That’s how casualties are counted. A casualty is someone who’s no longer able to fight, because they’re either dead or badly enough injured that that can’t get immediately patched up and sent back into combat. Either way, the effective manpower is diminished.
If you’re fighting an enemy that’s not completely inhuman, it’s actually more effective to cause lots of injuries to them rather than killing them outright, since then they’ll devote resources to saving their injured comrades, evacuating them, giving them medical care, etc., all of which diverts manpower, logistics and money from their main job of trying to kill you.
OK… a typical ratio is 15-20% of casualties are fatalities, but that varies widely according to the mode and intensity of warfare, the effectiveness of medevac and subsequent treatment, how good a shape they were in when they got hit, etc, etc.
But if you’re in the fight, it’s good for you if an opponent becomes unable to fight, regardless of the reason.
Well, in reporting I’m used to getting, we don’t have to guess with “typical ratios”. They give the numbers up front. That’s what I think accurate reporting should do.
Well that’s a weird thing to do, to add them up like that. Usually you say how many were killed as well as how many were injured, separately.
That’s how casualties are counted. A casualty is someone who’s no longer able to fight, because they’re either dead or badly enough injured that that can’t get immediately patched up and sent back into combat. Either way, the effective manpower is diminished.
If you’re fighting an enemy that’s not completely inhuman, it’s actually more effective to cause lots of injuries to them rather than killing them outright, since then they’ll devote resources to saving their injured comrades, evacuating them, giving them medical care, etc., all of which diverts manpower, logistics and money from their main job of trying to kill you.
That’s all good. I’m just saying in news reporting where I live, killed and injured are always reported separately. It matters.
OK… a typical ratio is 15-20% of casualties are fatalities, but that varies widely according to the mode and intensity of warfare, the effectiveness of medevac and subsequent treatment, how good a shape they were in when they got hit, etc, etc.
But if you’re in the fight, it’s good for you if an opponent becomes unable to fight, regardless of the reason.
Well, in reporting I’m used to getting, we don’t have to guess with “typical ratios”. They give the numbers up front. That’s what I think accurate reporting should do.