Tag Casualty rates

Dupuy’s Verities: The Inefficiency of Combat

The “Mud March” of the Union Army of the Potomac, January 1863.

The twelfth of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is:

Combat activities are always slower, less productive, and less efficient than anticipated.

From Understanding War (1987):

This is the phenomenon that Clausewitz called “friction in war.” Friction is largely due to the disruptive, suppressive, and dispersal effects of firepower upon an aggregation of people. This pace of actual combat operations will be much slower than the progress of field tests and training exercises, even highly realistic ones. Tests and exercises are not truly realistic portrayals of combat, because they lack the element of fear in a lethal environment, present only in real combat. Allowances must be made in planning and execution for the effects of friction, including mistakes, breakdowns, and confusion.

While Clausewitz asserted that the effects of friction on the battlefield could not be measured because they were largely due to chance, Dupuy believed that its influence could, in fact, be gauged and quantified. He identified at least two distinct combat phenomena he thought reflected measurable effects of friction: the differences in casualty rates between large and small sized forces, and diminishing returns from adding extra combat power beyond a certain point in battle. He also believed much more research would be necessary to fully understand and account for this.

Dupuy was skeptical of the accuracy of combat models that failed to account for this interaction between operational and human factors on the battlefield. He was particularly doubtful about approaches that started by calculating the outcomes of combat between individual small-sized units or weapons platforms based on the Lanchester equations or “physics-based” estimates, then used these as inputs for brigade and division-level-battles, the results of which in turn were used as the basis for determining the consequences of theater-level campaigns. He thought that such models, known as “bottom up,” hierarchical, or aggregated concepts (and the prevailing approach to campaign combat modeling in the U.S.), would be incapable of accurately capturing and simulating the effects of friction.

Dupuy’s Verities: The Effects of Firepower in Combat

A German artillery barrage falling on Allied trenches, probably during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, during the First World War. [Wikimedia]

The eleventh of Trevor Dupuy’s Timeless Verities of Combat is:

Firepower kills, disrupts, suppresses, and causes dispersion.

From Understanding War (1987):

It is doubtful if any of the people who are today writing on the effect of technology on warfare would consciously disagree with this statement. Yet, many of them tend to ignore the impact of firepower on dispersion, and as a consequence they have come to believe that the more lethal the firepower, the more deaths, disruption, and suppression it will cause. In fact, as weapons have become more lethal intrinsically, their casualty-causing capability has either declined or remained about the same because of greater dispersion of targets. Personnel and tank loss rates of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, for example, were quite similar to those of intensive battles of World War II and the casualty rates in both of these wars were less than in World War I. (p. 7)

Research and analysis of real-world historical combat data by Dupuy and TDI has identified at least four distinct combat effects of firepower: infliction of casualties (lethality), disruption, suppression, and dispersion. All of them were found to be heavily influenced—if not determined—by moral (human) factors.

Again, I have written extensively on this blog about Dupuy’s theory about the historical relationship between weapon lethality, dispersion on the battlefield, and historical decline in average daily combat casualty rates. TDI President Chris Lawrence has done further work on the subject as well.

TDI Friday Read: Lethality, Dispersion, And Mass On Future Battlefields

Human Factors In Warfare: Dispersion

Human Factors In Warfare: Suppression

There appears to be a fundamental difference in interpretation of the combat effects of firepower between Dupuy’s emphasis on the primacy of human factors and Defense Department models that account only for the “physics-based” casualty-inflicting capabilities of weapons systems. While U.S. Army combat doctrine accounts for the interaction of firepower and human behavior on the battlefield, it has no clear method for assessing or even fully identifying the effects of such factors on combat outcomes.

Afghan Security Forces Deaths Top 45,000 Since 2014

The President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, speaking with CNN’s Farid Zakiria, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 25 January 2019. [Office of the President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan]

Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani admitted that his country’s security forces had suffered over 45,000 fatalities since he took office in September 2014. This total far exceeds the total of 28,000 killed since 2015 that Ghani had previously announced in November 2018. Ghani’s cryptic comment in Davos did not indicate how the newly revealed total relates to previously released figures, whether it was based on new accounting, a sharp increase in recent casualties, or more forthrightness.

This revised figure casts significant doubt on the validity of analysis based on the previous reporting. Correcting it will be difficult. At the request of the Afghan government in May 2017, the U.S. military has treated security forces attrition and loss data as classified and has withheld it from public release.

If Ghani’s figure is, in fact, accurate, then it reinforces the observation that the course of the conflict is tilting increasingly against the Afghan government.

 

Trevor Dupuy and Technological Determinism in Digital Age Warfare

Is this the only innovation in weapons technology in history with the ability in itself to change warfare and alter the balance of power? Trevor Dupuy thought it might be. Shot IVY-MIKE, Eniwetok Atoll, 1 November 1952. [Wikimedia]

Trevor Dupuy was skeptical about the role of technology in determining outcomes in warfare. While he did believe technological innovation was crucial, he did not think that technology itself has decided success or failure on the battlefield. As he wrote posthumously in 1997,

I am a humanist, who is also convinced that technology is as important today in war as it ever was (and it has always been important), and that any national or military leader who neglects military technology does so to his peril and that of his country. But, paradoxically, perhaps to an extent even greater than ever before, the quality of military men is what wins wars and preserves nations. (emphasis added)

His conclusion was largely based upon his quantitative approach to studying military history, particularly the way humans have historically responded to the relentless trend of increasingly lethal military technology.

The Historical Relationship Between Weapon Lethality and Battle Casualty Rates

Based on a 1964 study for the U.S. Army, Dupuy identified a long-term historical relationship between increasing weapon lethality and decreasing average daily casualty rates in battle. (He summarized these findings in his book, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare (1980). The quotes below are taken from it.)

Since antiquity, military technological development has produced weapons of ever increasing lethality. The rate of increase in lethality has grown particularly dramatically since the mid-19th century.

However, in contrast, the average daily casualty rate in combat has been in decline since 1600. With notable exceptions during the 19th century, casualty rates have continued to fall through the late 20th century. If technological innovation has produced vastly more lethal weapons, why have there been fewer average daily casualties in battle?

The primary cause, Dupuy concluded, was that humans have adapted to increasing weapon lethality by changing the way they fight. He identified three key tactical trends in the modern era that have influenced the relationship between lethality and casualties:

Technological Innovation and Organizational Assimilation

Dupuy noted that the historical correlation between weapons development and their use in combat has not been linear because the pace of integration has been largely determined by military leaders, not the rate of technological innovation. “The process of doctrinal assimilation of new weapons into compatible tactical and organizational systems has proved to be much more significant than invention of a weapon or adoption of a prototype, regardless of the dimensions of the advance in lethality.” [p. 337]

As a result, the history of warfare has been exemplified more often by a discontinuity between weapons and tactical systems than effective continuity.

During most of military history there have been marked and observable imbalances between military efforts and military results, an imbalance particularly manifested by inconclusive battles and high combat casualties. More often than not this imbalance seems to be the result of incompatibility, or incongruence, between the weapons of warfare available and the means and/or tactics employing the weapons. [p. 341]

In short, military organizations typically have not been fully effective at exploiting new weapons technology to advantage on the battlefield. Truly decisive alignment between weapons and systems for their employment has been exceptionally rare. Dupuy asserted that

There have been six important tactical systems in military history in which weapons and tactics were in obvious congruence, and which were able to achieve decisive results at small casualty costs while inflicting disproportionate numbers of casualties. These systems were:

  • the Macedonian system of Alexander the Great, ca. 340 B.C.
  • the Roman system of Scipio and Flaminius, ca. 200 B.C.
  • the Mongol system of Ghengis Khan, ca. A.D. 1200
  • the English system of Edward I, Edward III, and Henry V, ca. A.D. 1350
  • the French system of Napoleon, ca. A.D. 1800
  • the German blitzkrieg system, ca. A.D. 1940 [p. 341]

With one caveat, Dupuy could not identify any single weapon that had decisively changed warfare in of itself without a corresponding human adaptation in its use on the battlefield.

Save for the recent significant exception of strategic nuclear weapons, there have been no historical instances in which new and lethal weapons have, of themselves, altered the conduct of war or the balance of power until they have been incorporated into a new tactical system exploiting their lethality and permitting their coordination with other weapons; the full significance of this one exception is not yet clear, since the changes it has caused in warfare and the influence it has exerted on international relations have yet to be tested in war.

Until the present time, the application of sound, imaginative thinking to the problem of warfare (on either an individual or an institutional basis) has been more significant than any new weapon; such thinking is necessary to real assimilation of weaponry; it can also alter the course of human affairs without new weapons. [p. 340]

Technological Superiority and Offset Strategies

Will new technologies like robotics and artificial intelligence provide the basis for a seventh tactical system where weapons and their use align with decisive battlefield results? Maybe. If Dupuy’s analysis is accurate, however, it is more likely that future increases in weapon lethality will continue to be counterbalanced by human ingenuity in how those weapons are used, yielding indeterminate—perhaps costly and indecisive—battlefield outcomes.

Genuinely effective congruence between weapons and force employment continues to be difficult to achieve. Dupuy believed the preconditions necessary for successful technological assimilation since the mid-19th century have been a combination of conducive military leadership; effective coordination of national economic, technological-scientific, and military resources; and the opportunity to evaluate and analyze battlefield experience.

Can the U.S. meet these preconditions? That certainly seemed to be the goal of the so-called Third Offset Strategy, articulated in 2014 by the Obama administration. It called for maintaining “U.S. military superiority over capable adversaries through the development of novel capabilities and concepts.” Although the Trump administration has stopped using the term, it has made “maximizing lethality” the cornerstone of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, with increased funding for the Defense Department’s modernization priorities in FY2019 (though perhaps not in FY2020).

Dupuy’s original work on weapon lethality in the 1960s coincided with development in the U.S. of what advocates of a “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) have termed the “First Offset Strategy,” which involved the potential use of nuclear weapons to balance Soviet superiority in manpower and material. RMA proponents pointed to the lopsided victory of the U.S. and its allies over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War as proof of the success of a “Second Offset Strategy,” which exploited U.S. precision-guided munitions, stealth, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems developed to counter the Soviet Army in Germany in the 1980s. Dupuy was one of the few to attribute the decisiveness of the Gulf War both to airpower and to the superior effectiveness of U.S. combat forces.

Trevor Dupuy certainly was not an anti-technology Luddite. He recognized the importance of military technological advances and the need to invest in them. But he believed that the human element has always been more important on the battlefield. Most wars in history have been fought without a clear-cut technological advantage for one side; some have been bloody and pointless, while others have been decisive for reasons other than technology. While the future is certainly unknown and past performance is not a guarantor of future results, it would be a gamble to rely on technological superiority alone to provide the margin of success in future warfare.

Looking At Recent Reported Combat Loss Rates In Afghanistan

Afghan National Army soldiers simulate clearing a compound with help from their instructors at the 2nd Brigade, 205th Corps ANA Non-commissioned Officer Academy on Forward Operating Base Eagle in Zabul province Jan. 10, 2012 [{Wikimedia]

Last Friday, Rod Nordland published an article in the New York Times alleging that Afghan security forces (Afghan National Army (ANA) and police) had suffered an average of 57 killed in action (KIA) per day during the previous week, up from 22 killed per day in 2016. If true, such reports would indicate a dramatic increase in loss rates over the previous years.

These reported figures should be regarded critically, however. It is not clear how Nordland arrived at the total of 22 KIA per day for 2016. His article cited another article by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, published in the Times on 30 October 2017. This reported Afghan security forces casualties for 2016 at 6,700 KIA and 12,000 wounded in action (WIA), which works out to an average of 18.36 KIA per day (6,700/365), not 22. The total number of KIA + WIA works out to an average of 51.23 per day (18,700/365).

The lede of Gibbons-Neff’s 2017 article was that the U.S. and Afghan governments had stopped providing official strength and loss figures for the Afghan security forces. Citing the last report of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Gibbons-Neff reported Afghan security forces losses from 1 January-8 May 2017 (126 days) as 2,531 KIA and 4,238 WIA. This works out to an average of 20.08 KIA (2,531/126) and 53.72 KIA + WIA (6,679/126) per day.

Nordland arrived at the figure of 57 KIA per day based on a report of 400 Afghan security forces killed in the week leading up the publication of his article on 21 September 2018. He calculated it by averaging the total over the previous seven days (400/7). Casualty rates in combat have been highly variable, historically. Brief spikes in rates are common. In the same paragraph reporting the 400 KIA total, Nordland quoted senior Afghan government officials stating that the daily average for recent months had been 30 to 40 KIA per day.

It is possible to use the figures cited by Nordland and Gibbons-Neff to make ballpark estimates for Afghan security forces casualties in 2017 and 2018. Even if the weekly loss of 400 KIA for 14-20 September 2018 represents an abnormally high total, it is reasonable to conclude that the Afghan security forces are very likely incurring sharply higher combat losses in 2018 than the previous two years. These figures do not include counts of missing or captured and thus underestimate the actual numbers of battle casualties being suffered by the Afghan forces. It is also possible that the estimates of 30-40 KIA per day apply only to the peak spring-to-autumn fighting season, which would somewhat reduce the overall 2018 KIA and WIA totals.

As Nordland reported, these losses are resulting in an increasing strain on the Afghan forces. His article stated that the strength of the ANA and police in April 2018 was 314,000, 38,000 below the authorized total of 352,000, and that the actual total was likely even lower due to fraudulent reporting and unreported desertions. The ANA suffered a monthly attrition rate of 2.9 percent in early 2017 from combat casualties, desertion, and failed reenlistments, requiring one-third of the overall force to be replaced by new recruits annually. That attrition rate is undoubtedly far higher now and almost certainly not sustainable for long.

In comparison, the Afghan government reported in August that its security forces had killed 42 Taliban fighters per day, or 1,300 per month. For the year ending in March 2018, it claimed to have killed 13,600 insurgent fighters. There has been no independent confirmation of these claims and they should be treated skeptically.

TDI Friday Read: Iranian Casualties In The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War

This series of posts was based on the article “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter. Mr Beuttel was a former U.S. Army intelligence officer employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. He also authored several updates to this original article, to be posted at a later date, which refined and updated his analysis.

Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal (1)

Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War (2)

Iranian Prisoners Of War From The Iran-Iraq War (3)

The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners Of War From The Iran-Iraq War (4)

Iranian Killed In Action and Died of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War (5)

Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War (6)

Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (7)

Iranian Civilian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (8)

A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (9)

 

A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (9)

[Conflict Iran]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]


Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed In Action And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War


If we estimate that at least 5,000,000 troops (about 12% of Iran’s then population) served in the war zone, then the military casualty distribution is not less than the following (Bold indicates the author’s choice from ranges):

Killed in Action/Died of Wounds: 188,000 (156,000-196,000) (17%)

Wounded in Action: 945,000 (754,000-1,110,000) (83%)

Severely Wounded/Disabled: 200,000 (18%) (Note: carve out of total wounded)

Missing in Action: 73,000 (6%) (Note: Carve out of total KIA plus several thousand possible defectors/collaborators)

PoW: 39,000-44,000

Total Military Battle Casualties (KIA + WIA): 1,133,000-1,302,000 (28% theater rate)

Possible Non-Battle Military Deaths: 74,000

Non-Battle Military Injuries: No idea.

With Civilian KIA (11,000) and WIA (34,000) and “chemical” (45,000) Total Hostile Action Casualties: 1,223,000

Possible Military Non-Battle Deaths (74,000):1,297,000

Total Deaths Due to the Imposed War: 273,000 (104% of Pentagon estimate of 262,000)

Of 5,000,000 estimated Iranian combatants (1 million regular army, 2 million Pasdaran, 2 million Baseej)

~ 4% were Killed in Action/Missing in Action

~ 4% were Disabled

~ 13% were Wounded

~ 1% were Non-Battle Deaths

~ 1% were PoWs

Total military losses all known causes ~ 27%

The military battle casualty total percentile (27%) is intermediate between that of World War I (50% ~ British Army) and World War II (13% ~ U.S. Army/U.S. Marine Corps, 22% British Army).[118]

The author acknowledges the highly speculative nature of much of the data and argument presented above. It is offered as a preliminary starting point to further study. As such, the author would appreciate hearing from anyone with additional data on this subject. In particular he would invite the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide any information that would corroborate, correct or expand on the information presented in this article.

NOTES

[118] Kenneth R. Timmerman, Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, pp. 406-407, n. 3

Iranian Civilian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (8)

[Conflict Iran]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]


Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed In Action And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War


The Iran-Iraq War produced remarkably few civilian casualties compared to World War I or World War II rates. UNICEF data suggests that prior to World War I, civilians accounted for only 5% of all deaths in a given war. This rose to 15% in World War I and an astounding 65% in World War II.[113] Iran claims 11,000 civilian deaths as a result of the war primarily through Iraqi air and missile strikes. The author‘s own study of Iranian civilian deaths places it at about 8,800 known deaths, indicating this number is probably very close to the true figure. If so, civilian deaths accounted for just 5% of total war dead, a turn-of-the-century standard. The number of wounded has not been released, but this author’s figures can account for over 34,000 civilian wounded by air and missile strikes. Further, Iran claims 45,000 civilian “chemical” casualties. If all claims are true then approximately 90,000 civilians became casualties of the war.

This yields a military to civilian casualty ratio of 11:1. This is far better than the ratio claimed in recent wars of 1:9. This suggests that despite the hysteria surrounding “War of the Cities,” the Iranian civilian population was not severely at risk during the war. Compare this to World War II England where the one-year German V-1/V-2 campaign killed 8,588 and wounded 46,838.[114] Then contrast it to total English civilian casualties during World War II at 60,000 dead and 86,800 wounded due to the blitz and buzz bombs. U.K. military killed, wounded and missing (excluding PoW) were 582,900 in World War II giving a military-to-civilian casualty ratio of 4:1.[115] Of course the World War II German bombing and missile campaigns against England were far more severe than that experienced by Iran at the hands of Iraq.

Civilian chemical casualties match military in magnitude. At first this might seem strange. I have found no World War I data on military-to-civilian casualty ratios as regards chemical agents, so there is no point of comparison or contrast here. The high number of civilian chemical casualties seems to be a function of several factors. First some 2,000 Iranian towns and villages lay in areas where Iraqi forces employed chemical weapons.[116] Secondly, Iraqi chemical strikes were often delivered deep into Iranian rear areas to attack reinforcements and support troops. Casualties were often high as the rear echelon troops were less well equipped and prepared to cope with chemical attacks.[117] In these rear area attacks the civilian population density must have been much higher than on the front line. Further, civilians probably had no means of chemical defense. Witness the chemical attack on Halabja in March 1988 with mustard, nerve and cyanogen chloride which killed some 4,000-5,000 civilians and maimed 7,000 others, This may explain the 1:1 relationship between overall Iranian military and civilian chemical casualties.

Mr. Beuttel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Boeing Company.

NOTES

[113] Abstracts Obtained from Iran on Medical Research Conducted After the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War,” www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/IRMED/IRANTOC.html

[114] Charles E. Heller, Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience 1917-1918, Leavenworth Papers No. 10, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1984, p. 67; Denis Winter, Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War,New York, Penguin, Viking, 1978, p. 124.

[115] “Bis(2-chloroethyl)thioether, C4H8SCI2,” www.ch.ic.ac.uk/vchemlib/mol/horrible/War/mustard

[116] Anthony Coordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder, CO; Westview Press, 1990, p. 525, n. 56.

[117] Kenneth R. Timmerman, Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, pp. 145-146.

Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War (7)

[Conflict Iran]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]


Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed In Action And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War


Historical Chemical Casualties

The War of Sacred Defense was the only conflict of the 20th Century other than World War I fought under conditions of general chemical release. The Iranian ground forces were generally ill-prepared for chemical defense, during the course of the war much NBC defense gear was purchased from the U.K., Germany, and Czechoslovakia, but there was never enough and NBC [nuclear, biological, chemical] defense training was insufficient. Many Iranian solders became gas casualties because they did not shave often enough to allow their protective masks to make a tight seal.[88]

Throughout the war Iraq employed chemical weapons against Iranian forces 195 times. After the chemical attack on Halabja in March 1988 killed some 4,000-5,000 civilians and maimed 7,000 others, the IRGC sent a video crew to document the atrocity. The video was used as a training film for Iranian recruits. Instead of instilling hatred for Saddam’s brutality, the film demoralized its viewers and exaggerated the power of Iraqi chemical weapons.[89] Iranian troops later panicked under gas attack conditions at Fao and Majnoon and abandoned their positions. However, this phenomenon was widespread in the First World War.[90] Further, chemical attacks were usually not significantly lethal. This is again in accord with World War I experience. Gas inflicted 70,552 casualties on the American Expeditionary Force in 1917-18. Of these only 1,221 died (2% lethality). The British Army suffered 185,706 gas casualties of which only 5,899 died (3% lethality), Total British battle casualties for World War I were 677,515 KIA and 1,837,613 WIA. Gas accounted for only 7% of all British casualties and only 1% of all KIA. The Russian Anny suffered an amazing 600,000 gas casualties with a lethality rate at times as much as 12%.[91]

The Use Of Gas In The Iran-Iraq War

Iraq may have first used gas in late 1980 near Salamcheh. Iran reported its first chemical casualty in fighting near Hoveyzeh in early 1981. These early attacks seem to have been limited to the riot control agent CS. On 27 October 1982, near Musain, four Iranian soldiers died from toxic chemical exposure, probably mustard gas. In mid-August 1983 Iran suffered 318 casualties from mustard and arsenic agents. On 7, 9, and 13 November 1983, Iraq used mustard in the Panjwin area. Four seriously wounded Iranian soldiers later died in European hospitals.[92] Between May 1981 and March 1984, Iran claimed Iraq had employed chemical weapons on forty-nine different occasions. This had resulted in 1,200 Iranian dead and 5,000 wounded.[93] Mycotoxins may also have been used.[94] On 17 March 1984 Iraqi forces employed gas which caused 400 Iranian casualties, 40 of which were from nerve agents.[95] In the Badr operation (1-18 March 1985) Iraq used chemical weapons five times, but inflicted only 200 Iranian casualties, none apparently fatal.[96] In one unnamed 1985 attack, Iran claimed 11,000 troops were exposed to Iraqi chemical agents.[97] In Wal Fajir-9 (15 February-11 March 1986) Iran claimed 1,800 chemical casualties from a total of about 30,000.[98] Up to 8,500 Iranian soldier were gas casualties by the end of Wal Fajir-8 and Wal Fajir-9 (15 February-19 May 1986) with about 700 killed or seriously wounded.[99] In attacks on 27 and 30 January, 9, 10, 12, and 13 February 1986, 8,500 Iranian gas casualties were reportedly suffered, of which 35 died and 2,500 had to be hospitalized.[100] In Karbala-4 (24-26 December 1986) only five Iranian troops died from toxic gas out of 10,000 battle casualties.[101] By early 1987, chemical weapons had inflicted at least 10,000 Iranian casualties.[102] In all Iran had suffered 25,600 gas casualties by April 1988, of which 260 (sic 2,600?) died. Iraq’s extensive use of chemical agents in the final months before the August 1988 cease-fire may have raised the casualty count to as much as 45,000.[103] In the Iraqi “In God We Trust” offensive of June 1988 against Majnoon, Iran claimed sixty soldiers killed and 4,000 wounded by Iraqi chemical weapons, which included nerve and blood agents.[104] A small U.K. article on mustard gas from the Internet cites 5,000 Iranian troops killed by gas and 40,000-50,000 injured during the war.[105] The overall cumulative wartime pattern of Iranian military chemical casualties is illustrated in the below figure.

The Lethality Of Gas

Speaking in 1996, Abdollah Mazandarani, Secretary General of the Iranian Foundation for Chemical Warfare Victims, claimed 25,000 Iranian soldiers were “martyred” (killed?) by Iraqi use of chemical weapons in operations Wal Fajir-8, Karbala-8, Badr, Fao, and Majnoon. 45,000 civilians were also affected by chemical weapons.[106] Iran claims at least 100,000 wounded by chemical weapons during the imposed war with Iraq. 1,500 of these casualties require constant medical attention to this day. Since 1991, 118 have died as a result of their toxic chemical exposure according to Hamid Sohralr-Pur, head of the Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled’s Center for Victims of Chemical Warfare.[107] One of these was Reza Alishahi, who died in September 1994 after suffering 70% disability when he was gassed during the Wal Fajir offensives of 1987.[108] Another pathetic story is that of Magid Azam, now a 27-year-old medical student, who was a 16-year-old Baseej fighter gassed with mustard in the Karbala-5 offensive of January 1987 with no apparent permanent effects. In 1995 his health suddenly began to deteriorate so rapidly he required intensive care. His lungs are now so damaged that only a transplant can save his life. He is one of 30,000 Iranian veterans who have received treatment for recurring or delayed reactions to chemical weapons. It is estimated that up to 100,000 Iranian soldiers were exposed to toxic agents during the war.[109]

In the First World War toxic chemical agents accounted for only 4-5% of total casualties. Of 1,296,853 known chemical casualties in that conflict, 90,080 died (7%), 143,613 were badly wounded (11%) and the remaining 1,053,160 (82%) not seriously affected.[110] 25,000 Iranian military dead out of 45,000 chemical casualties gives an incredible chemical lethality rate of 56%, higher than that for land mines. This claim of 25,000 Iranian troops “martyred” is not an exaggeration, but rather a probable misprint.[111] Elimination of an extraneous zero makes the number 2,500, in line with previously released figures. This would give a chemical lethality rate of 6% per chemical casualty, remarkably close to the World War I general rate, although somewhat higher than individual U.S. or British experience. Further, 45,000-55,000 military chemical casualties out of 1,133,000 total combat casualties yields a 4% casualty total for chemical weapons, again in line with overall World War I experience. 2,500 dead from chemical weapons is only 1% of total Iranian KIA. If 5,000 cited above is correct, about 3%. A representative sample of 400 chemical warfare casualties treated at the Labbati-Nejad Medical Center in Tehran in early 1986 yielded 11 deaths (3%) and 64 (16%) very seriously injured.[112]

Mr. Beuttel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Boeing Company.

NOTES

[88] Anthony Cordesman, The Lessons of Modern War Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War, Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1990, pp. 516.

[89] Kenneth R. Timmerman, Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, pp. 293-94.

[90] G. M. Hammerman et al., Impact of the Introduction of Lethal Gas on the Combat Performance of Defending Troops, Fairfax VA: Data Memory Systems Inc., 1985, Contract No. DNA 001-84-C-0241.

[91] Charles E. Heller, Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience 1917-1918, Leavenworth Papers No. 10, Ft Leavenwoth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1984, pp. 33, 91-92. This represented some 32% of all hospitalized AEF casualties in World War I. Only about 200 were killed in action outright by gas. U.S. troops were ill prepared, poorly equipped and inadequately trained to fight on the European chemical battlefield. See Denis Winter, Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War, London: Penguin Books, 1978, p.125.

[92] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modem War Volume II, pp. 188, n. 23, 513-518.

[93] Edgar O’Ballance, The Gulf War, London: Brassey’s, 1988, p. 149; Peter Dunn, “The Chemical War: Journey to Iran,” NBC Defense and Technology International, April 1986, pp. 28-37.

[94] U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and Their Possible Impact on Health Consequences of the Gulf War. (The “Riegle Report”) citing H Kadivar and S.C. Adams, “Treatment of Chemical and Biological Warfare Injuries: Insights Derived from the 1984 Attack on Majnoon Island,” Military Medicine, April 1991, pp. 171-177.

[95] Dunn, “The Chemical War: Journey to Iran,” pp. 28-37.

[96] O’Ballance, The Gulf War, p. 164.

[97] “Iranians Still Suffering from Saddam‘s Use of Mustard Gas in War,” Buffalo News, 23 November 1997.

[98] O’Ballance, The Gulf War, p. 179.

[99] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modem War Volume II, pp. 224; Peter Dunn, “The Chemical War: Iran Revisited – 1986,” NBC Defense and Technology International, June 1986, pp. 32-37.

[100] “Iran Keeps Chemical ‘Options’ Open; Claims to Have Upper I-land,” NBC Defense and Technology International, April 1986, pp. 12-13.

[101] O’Ballance, The Gulf War, p. 193.

[102] Cordesman, The Lessons of Modem War Volume II, p. 264, n. 39.

[103] ibid, pp. 516-517.

[104] ibid, p. 389.

[105] “Bis(2-chloroethyl)thioether, C4H8SCI2,” www.ch.ic.ac.uk/vchemlib/mol/horrible/War/mustard

[106] “Official Says Germany, U.S. and Britain were Main Suppliers of Chemicals to Iraq,” IRNA, 1 December 1996.

[107] “I18 Iranian Chemically Wounded War Veterans Martyred Since 1991,” IRNA, 17 April 1997.

[108] “Latest Victim of Iraqi Chemical Warfare Against Iran Dies,” IRNA, 27 September 1994.

[109] “Iranians Still Suffering from Saddam’s Use of Mustard Gas in War,” Buffalo News, 23 November 1997.

[110] Ian V. Hogg, Gas, New York: Ballantine Books, 1975, p.136.

[111] This report was taken from the intemet where sometimes an extraneous number appears in figures. Such was the case when another report stated that 9974 Iraqi PoWs had been released in 1996, when the true figure was 974.

[112] Dunn, “The Chemical War: Iran Revisited – 1986,” pp. 32-39.

Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War (6)

[Conflict Iran]

[This post is based on “Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal,” by H. W. Beuttel, originally published in the December 1997 edition of the International TNDM Newsletter.]


Posts in this series:
Iranian Casualties in the Iran-Iraq War: A Reappraisal
Iranian Missing In Action From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
The “Missing” Iranian Prisoners of War From The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Killed In Action And Died Of Wounds In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Wounded In Action In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Chemical Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
Iranian Civil Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War
A Summary Estimate Of Iranian Casualties In The Iran-Iraq War


No official Iranian figures of overall wounded have been released to this author’s knowledge. Major General Rezai in the interview cited above mentioned some 200,000 permanently disabled. For reasons given above, this probably represents all components, not just Pasdaran forces. Given the standard 4:1 wounded-to-killed ratio, Iranian wounded must have been about 752,000. This gives a total battle casualty sum of right at 940,000. A problem is we have no data on Died of Wounds (DoW) as a category. Also the war was one of general chemical release which biases figures somewhat as the experience of World War I shows.

If the official Iranian figures are only rigorous KIA (death within one hour and counting 72,754 MIAs as KIAs) then using a “World War I w/gas” planning factor the ratio of wounded-to-killed would be 5.96 indicating about 1,120,480 “wounded.” This is probably high as the blanket Iranian casualty figures for deaths probably include both KIA and DoW.

If we consider the Iranian figures to indicate both KIA and DOW the “World War I w/gas” ratio of surviving wounded to KIA and DOW of 4.1 yields 770,800 “surviving wounded.”

The average of these latter two figures is on the order of 945,440 wounded. This produces a ratio of 5:1. It seems reasonable that this average is closest to the truth.

Another clue to total Iranian wounded comes from the statistics of the Khuzistan Blood Transfusion Center. During the war the center provided 736,284 units of blood and blood products for both combatants and civilian patients in the province. The center itself produced 501,639 of the units.[83] In World War II, 10-12% of wounded were transfused with an average usage of 4.3 units of blood per patient.[84] It is likely the center used the majority of its blood products for combatants. If the 501,639 units it produced itself was so used with the remainder procured for the civilian population, applying World War II standards the total number of wounded transfused would be: 501,639/4.3 = 116,660. This in tum might represent 12% of total wounded. Back calculating gives 116,660/12 * 100 = 972,168. This is very close to the above estimate of 945,000 surviving wounded. It, however, may be high as it would probably include a substantial number who received transfusion, but died of wounds.

One last observation—the Iranians tried to make extensive use of Medevac [medical evacuation] helicopters during the war similar to U.S. Army practice in Viet Nam. In the latter conflict the ratio of KIA and DoW to surviving wounded was 4.16, very close to the “World War I w/gas” planning factor of 4.1.[85] However, the Medevac solution was not completely feasible as it did not suit Iranian climatic and geographic situations. As a result the Iranians built a series of underground clinics immediately behind the front lines which offered the best and most expeditious medical service to their wounded according to Brigadier General Abolqasem Musavi, chancellor of the Iranian Army Medical University. This system allowed speedy evacuation and treatment of wounded even in mass casualty situations.[86]

Given that the Iranian Army suffered on the order of 1,133,000 casualties in the War of Sacred Defense what else does this tell us about the conflict?

First, the average annual “theater” battle casualties would be approximately 28% or 141,000 battle casualties per year (given that the Iranians had about 500,000 troops committed at any one time). This rate is only little over half that of World War I although about 50% higher than that of World War II. As far as U.S. wars are concerned it most resembles that of the U.S. Civil War (24.6%).

The distribution of casualties is also in accordance with modern experience since 1945. The dead (188,000) represent about 17%, severely wounded (200,000) about 18%, and other wounded (745,000) about 65%. This matches closely with T. N. Dupuy’s historically derived distribution of modern war casualties of 20% KIA, 15% severely wounded and 65% other wounded.[87]

Mr Beuttel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, was employed as a military analyst by Boeing Research & Development at the time of original publication. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Boeing Company.

NOTES

[83] “Kuzistan’s Blood Transfusion Center’s Effectiveness Role in Hygiene and War,” abstract contained in “Abstracts Obtained from Iran on Medical Research Conducted After the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War,” www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/IRMED/IRANTOC.html.[Dead link, August 2018]

[84] John Ellis, The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980, p.169.

[85] Trevor N. Dupuy, Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War, Fairfax, VA: HERO Books, 1990, pp. 48-50.

[86] “Army Medical Department Acquired Expertise,” Iran News, 16 October 1997.

[87] Dupuy, Attrition, pp. 165-167.