Eli5 why are combat units “ineffective” after taking 15% losses?
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It isn’t a hard and fast rule, but if you are a leader and a unit that specializes in *some thing* takes 15% losses, that is enough people that their ability to do *that one thing* might be completely compromised to the point of it being dangerous to use them.
Say you have a regimental combat team of 4,000 Marines and you lose 15% of them. So 600 Marines are gone. That might not seem so bad, but who were those Marines? Did you lose all of your medics? Did you lose all of your heavy machine gunners? If you don’t have enough heavy gunners you may not be able to protect Marines by keeping the enemy pinned down when they are taking position. If that RCT is operating in support of a wider objective, then you may not have the ability to perform your task without taking heavier losses or failing completely. That is when you need, you know, the leadership of field/company grade officers and above to figure out how the hell your RCT just lost 600 Marines and where you can horse trade from other units to maintain effectiveness.
The problem with the Russian Army is that second thing, their NCOs and mid level officers aren’t empowered to make decisions that the US military would certainly allow. They lose 15% and they crumble because they have to wait for some General to make a decision, except their generals can’t communicate with them effectively and they keep getting shot.
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