Grossman "On Killing"

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bamaranger

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Many are likely familiar with Col.(?) Dave Grossman's book "On Killing".

He uses several examples from history to support his pretenses on the subject of taking human life. He comments on the US Civil War and the instances of rifled muskets loaded with multiple charges as indication of troops "going through the motions" of loading and firing, but not willing to actually fire at another person. He also postulates that those actually firing shot over enemy lines intentionally for the same reason. My take on that is though most Civil War troops apparently drilled a lot on firing, they shot very little live fire if at all. You fight as you train is a modern comment, so too your fighting skills deteriorate to the level of your training. My take is the the CW soldier, in line and terrified, went thru the motions of capping, just as he had trained, then cocked and snapped on a bare nipple.....just as he had trained.

Grossman draws other parallels as well, citing that only a percentage of WWII fighter pilots had high "kill" scores further supporting his theories. He fails to discuss the leader and wingman tactics of WWII fighter pilots, where one plane/pilot is the shooter, and wingman is responsible for watching the shooters "six" while on the attack. Thus half an attacking force is responsible for NOT shooting, but watching.

Anyhow, GROSSMAN's book is an interesting read and I'd say recommended to anybody carrying a firearm professionally or for personal defense. But I thought his theories on some of the historical points were a bit flawed and might make for interesting discussion. What say y'all.
 
slant

Thanks for the article, which is clearly Grossman and (dare I say) LE critical as well. I was aware of Grossman's use of Marshall's research and commentary, and often wondered about Marshall's facts as well. While I'm naming names, I will comment that I'm a bit hesitant to accept much criticism from Hawaii Sen Schatz ,professors from large universities, or the IAPC, who seem largely opposed to our sport and hobby.

What prompted me to start this thread was not necessarily a dissection of Grossman, but thoughts as to why the discovery of improperly loaded muskets seemed somewhat common on civil war battlefields. That topic came up elsewhere in another one of our forums and I reasoned it might get further batted about here. Was that phenomenon a training or psychological issue?

Full disclosure, Attn: Moderators, if we get to far down the rabbit hole , by all means lock it up, not my intention to muddy the water.
 
There is a stark difference between frightened conscripts (with questionable training)who are the first volley keep loading the musket over and over again and soldiers in WW2 and WW2 firing in battle, based off mechanics alone.

I have never heard a veteran of Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Somalia, of GWOT talk about large numbers of troops not firing. In regard to WW2 the concern at the adoption of M1 Garand, Carbine, Grease gun and so on was the consumption of large amounts of ammo by new unseasoned troops.

Almost every account of sustained combat I have ever read talked about troops running low on ammo, even scrouging for ammo from the wounded and deceased, even resorting to captured weapons.
 
Have not read the book (don't plan to) but I will make some comments about what you've mentioned.

First, Civil War soldiers, and training, along with observed results in combat, in general.

It is an observed fact that when in combat, a certain percentage of troops will not shoot, another percentage will shoot, but in such a manner as to make it unlikely to hit the enemy, and a different percentage will actually aim and try to kill the enemy.

Also, I think it is a mistake to attribute actions due to the fog of war to individual decisions based on individual soldier's moralities.

Civil war muskets found loaded multiple times might simply be explained by troops losing track of what they were doing during the stress of battle. There are numerous, verified accounts of soldiers being shot with ramrods.

Remember too, the level of troops in the conflict. AND what the general level of training and discipline of the era. Some if the troops were professional military, many if not most were volunteers and in the case of the Union, many were draftees. March, dig, follow orders was the training priority, shooting was further down the list, and marksmanship was rarely focused on.

Grossman draws other parallels as well, citing that only a percentage of WWII fighter pilots had high "kill" scores further supporting his theories. He fails to discuss the leader and wingman tactics of WWII fighter pilots, where one plane/pilot is the shooter, and wingman is responsible for watching the shooters "six" while on the attack. Thus half an attacking force is responsible for NOT shooting, but watching.
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This is, I think, a mistaken evaluation. Its not "half the attacking force watching and not attacking", it is more a matter of half of the sortied force's job is to protect the attacking portion of the force. If there is any ace who didn't start out as someone's wingman, I think the number is very small.

The way it works out is that in all combat, the veterans (experienced people) do most of the actual killing, and the newer troops are there to learn, and hopefully survive to become veterans and then train others.

The exception, of course, is when ALL the troops are green, but that only lasts until after their first battle. After that, some have learned the lessons that let them go on and become aces or great fighters, sailors, or whatever, and some never do. This applies to combat commanders as well.

Judging Civil War (or any other historical conflict) using the standards we use today as a yardstick is just fallacy. And, I feel writing a book doing that is just getting paid for BS.

The only honest way to look at what happened in the past is to only look at what they knew, and what they did, compared against the standards of the specific era.

Also remember that when there is a war going on, military training often gets cut short of peacetime standards, soldiers often only get the bare basics, the rest is expected to be learned "on the job", by the ones who survive.
 
Much of the multiply loads in rifles in the Civil War was attributed to new recruits simply over whelmed by the incredible noise and confusion of war at that time.

In the stress and confusion, they simply neglected to cap the rifle, and thinking they'd fired, loaded another load down the bore.
This is akin to "Buck fever" where a hunter is so excited and distracted that he ejects all the rounds in the rifle thinking he'd fired each time.

SLA Marshall was pretty much debunked after claiming that many soldiers didn't fired their weapon in WWII.
There's simply too many instances were his claims didn't stand up.... either he was never where he claimed to be, or never actually actually talked to the people involved.
WWII combat officers and Sargents were were outraged at his statements because they were actually in combat and didn't see anything like he reported.

There will always be some minority who don't/won't fire their weapon, or fails to insure accuracy on target, but in actual combat the drive to survive demands that the enemy be stopped before he can kill you.
The only way to do that is kill him first, thus insuring you fire your weapon as accurately as you can under the circumstances of combat and stress.

A new soldier in his first time in combat may panic and freeze and not fire at the enemy.
After his first time, and with pressure from other soldiers, most people get over the panic and use their weapon.
Their fellow soldiers will demand that simply to prevent being killed because someone doesn't do his job.

In the recent Sand Wars I've heard or read nothing about soldiers not using their weapons.
Possibly this is due to an all-volunteer military, or better training.
From all accounts today's American military are enthusiastic about shooting at the enemy.

The situation with American fighter pilots is more defined.
Most of the world in war has very limited time to train pilots and they routinely put people into combat with only a few hours in the air.
In WWII we ran the best pilot training in the world.
American pilots had many more hours in the air, and very extensive training on flying, gunnery, and tactics.

The American pilot was a very aggressive fighter and the drive to shoot down enemy planes was ingrained from the start of training.
That some were aces with many kills and some were not is attributed to simple luck in finding enemy aircraft to shoot down and on experience in combat to enable getting the advantage on an enemy pilot.
 
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pilots and ramrods

I likely clouded the issue by bringing Grossman's pilot comments into the OP, but it was one of those statements he made that just did not ring true with me. In fact, I have heard or read more than one interview where WWII aces never considered the human pilot at all, or the consequences of a bombing raid.
The engaged a target (aircraft/factory/ship, locomotive, etc).

I may not have described the wingman/leader issue well either, but the point remains, wingman did not get to shoot as much as the leader. You can't rack up air-to-air kills if your not shooting, and you may not survive long enough to become lead yourself.

I had no idea that Grosmann had published several books, I read his first one. Never attended any of his training either.

Keep it coming.......thanks all.
 
but the point remains, wingman did not get to shoot as much as the leader.
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Sure, but that's intentional. The entire point of being a wingman, is not to rack up your own kills but to protect your leader. Shoot down half a dozen enemy but lose your flight leader, you failed as a wingman.

The days of everyone being in it for their own personal glory are, and should be long gone. Fighter combat tactics have evolved since the days of lone knights of the air jousting against their opponents. Team tactics are better for the mission and they guys flying.

And that means one guy shoots and the other one covers him, is the preferred method. And, in the fluid nature of air to air combat, the roles of leader and wingman can switch back and forth in and instant, to meet the tactical challenge.
 
I read somewhere that during WW-2 soldiers trained by firing at conventional targets with concentric circles for accuracy. They did have many instances of soldiers not being able to fire at a living human in battle.

Changing to a human silhouette target for training significantly reduced this. At least according to what I read. I cannot provide any documentation and apologize in advance if this is incorrect. But it makes sense.

I've also read a theory that many of the rifles with multiple loadings was because soldiers picked up rifles off the ground and assumed they had already been fired.
 
The Gentle Readers might want to read all the way through this study:
https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=graduatetheses
Combat Psychology: Learning to Kill in the U.S. Military, 1947-2012
>
> "…I was down and all I could see was his head and shoulders…he had
> a hardhat on, and then I saw the red emblem.” Lonnie, his hands now
> gesticulating wildly, begins recounting the painful event “and then, when
> his, when I could see a silhouette” Lonnie freezes and stares vacantly as
> the interview room falls deafeningly silent. “I blasted ‘em. Silhouettes.
> They’re not real people, there are just targets!” he blurts out.

> The interviewer waits for Lonnie to regain his composure and follows up
> with “Is that how you kinda saw it? Would you try to disconnect them
> as people?”
>
> Lonnie calmly replies, “That was what we were taught to do…those weren’t
> people, those are silhouettes.”
 
Army 1967-1971, BCT Fort Dix C-4-2 Summer of 1967. "WHAT'S THE SPIRIT OF THE BAYONET !!!!!". IIRC bayonet training was made part of BCT to encourage aggressiveness, shooting at silhouettes, pop-up targets, the same, greater realism. In WWII combat troop replacements were often rear echelon types either sent to combat units as punishment or transferred as the quickest source of replacements. I read of one veteran's experience during the Bulge, handed an M-1 Rifle and told to get up to the front line. He enlisted in the Army in 1941, qualified on the M1903, was a cook, had never seen an M-1. One veteran of Korea, arriving at the Pusan Perimeter in that desperate Summer of 1950-his tour of duty as a company clerk lasted all of one hour, he was immediately transformed into a rifleman.
There is the phenomenon of the 10-15%, the "Hard Core" , the warriors if you will.
In an article The Askins Gunfights Massad Ayoob wrote "He aggressively sought out maximum action in his careers, first as a lawman, then as a soldier. He was also a stone cold killer." Carlos Hathcock-whose scores greatly exceed those of Charlie-spoke of "getting inside your bubble" and AFAIK no-one ever referred to him as a psychopath.
Regarding the multiple loadings of CW muskets, at the Cedar Creek reenactment in 1991 a fellow in my unit loaded his musket 3x, when he finally fired it, it sounded like a thunderclap, knocked him down and the fellow behind him. Cracked the stock.
In Army ROTC we had a lieutenant colonel, a 3 war veteran, tell us "In combat your IQ drops to about 75." but if the training is thorough enough...
In the Civil War the drill-the tactics-were more important, that was how they actually fought. The eye exam back then consisted of seeing if you actually had 2 and they worked, the muskets did not have adjustable sights, firing was still pretty much by volley and on command.
 
Army 1967-1971, BCT Fort Dix C-4-2 Summer of 1967. "WHAT'S THE SPIRIT OF THE BAYONET !!!!!".
Click to expand...

Times changed....

Army 1975-78 BCT Ft Leonard Wood A-2-3 Fall 1975. "THIS IS THE M7 BAYONET! TAKE A GOOD LOOK! YOU WILL NOT USE IT!"

That was all the training we got with the bayonet.
 
I once read that modern US military infantry training is designed to convert civilians into soldiers who are predisposed to shooting people.
This is subtle, but effective.

I also read that today's recruits have already gotten a good start playing video games and watching action movies.
The idea that you're supposed to shoot at the enemy is already ingrained.
 
" ...read that modern US military infantry training is designed to convert
civilians into soldiers who are predisposed to shooting people."
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That's wrong.

If anything, military training ingrains what it means that you may have to kill someone.
and that if you do have to take action against a threat to you & yours, that you can actually
make that decision quickly.

But "predisposed..." ?

Not hardly.
 
I have, admittedly, not read Grossman's book. That being said, I find the notion that Civil War soldiers refusing to fire their muskets or intentionally missing the enemy being commonplace to be dubious. I agree with others here that the more likely explanation for muskets loaded with multiple unfired rounds was a combination of lackluster training and panic in the heat of battle. Likewise, I find the explanation for wild shots that go over the enemy's head to be more likely a case of panic and/or poor marksmanship. The reports of soldiers firing their muskets while the ramrod was still in the barrel would seem to support the panic explanation.

Also, while I've thankfully never been in a situation where I had to or thought I might imminently have to take another person's life (and I hope I'm never put in that position), I do know a few people who have. These people are, by anything I can discern, normal well-adjusted people and not only were they able to do what was necessary in the moment, but none has seemed to suffer any longstanding guilt or regret about the situation (all were very clear cut cases of kill or be killed). I've also heard/read about far more cases of people who said "I don't know if I could kill someone" and were then able to when put in that predicament than those who weren't able to pull the trigger.

The only credible case of soldiers refusing to shoot or intentionally missing their adversaries that I've ever heard of/read about was after the Christmas Truce of 1914. That, however, was a somewhat unique case in that the soldiers on both sides had met and become acquainted with each other outside of the heat of combat and thus didn't perceive each other to be legitimate threats. Given the less glamorous views of war that are more prevalent today and the more complex politics surrounding it, I find the notion that soldiers of yesteryear would be less willing to shoot the enemy out of some moral objection to killing than the soldiers of today to be dubious.
 
I've also heard/read about far more cases of people who said "I don't know if I could kill someone" and were then able to when put in that predicament than those who weren't able to pull the trigger.
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This might be simply due to the fact that the people who couldn't pull the trigger are not around to have their stories told. And, the very likely fact that those who didn't pull the trigger and did survive aren't admitting to, or bragging about not shooting.

Most people who had a relatively moral upbringing have been taught it is wrong to shoot people when its not clearly a life or death situation. Military combat involves life or death situations, but they range from immediate to less easily recognized threats.

Shooting at the enemy who is hiding in the trees a few hundred yards away is a different level of "immediate" than when the enemy is eight feet from you clearly, actively trying to kill you.

For some people shooting "at" the enemy some distance away is a different thing that shooting the guy trying to get in your position.

The military recognizes this inhibition, and how some troops don't have it at all, some have it to a degree, and the ultimate degree, the conscientious objector. They have spent a lot of effort over many generations training troops to not see the enemy as people, but things to be shot. Derisive slang names and terms are a part of that.
 
Grossman, like a number of things in the firearms industry, has his proponents and opponents. His popularity has also shifted over time. For a period he was “required reading” to some, and nowadays I get the impression he is viewed much more critically.

I have read most of, “On Killing”, and then got sidetracked and didn’t finish it. A lot of what is presented seems plausible, but it seems like a lot of hypothesis without much “proof” one way or the other, which isn’t entirely uncommon in the social sciences and psychological studies. I think it is somewhat useful as a thought exercise, not sure if more useful than that.
 
The military ... [has] spent a lot of effort over many generations training
troops to not see the enemy as people, but things to be shot
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This does grave disservice to both the modern soldier, and to those who now lead them -- from NCO to flag rank.

There are exceptions -- as in any society. But the body of today's military knows far better the effects of killing upon both his adversary and himself, than does the ordinary "supposedly peaceful" civilian. Prior to the tocsin sounding, that soldier is constantly educated and trained as to the People he defends, the culture that is his to preserve, his profession in that defense, and the laws of war once engaged.

But even once engaged the American military remains that peculiar breed of both independent thinker and disciplined soldier... not a preprogrammed killer robot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[His]is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war
... if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed....

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier
above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the
deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous
words ...

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

,
 
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This does grave disservice to both the modern soldier, and to those who now lead them -- from NCO to flag rank.
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I simply don't see it that way. Just out of curiosity, where, and when did you serve? I was Army, 75-78.

Prior to the tocsin sounding, that soldier is constantly educated and trained as to the People he defends, the culture that is his to preserve, his profession in that defense, and the laws of war once engaged.
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This is certainly true, I can remember what I went through for training, but that is not the point I was trying to make.

NEVER in all the training I went through was "the enemy" presented as anything but the enemy. Never was it mentioned that they had lives and identities of their own, families, and were "just doing their jobs" We all knew the reality, but we were trained not to think about that, to only see the enemy as the enemy. I don't see recounting that being a disservice to anyone.

De-humanizing the opposition isn't just a military thing, one sees it in many area of human strife and conflict. Political and Religious movements throughout history de-humanize or even demonize their enemies. If your enemy isn't "human" it makes it easier to deal with the idea of killing them, or so I was told.
 
Army, then USAF, more than 30 years -- in a universe now far, far away; and a time long, long ago.
But those I have born are again in the middle of it, and again right now.
Apparently we've not seen the end of war.

As far as dehumanizing, that's a switch turned on when going into immediate combat.
Until then, stay thinking of what you'll do, when, why, and keep mulling it over.
See the People.
Know the People.

But once engaged, even then stay human ... but stay detached; stay professional;
switch into your training; stay decisive; stay alive.

Outside of chance itself... it's still the human art, your training, & your MSgts that will keep you alive.
But robots -- even in combat -- get killed.


If you can keep your head when all about you. Are losing theirs...

We can admit that we're killers... but we're not going to kill today.

.
 
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