Eli5 why are combat units “ineffective” after taking 15% losses?
In: 1029
Combat units give out little jobs to each of their soldiers. In a platoon you might have like 4-8 heavy machine gunners, maybe 3 medics (if you’re very lucky), guys who’s job it is to be the primary and alternate casualty carrying guy if someone is wounded, only a few guys who know how to work and reset the radios…ect.
Now one guy is injured. Ok he has to be removed, and someone has to take his place. But shit he’s the radio guy so now there only like 4 left, and none had the crypto keys and also all that radio equipment has to be added to the new radio guys pack that’s already full.
Or maybe he was a machine Gunner, now the alternate gunner has to come from somewhere, but that same person has to also still do their other job of being alternate casualty evac. And carry the machine gunners personal ammo.
Now 5 of your thirty guys are injured or dead. 1 radio, 2 heavy machine gunners, 2 rifleman; but among those dudes was also the primary casualty evac guy, a team leader and a squad leader and also the guy who carries ammo for the heavy machine gunner. So now someone has to take the machine gunners ammo-carrying-guy’s ammo, a new radio guy has to add all the radio equipment to his pack, a soldier just became a team leader and a team leader just became a squad leader and also you still need like 2 guys per casualty to carry the dead or wounded back to a pickup point.
Meanwhile the mission you prepared for had roles each soldier played, but now like 40% of the roles have switched, and some people are playing two roles at once, and sometimes thats not possible to do.
Schmidt was the door breacher but now he’s also the radio guy. Or Jones was a rifleman but now he’s carrying machine gunner ammo while also needing to move up a steep hill for an observation point, but the machine gunner still needs his ammo.
It gets hard to keep up very quickly.
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