based on what you've seen is simply an "okay" soldier, not great but not horrible? Or would you be more inclined to hand it over to that maniac soldier, the aggressive guy who is always getting into fisticuffs, who is itching to mow the enemy down, and also is proficient in gun drills?
Within a Roman century, the front rankers were the most casualty producing weapons. Once spent (tired, wounded, dead, poorly motivated and scared), the entire century was combat ineffective and would need to be replaced by another.
