Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:

On Fri, 01 Nov 2024 16:14:20 -1000, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>

US in the two wars exhausted an enormous stockpile of .50 caliber, some
dating back to ww2. I asked some people involved and they said that
policy was "suppressing fire" ... at slightest provocation until
ammunition was exhausted ... keeping enemy heads down and minimizing
returned fire.

>
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hope_on_the_battlefield
>
This is a short article by Dave Grossman. He has also written a couple of
books like'On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in
War and in Peace' and ' Warrior Mindset: Mental Toughness Skills for a
Nation's Peacekeepers'.
>
He draws on Marshall, whose study of WWII troop effectiveness is
controversial and other sources. The basic premise is many soldiers are
very reluctant to put their sights on a living human and shoot to kill.
Marshall claimed only 25% of the troops even fired their weapons which
critics say if improbable. Much harder to pin down is how many fire in the
general direction of the enemy. Like the technique of only one live round
for a firing squad they would rather not know if they killed anyone.
>
Historically snipers weren't very popular. Their effectiveness was
appreciated but the job description is 'cold-blooded killer'. Grossman
goes into some of the modern desensitization techniques to train soldiers
to do what they are supposed to do and how to handle the fallout.

What techniques are those? I only remember one thing I've read somewhere, and that is that the US military stopped using regular round targets for shooting practice, and switched to human shaped targes. Apparently it did shift the kill-needle a little bit in a more favourable direction.
I also read somewhere that 1% of the population has no natural barrier to killing other people, and that those types of people are the ones that the military is looking for to join special forces and snipers.
I do not know if this is a fact though, so could very well be something I just read or heard somewhere.