Vorlon Whispers

The Extremely Low Casualty Rate in Iraq

StrategyPage has a post on US casualty rates in Iraq and why they are extremely low.

While the media didn’t notice it, the people in the Pentagon, and military historians, were shocked at the low casualty rate of U.S. troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The casualties (killed, wounded missing) per division per day were about SEVEN. That’s a historical low. However, after two years of fighting, it’s apparent that the enemy has learned, as one would expect, how to counter some of the life saving techniques American troops have come up with.

But first, let’s put that low, 2003, casualty rate, into perspective. During the 1991 Gulf War there were 12 American casualties a day per division. By comparison, during World War II the daily losses per American division were usually over a hundred a day. On the Russian front, it was often several hundred casualties a day for German and Russian divisions. The spectacular six week German conquest of France in 1940, saw their combat divisions taking 30 casualties (on average) per day. But during another spectacular military victory, the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli casualties the were 110 per division per day, and that actually went down to 90 a day during the less spectacular 1973 war. So by any measure, American troops have learned how to avoid getting hit. That continued after 2003. When the Iraqi Sunni Arabs began their terror campaign in late 2003, and the media was full of stories of American casualties, but no one pointed out that the losses were again at a historical low. In 2004, there were 4.5 casualties per division per day, while in 2005, that went down to about 3.5. All this time, the troops were heavily engaged.