Shooting to kill - how many men can do this?
Why Worldbuilding Stack Exchange recommends it
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange users link it when they need a source for the claim that most soldiers resist killing, to ground realistic armies, fights and military psychology in their settings.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2017 to 2019.
What it is
Lindybeige, a British history and warfare YouTuber, discusses how reluctant soldiers have historically been to shoot to kill in combat. He covers the low firing rates in past wars and how modern training raised soldiers' willingness to kill, along with the psychological cost of that conditioning.
What people said
Cites walrus · 2017-11 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Robo-grunts in the army: viable?”
@Rekesoft there's a very interesting video here [this video] on just how rare it is for people to try and kill other people without being trained to it - the headline figure from the video is something like 10% of WW2 American infantrymen *who had been in a firefight* actually shot to kill rather than shooting to suppress(I can't re-watch it right now to confirm the exact figure).
Cites Demigan · 2018-03 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Why would magicians be scared of regular people?”
@SK19 I'm too lazy to find good phrases for the actual articles, so I'll leave this video as an example: [this video] . You can quickly find similar things on the internet: [LINK] . Because even the Americans in Vietnam had a problem with getting people to actually hurt other people, even if those people were actually firing at them.
Cites vsz · 2018-08 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Making the 'Master Swordsman' fantasy realistic?”
It is indeed realistic, mainly because most humans fear death, and it probably happened plenty of times in history. We can't really take sport fencing or computer game mechanics as a basis. If they were fighting with training gear fully protected, or if they were mindless drones where the master swordsman differed only in physical strength and slightly better reflexes, then yes, even just 2 or 3 lesser skilled opponents would have a great chance of defeating a single more skilled opponent. First, let's assume the fight doesn't start with the master surrounded, because that would reduce his chances enormously. One of the most important factors would be how the fight starts. Most people don't
Cites mjt · 2019-10 · Worldbuilding Stack Exchange · on “Modern warfare theory in a medieval setting”
The book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society - and this video [this video] - reports that: 90% of rifles found dropped at the Battle of Gettysburg were loaded. This and other evidence indicates an innate human resistance to killing, manifesting in not shooting when they have the chance, or not aiming when they shoot. Modern armies have developed Pavlovian and operant conditioning - such as replacing bullseye targets with silhouette targets - to increase firing rates. Obviously, if only 10% of your guys are shooting to kill and you can get that up to 20%, it's almost the same as having twice as many guys - except you don't need twice as much food and wages. Yo