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| Iraq |
| Dupe entry: Terrorist Death Watch and Our Losses |
| 2007-05-01 |
| There has been some discussion at several sites that link to the Terrorist Death Watch about how the losses suffered by the enemy don't seem to appear to be in a proper ratio to our losses. Don Surber and Free Republic. I'm going to use the Iraq Coalition Casualties site for my analysis. I may be off by one or two, because the site does not display exactly what I need and I have to hand count some items. But, here goes: 104 American troops killed in Iraq in April 2007 8 were non-hostile deaths leaving 96 65 were killed by IED's or IED's and small arms fire leaving 31 killed in direct combat or by artillary In that same time we killed, as announced on TDW, 174 terrorists. If you count each American death, the ratio is 1.7 terrorists to 1 American Eliminate the non-hostile deaths, and the ratio is: 1.8 to 1 Eliminate the IED deaths and the ratio becomes: 5.6 to 1 Why eliminate the IED deaths? IED's eliminate the possibility of our troops responding to the attack and killing any of the enemy. The TDW counts enemy combat losses and our comparison should be like to like. This analysis treats 2/3's of all deaths from hostile action as not significant to the analysis of the ratio of terrorists deaths to American deaths. You can challenge that assumption, but I would ask that you demonstrate a like to like comparison for your challenge. |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #4 Chuck, that's highly misleading. While our losses are counted in minute detail and each portrait shown on TV, losses on the other side disappear in the "We don't do body counts" black hole. Only a small fraction ever make it to news reports, esp. western news outlets. In 2006, returning mil intel reports had Centcom using 25-26,000 killed and captured (i.e. kicked upstairs to Cropper or Graib, etc.) enemy combatants in each of 2004 and 2005. So project to over 100,000 killed and captured over 4 years just by US forces. Add to that the 10-15,000 (minus 1/3 civilian) killed up till the fall of Baghdad. Those figures do not count unconfirmed kills or wounded that die to be buried in the desert or to magically become "civilian" casualties dumped into a canal. AFAIK, there are about 15,000 prisoners under US guard. Assuming 1 is released for each prisoner is eventually released for 1 kept, then that gives a recovered kill ratio of 23:1 (80,000:3,500 all causes). Assuming 2 released per 1 captive retained gives a 17:1 ratio. The truth is most likely somewhere in between. In the toughest battle of Iraq, second Fallujah Nov 2005, after giving the enemy 6 months to fortify, between 2500-3000 enemy were killed and captured for a loss of 100 Americans and Iraqi army. During first Fallujah, Apr 2004, after the murder and mutilation of the 4 contractors, some 800-1100 were killed for the loss of 27 Marines. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-05-01 18:06 |
| #3 As an EFFECTIVENESS ratio, shouldn't one compare Coalition killed & captured to AIF killed and captured (and NOT released)? In fact, shouldn't it be Coalition plus IA plus IP killed & captured vs. AIF? And IED deaths should be counted - it's the AIF equivalent of stuff like our air support. Without doing the arithmetic, it strikes me that the effectiveness ratio is way too low to win this kind of war. In head-on combat the ratio is probably around 20:1, but the AIF generally avoid that kind of fight (they're stupid, but only Mookies boys tend to be THAT stupid, consistently.) How effective one is in that kind of fighting is not all that significant if the enemy chooses not to engage that way. IF the terrorist DW count is even close to correct, we have to find more efficient tactics. As before the key is intel. I suspect in many areas good intel is drying up because of a general perception that the US is pulling out soon, and no one bets on a horse that's already pulled up lame. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-05-01 17:22 |
| #2 I've looked at the U.S. deaths for the same period as TDW. Average ratio for 2006, with lousy terr death reporting by DoD, is 3.56:1. Average for 2007 is 5.62:1. Average monthly combat deaths in the period Jan 2006 through April 2007 are 27. Average monthly deaths to IED are 37, and non-hostile deaths average 9 per month. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2007-05-01 17:04 |
| #1 So...if we use the 5.6:1 figure, and have something on the order of 3025+/-5 US casualties, that means something on the order of 15-16 thousand terrorist Jihadis having assumed room temperature. Damn, that's a lot of virgins needed in Paradise at 72 each... |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-05-01 16:39 |