Psychology of killing.

[baddo 0]

No its not nonsense, that article was just the 1st google hit i choose to go with my poll, its a well known documented fact.

Have a google yourself and you will see.

Still I say, the web page you refer to gives no evidence to back up many of its claims. It just says "a fact" but gives no proof. I am not swallowing such claims without seeing what kind of actual research was done and even then it depends on what criteria you use to analyze the research data.

Some quotes from your reference and my comments on them:

Quote[/b] ]In World War Two, it is a fact that only 15-20 percent of the soldiers fired at the enemy.

What kind of proof backs this up? Reference? It says "a fact" so there must really have been a reliable research done? How? Where? By who?

Quote[/b] ]In WW2 only one percent of the pilots accounted for thirty to forty percent of enemy fighters shot down in the air. Some pilots didn't shoot down a single enemy plane.

This is, in my opinion, not a valid argument into this discussion at all. We are discussing the psychological side of killing. While it is more than likely that not all pilots get kills in a war, you can't draw a conclusion from that that the pilots who didn't get any kills didn't want to kill anyone or were unable to kill anyone.

Especially this part catched my attention and made me suspicious towards this article:

Quote[/b] ]In fact it usually took around fifty-two thousand bullets to score one kill in regular infantry units!

Now, there the article draws a direct relation between the number of shots fired and the casualties caused by those shots. This is complete nonsense in my opinion, when we are talking about the psychological side of killing enemies. You can't draw such relation; the maddest of all gunmen can shoot millions of rounds without getting any kills. Does that make him not psychologically ready for killing? Of course not, and that's why I brought up the questionability of this article.

...and the article does it again:

Quote[/b] ](52,000 shots to score 1 hit? Our troops weren't that bad at shooting!)

Again, my argument is no such direct relation can be drawn from this information. You can miss your targets but that in no way makes you not psychologically able to kill enemies.

...and same again:

Quote[/b] ]It should be noted that although a soldier may shoot, he may not try to kill. He may be ordered to fire but it is very hard to determine if he is trying to hit as can be noted by the 52,000 rounds fired for one hit ration in Vietnam. People were willing to fire but not always willing to hit the target.

You just can't say if they wanted to hit their targets or not based on how many shots they fired for one kill. But this article is saying you actually can say it, which is nonsense in my opinion.

Notice that I am not saying that all of the information presented on this source is not true. I'm just saying this information source has some very questionable claims, which I pointed out for you above. The parts I quoted from the article made me think those parts are someone's personal opinions, formed after looking at some statistical information table about number of shots fired and casualties caused etc. Such information in my opinion tells nothing about the psychological state of the soldiers. It tells they fired a lot of shots but not if they were psychologically ready to kill or not.

[vilas 477]

thats why i don't like soldiers, but only police

police defends peacefully people against aggressive people, thieves, burglars, rapist, cheaters

if someone takes money for killing he is contract killer if he goes to other land and taking money for it,

soldier should only protect his own territory or only exception country invaded by other like UN troops helps sometimes

serving country is other situation than being invader and invaders cause terrorism reaction

[max power 21]

No its not nonsense, that article was just the 1st google hit i choose to go with my poll, its a well known documented fact.

Have a google yourself and you will see.

Still I say, the web page you refer to gives no evidence to back up many of its claims. It just says "a fact" but gives no proof. I am not swallowing such claims without seeing what kind of actual research was done and even then it depends on what criteria you use to analyze the research data.

Some quotes from your reference and my comments on them:

Quote[/b] ]In World War Two, it is a fact that only 15-20 percent of the soldiers fired at the enemy.

What kind of proof backs this up? Reference? It says "a fact" so there must really have been a reliable research done? How? Where? By who?

Quote[/b] ]In WW2 only one percent of the pilots accounted for thirty to forty percent of enemy fighters shot down in the air. Some pilots didn't shoot down a single enemy plane.

This is, in my opinion, not a valid argument into this discussion at all. We are discussing the psychological side of killing. While it is more than likely that not all pilots get kills in a war, you can't draw a conclusion from that that the pilots who didn't get any kills didn't want to kill anyone or were unable to kill anyone.

Especially this part catched my attention and made me suspicious towards this article:

Quote[/b] ]In fact it usually took around fifty-two thousand bullets to score one kill in regular infantry units!

Now, there the article draws a direct relation between the number of shots fired and the casualties caused by those shots. This is complete nonsense in my opinion, when we are talking about the psychological side of killing enemies. You can't draw such relation; the maddest of all gunmen can shoot millions of rounds without getting any kills. Does that make him not psychologically ready for killing? Of course not, and that's why I brought up the questionability of this article.

...and the article does it again:

Quote[/b] ](52,000 shots to score 1 hit? Our troops weren't that bad at shooting!

Again, my argument is no such direct relation can be drawn from this information. You can miss your targets but that in no way makes you not psychologically able to kill enemies.

...and same again:

Quote[/b] ]It should be noted that although a soldier may shoot, he may not try to kill. He may be ordered to fire but it is very hard to determine if he is trying to hit as can be noted by the 52,000 rounds fired for one hit ration in Vietnam. People were willing to fire but not always willing to hit the target.

You just can't say if they wanted to hit their targets or not based on how many shots they fired for one kill. But this article is saying you actually can say it, which is nonsense in my opinion.

Notice that I am not saying that all of the information presented on this source is not true. I'm just saying this information source has some very questionable claims, which I pointed out for you above. The parts I quoted from the article made me think those parts are someone's personal opinions, formed after looking at some statistical information table about number of shots fired and casualties caused etc. Such information in my opinion tells nothing about the psychological state of the soldiers. It tells they fired a lot of shots but not if they were psychologically ready to kill or not.

Just find and read 'On Killing' by Lt. Col. David Grossman. All of these points that Badbone is making are made in that book and backed up with references and primary sources.

[Baff1 0]

thats why i don't like soldiers, but only police

police defends peacefully people against aggressive people, thieves, burglars, rapist, cheaters

if someone takes money for killing he is contract killer if he goes to other land and taking money for it,

soldier should only protect his own territory or only exception country invaded by other like UN troops helps sometimes

serving country is other situation than being invader and invaders cause terrorism reaction

Better to invade than be invaded.

Not every decision in life will provide you with an enjoyable outcome. Sometimes you have the choice between evil or greater evil.

[baddo 0]

Well.

It doesn't matter if you bring a book to me which makes the same claims. I say again, you can't draw a direct relation between the number of shots fired for one enemy casualty and psychological readyness of your soldiers to kill enemies. It is obvious from the web page article that that is exactly what the book is also saying. Or tell me what kind of other research they could have done. Exactly... they just looked at the number of shots fired versus casualties, as that is information they can reasonably have available to them.

I say once more: your psychological readyness to make a kill can't be determined based on the number of shots you fire in a war and how many kills you got.

[vilas 477]

"Better to invade than be invaded."

such people like you cause hate in world history but you seem not to understand it

human life is biggest worth, not interests of big companies

such way of thoughts caused slavery, nazism , 9-11 finally

if people will have more respect to other, history of human would not be so fucked and abominable

wars should be only in games

[Baff1 0]

Wars and soldiering are well documented.

The physcology of it is no secret by now.

[evil koala 6]

I feel embarrassed for having posted in this thread.. Someone might associate me with the rest of these people.  

[NeMeSiS 11]

Well.

It doesn't matter if you bring a book to me which makes the same claims. I say again, you can't draw a direct relation between the number of shots fired for one enemy casualty and psychological readyness of your soldiers to kill enemies. It is obvious from the web page article that that is exactly what the book is also saying. Or tell me what kind of other research they could have done. Exactly... they just looked at the number of shots fired versus casualties, as that is information they can reasonably have available to them.

I say once more: your psychological readyness to make a kill can't be determined based on the number of shots you fire in a war.

Ive seen it on discovery channel, they compared to hit ratio on the shooting range/training exercises compared to the hit ratio on the battlefield, the ratio on the battlefield was much, much lower and it wasnt just stress/confusion alone.

And hey, just grab a brick and try to beat someone to death, wanna bet that you feel for that poor bastard

[Baff1 0]

"Better to invade than be invaded."

such people like you cause hate in world history but you seem not to understand it

human life is biggest worth, not interests of big companies

such way of thoughts caused slavery, nazism , 9-11 finally

if people will have more respect to other, history of human would not be so fucked and abominable

Such thoughts as these brought the end to Nazism. The end to slavery.

We invaded Germany. We sailed half way round the world and killed the slavers.

Human life is the biggest worth, but the human life of my sister is worth more to me than the human life of yours.

If it is necessary for me to take that decision I will not allow myself to hesitate.

Did you think the Nazi's were going to stop of their own accord?

Did you think slavers just woke up one day and decided not to be slavers anymore?

I didn't create this world, I just live in it.

[max power 21]

Well.

It doesn't matter if you bring a book to me which makes the same claims. I say again, you can't draw a direct relation between the number of shots fired for one enemy casualty and psychological readyness of your soldiers to kill enemies. It is obvious from the web page article that that is exactly what the book is also saying. Or tell me what kind of other research they could have done. Exactly... they just looked at the number of shots fired versus casualties, as that is information they can reasonably have available to them.

I say once more: your psychological readyness to make a kill can't be determined based on the number of shots you fire in a war.

Ive seen it on discovery channel, they compared to hit ratio on the shooting range/training exercises compared to the hit ratio on the battlefield, the ratio on the battlefield was much, much lower and it wasnt just stress/confusion alone.

And hey, just grab a brick and try to beat someone to death, wanna bet that you feel for that poor bastard

To thump the Grossman book again, he equates the shooting off somewhere else behaviour to posturing. Apparently in territorial conflict with animals, there is a lot of posturing involved, and the author reasons that in this regard, under normal psychological circumstances, that humans are no different.

[churnedfortaste 0]

On the battlefield your targets don't conveniently stand still for you, or show themselves out in the open at all in most cases.......

And soldiers don't just shoot to kill, they don't shoot to 'look busy', the fire off everything they have so the enemy is completely overwhelmed...

[baddo 0]

"Soldiering" might be well documented but such documents also must make sense. In this case this article, which is based on the book, makes such a conclusion that I just have to say it's not well-researched information but just speculation.

In essence, the article, which is based on the book, has looked at some statistical data in wrong way and came up with a highly questionable argument. This is not at all uncommon in scientific field. There are lot of research papers that do similar mistakes (draw stupid conclusions from lots of numerical data).

Edit:

Well.

It doesn't matter if you bring a book to me which makes the same claims. I say again, you can't draw a direct relation between the number of shots fired for one enemy casualty and psychological readyness of your soldiers to kill enemies. It is obvious from the web page article that that is exactly what the book is also saying. Or tell me what kind of other research they could have done. Exactly... they just looked at the number of shots fired versus casualties, as that is information they can reasonably have available to them.

I say once more: your psychological readyness to make a kill can't be determined based on the number of shots you fire in a war.

Ive seen it on discovery channel, they compared to hit ratio on the shooting range/training exercises compared to the hit ratio on the battlefield, the ratio on the battlefield was much, much lower and it wasnt just stress/confusion alone.

And hey, just grab a brick and try to beat someone to death, wanna bet that you feel for that poor bastard

The first paragraph in your post is really something I have not argued against. Yes I understand that I will not shoot as well at a real battlefield as in a peace-time shooting range. But just comparing the number of shots fired to how many casualties you get tells us nothing about if you are psychologically able to kill other people or not. This is my point, don't convert it to something else please What if you are a mad killer but you are blind? There goes the theory of comparing number of shots fired to how many casualties you got... What if you are in a perfect state-of-mind for killing, but just unable to do it because of materialistic (weapon is faulty etc.), environmental (weather, terrain etc.) or because of your own physical problems like missing eyes.

Also, I really don't know what that last paragraph in your post is trying to say to me? It's not related to anything I have said that is for sure. Only thing I can think of is that you missed the point I was making. I am not arguying that there is no problem in hurting people.

[vilas 477]

"Human life is the biggest worth, but the human life of my sister is worth more to me than the human life of yours."

but what if your sister/mother, grandmother, was slaver, or invader ?

people life should be judged by its honesty/good deeds not as mine or yours

if my brother rape or stole something and was shot i would not regret him,

"We invaded Germany. "

it was not invasion, it was help to Europe invaded by insane man with stupid mustache

hitler started in 01-09-1939 ,

[Baff1 0]

No, it was an invasion.

At first we only sent troops to help in France, but after they started bombing London, they had to die.

We invaded Germany. Better them than us.

We killed them by the thousand and everybody cheered.

If my mother or sister or grandmother was a slaver, they would still be my mother and sister and grandmother. There lives would still be more important to me than the lives of your mother your sister and your grandmother and I would be a slaver too. And if you sailed halfway round the world to kill them, I would not hesitate to kill you.

[churnedfortaste 0]

if my brother rape or stole something and was shot i would not regret him,

That sounds rather hypothetical, i'm guessing you're an only child?

[Spokesperson 0]

Quote[/b] ]Such thoughts as these brought the end to Nazism. The end to slavery.

We invaded Germany. We sailed half way round the world and killed the slavers.

You wouldn't have done anything if the japanese hadn't attacked you.

What did you actually do in Europe? Made sure you had all the markets and profits from the west left? We've still got slavery over here, not as bad as the nazi one, but it still exists. Here freedom is only for the rich. "Democracy" equals political, social, economical influence counted per $. Corporations make decisions that affect the lives of the citizens more often than governments do.

World War 2 Losses, Sign = 100 000. Based on dictionary mean values.

Nazi Germany invaded the Czech Republic, the western powers agreed to this. "Peace in our time!". Then Hitler went with Poland second. But he still attacked _first_ .

vilas is still right.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to Baddo

The books and articles we are refering to are actual or based on primary source research work carried out by the army to find out why their soldiers did not kill the enemy in war. Armies want to know this kind of stuff it is useful. The lessons learned from this have lead to operant conditioning which is why modern armies can now claim 90% of soldiers will kill.

Of course the result is very high levels of PTSD and is the current main area of research in armies. Lots of suicidal potential postal types is not very good for an armies image vietnam vets anyone?

Many fear that Iraq may be storing a vast new resevoir of the same and so the military are spending a lot on research into treatment methods for this.

Kind Regards walker

[Baff1 0]

Actually we didn't do anything when the Japanese attacked us. To our shame our pacific troops all surrendered without a fight and our fleet was sunk in a suprise attack.

I think perhaps you mistake me for an American. Britian entered the war when Germany invaded Poland, a country with which we had a mutual defence pact.

[vilas 477]

thats why there was 9-11

you are selfish, you do not think about other people

rich countries had colonies, they were making people work for free

and they are not understand still why there is terrorism

Quote[/b] ]

"That sounds rather hypothetical, i'm guessing you're an only child?

no i am honest man, who worked some for Police

Quote[/b] ]

"If my mother or sister or grandmother was a slaver, they would still be my mother and sister and grandmother. There lives would still be more important to me than the lives of your mother your sister and your grandmother and I would be a slaver too. And if you sailed halfway round the world to kill them, I would not hesitate to kill you. "

i cannot use other word than dirty word about such philosophy

young Germans despise SS, but people like you were not ?

Quote[/b] ]No, it was an invasion

in august of 1939 hitler told Poland to give our territory to him, we refused, on 01-09-1939 he invaded Poland, than France

it was help

[ran 0]

Hi all

The following is a very simplified precis.

Killing our own kind is something that we genetically programmed not to do. Any species that easily kills its own kind is on its way to experience a Darwin award. Read On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz.

That said about 2% of the population are sociopaths who can kill without remorse or empathy, most of these are conditioned by society not to kill and their normal social conditioning prevents them from killing and they live normal healthy lives, a few don't take that conditioning and are the people who become sociopathic murderers. This 2% are the people most armies weed out with their psychological testing. They do not tend to make good soldiers.

Another 2% to 3% are those who can kill without training or conditioning but do so with empathy and remorse. These are the people who tend to be heroes and win medals. They are good at war because they can see the reason behind the need for violence. Their actions tend to be reasoned and considered. This 2% to 3% are the people most armies look for with their psychological testing they are also the people who end up being leaders in the military.

5% Are those the who cannot kill no matter the circumstances they make good medics and firemen though as they will often risk their own life to save another, their empathy levels are so very high. They are also the people who become conscientious objectors

The rest of us are the 90% are normal every day people; using operant conditioning most of those can can be taught to kill. This 90% are the people who most armies psychological testing show they will have to train a lot in order to make them kill. Modern military training is very effective at doing this.

Operant conditioning overrides our basic instinct not to harm our own kind; it is achieved by the following methods:

1) Continuous training and drilling to the point where the order is obeyed by the unconscious thought before the conscious thought can mediate the action

2) Associative memory conditioning by using human-shaped targets rather than the of bulls-eye type targets used in rifle competition, also of relevance here is the use of high fidelity simulation to give a very real representation of the human movement and even the reaction to being shot.

3) The so called firing squad principal; of distribution of responsibility for the act of killing throughout the group, thus reducing the stress and pain of killing.

4) Mob mentality. Encouraging pack thought and action so that the pack reacts violently to a threat. This has to be sharply controlled as it can very easily become displaced into lynch mob behaviour My Lai Massacre anyone. This tends to the most primitive conditioning form and most modern armies tend to want leave it alone.

5) Displacing responsibility for the killing onto an authority figure, i.e. the commanding officer and the military hierarchy this is what caused apparently normal people to comply with the Holocaust and is the subject of the Milgram Experiment recorded in "The Perils of Obedience", the 1974 article by Stanley Milgram the man who got people off the street to electrocute someone they did not know if they did not get questions right. I am sure you have seen the archive film.

6) Inure the person to violence via exposure to violent experieces and culture such as fights, violent images films, games and language. In military training they try to compatmentalise this so that it can be triggered on demand via orders and situations.

On top of all this we have peoples fear reactions most of us when exposed to extreme violence, threat, or emergency for the first time just feeze up or run away as our conscoius mind has nothing to fall back on; not having experienced this before. Operant conditioning also makes use of our midbrain to make us act in these circumstanses by suplanting our conscious thoughts with a set of trained subconcious reactions.

The real problem with operant conditioning is that even if you can be trained to kill the psychological damage it does is the biggest part of PTSD.

You may think most soldiers who come back complaining of PTSD from war are those shocked by the violence they have seen and for some that is true, and in a way is very true it is violence they have seen up real close because they have done it and most of us are that 90% for whom violence is not something we will do consciously and willingly.

Simplified, yet clarifying a few things for some people in this thread.

A friend of mine had a way to describe that :"C'est comme le saut à l'élastique niveau adrénaline, mais à l'envers chez les gens normalement finis. Pour ce qui est de l'acrobatie, c'est avant que tu te poses des questions, juste avant que tu te chies dessus, et après que tu es fier et con. Tuer quelqu'un, c'est donc l'inverse, au début tu es fier de ton flingo, de ton joli treillis, de ton beret, des idéaux que tu défends. Arrivé le moment de faire le boulot pour lequel t'es payé et pour lequel on t'a formé, tu le fais machinalement, après, tu te fais dessus (tu tiltes un coup) ou tu chiales et après tu te poses les questions qui font mal."

"It's like bungee jumping adrenaline-wise but the events are reversed in the mind of normal people. When it comes to acrobatics, you ask yourself questions beforehand, it's right before jumping that you shit your pants or pass out and it's after that you're proud about your dumb feat. Killing somebody is the contrary : beforehand, you're proud about your rifle, your green fatigues, your berret. When comes the time to do the job you've been taught and you're paid for, you do it mechanicaly, afterward, you shit your pants, pass out or cry and then you ask yourself the questions which hurt."

The only way to kill somebody without mercy and remorse is to be a sociopathological bastard, because even with the "mob mentality" (which would normally be called Esprit de corps ) you end up feeling the weight of your acts.

It's not your superiors either who pulled the trigger for you.

[Baff1 0]

That's Britain and France. They invaded you, we declared war. Were we wrong to do so? They hadn't attacked us.

After our crushing defeat in France, the Free Polish Army went on to be stationed in Britain and we fought side by side together for the rest of the war. Many of those Poles settled here after the war. Some of them I count as friends.

Polish pilots fought alongside the RAF in the Battle of Britain and even joined the S.A.S.

That bit about me and the S.S. is lost in translation I'm afraid. What I will say is that if it wasn't for moralities like mine young Germans wouldn't despise the S.S. at all, they would still be cheering and signing themselves up.

[KiwisDoFly 0]

The problem here is that we, as humans, tend to think we can do anything while sitting in our comfy chairs, miles away from any danger.

I'm sitting here right now and thinking, hay, I bet I could throw a basketball and hit that hoop over there easily right from here.

It's the same with war - you can sit here all you want, hidden behind your computer, spewing garbage about how awesome you'd be at war and how you'll be killing entire armies by yourself.

The problem, however, is that thinking about it is not the same as actually being there.

And heres another thing, the military and the people are two different entities. Any military in any parts of the world wants anyone it can get it's hands on - and especially those who sit at home, all comfy and shit, and think "Yeah, I could take a human life".

Plus the military always offered rewards to people - free college after serving, good money, etc. So it's always been a way for people with financial problems to achieve a higher goal.

Think of this scenario: you come from Rural Bumfuck, a town in the middle of nowhere and where theres very little work except farming. You don't want farming - you want to go and be a doctor or a scientist, whatever. How do you do it? Well, you sign up for the army, thinking it's only 2 years and there isn't a war on so you'll sit it out without even leaving the country. Then suddenly BOOM! Theres a war going on! And so you are sent off to kill humans - and thats where the real question arises: can you kill someone? Can you kill someone when there are dead and horrendously wounded people all around you, when you see people torn apart and burned. Would you be able to pick up a rifle and add to the devastation?

And then again coming back to my original point, if an enemy country is invading yours and you are told "Here Johnny, save your motherland!" - you are going to think "Fuck yeah, those guys are evil and I have a gun, and I can kill them all, and I won't let them touch my family and my favourite dog".

In reality, though, you get to the front and for the first time you see that one enemy soldier running towards you - you are not going to think "Those guys want our land and we can't let them have it!" - no, it will just be you and a rifle and another person just like yourself, who has thoughts and dreams, with a family to protect. Would you be able to shoot then? Probably not.

The truth about all wars is that they are fought by senile old men with an agenda, who send the young to do their fighting for them.

Unless you have been in a war - a real war like WW2 or Vietnam, or Chechnya, or Falkland Islands, etc - this thread is futile.

[vilas 477]

my grandfather Frank was in 304 division (famous is 303) and his children live in UK too

"That's Britain and France. They invaded you, we declared war. Were we wrong to do so?"

it was act of help, but previously you said about beeing slaver

if you invade other country to take away oil for example or slave people - fuck you

if you "invade" to help innocent people killed by insane dictator - you are hero

it is big difference

important is WHY you are going somewhere

[vilas 477]

my grandfather Frank P. was in 304 division (famous is 303) and his children live in UK too in under M. name in middle of island (i forget Brighton of city like that)

im POLE from POLAND

"That's Britain and France. They invaded you, we declared war. Were we wrong to do so?"

it was act of help, but previously you said about beeing slaver

if you invade other country to take away oil for example or slave people - fuck you

if you "invade" to help innocent people killed by insane dictator - you are hero

it is big difference

important is WHY you are going somewhere