One Hand Clapping

Which grunts bear the brunt?
Last week an acquaintance mentioned to me that in conversation that "the Marines have borne the brunt of the fighting in Iraq." Is that true? I knew that the Army had suffered more casualties in absolute numbers, but what about the ratio of KIA to number deployed in Iraq? I didn't have any information at the time.

Here's the latest:

Just over than two-thirds (66.8 percent) of all troops killed have been from the Army, including the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard. Regular Army troops comprise 21 percent of the total force in Iraq and Reserve Components 24.3 percent, meaning that the total Army accounts for 45.3 percent of the American forces there. (Army Reserve Components have suffered 16.1 percent of all KIAs.)

The regular Army alone has suffered just over half (50.7 percent) of combat deaths. This means that the RA has suffered KIAs 2.41 times greater than proportional (2.41:1). Including the RC drops that ratio down to 1.47:1.

In contrast, the Marines comprise 11.6 of the total force in Iraq and have suffered 29.9 percent of the combat deaths, a ratio of 2.57:1.

So in one way, the Army has borne the brunt of the casualties because two-thirds of all KIAs have been Army. But the Marines have suffered a higher percentage of KIAs than the Army.

Yet we can't stop there because the differing roles and missions of the two services skew the data. Unlike the Army, the Marines have no theater-level logistic capability or responsibility. The Army - and only the Army - is responsible for ground logistics at theater level for all the services. That means that the Marines in Iraq have been able, in a real sense, to send a higher tooth-to-tail ratio of units to Iraq than the Army because the Army shouldered a lot of their logistic load.

As James Joyner points out, the fact that the bulk of Army RC units deployed are support units accounts for their lower casualty rate (one would expect, after all, combat units to suffer more KIA than support units). If the Marines had to deploy logistic units in the same relative ratio as the Army, then their proportional KIA rate would be lower than it is.

Another thing that raises the Marines' ratio is that their combat vehicles are much less survivable than the Army's. The Marines' armored personnel carriers - the AAV and the LAV - are much more vulnerable than the Army's Bradley or its new Stryker. I know that the Marines have been up-armoring both vehicles, but they still won't take the hits that the Army's vehicles will. This made a real difference two years ago, when the Marines battled their way to Baghdad.

So who has borne the brunt of battle? If you are one of the casualties or a family member thereof, the question is a stupid one: you did or your loved one did. But in a broader view, the question is not merely academic or emotive. The casualty data support the conclusion that the Army has borne the brunt, quite lopsidedly. That accounts for what I pointed out here, that the Army is now predominant among the armed forces in influence and - critically importantly - budgeting, and likely to stay that way for a long time.

by Donald Sensing, 3/21/2005 03:32:00 PM. Permalink |

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