Wetting the bed is a sign of a serial killer?Then pretty much every person I know is a potential serial killer.*
*I should note that they did this when they were kids, not at the moment...
Mass Murderer is not the same thing.He's pretty much a serial killer IOTL.
He's pretty much a serial killer IOTL.
Would a serial killer Hitler go after Jews?
Maybe he'd go after the "Aryan" girls, who would never seem to live up to his expectations.
Assuming the book's thesis is accurate, the article doesn't say he was never in danger but that he and his allies exaggerated it.
The fact Stalin inflated his Polish-Soviet War exploits doesn't mean he never saw combat.
SLA Marshall claimed that maybe a quarter of American troops did during WWII, but I think his studies were called into question.
Studies show, IIRC, that about 2% of soldiers in WW1 fired their weapons with deadly intent, though I couldn't vouch for their methodology. Huge numbers, possibly a majority, mostly didn't fire their rifles during fighting, that's for sure.
My question, and I'm not demanding you post the numbers, just being rhetorical, but I wonder how many soldiers even got the opportunity. Artillery and machine guns did (and do) most of the killing anyways, and I think it would have been exceptionally rare to see your enemy.
My question, and I'm not demanding you post the numbers, just being rhetorical, but I wonder how many soldiers even got the opportunity. Artillery and machine guns did (and do) most of the killing anyways, and I think it would have been exceptionally rare to see your enemy.
Not to mention the important soldiers to sustaining armies who can spend an entire war without ever so much as hearing a shot fired in anger, much less shooting one themselves. Serving in logistics or the quartermaster corps still counts as military personnel and depending on how one does it could lead to the argument that increasing numbers of modern soldiers don't shoot at other soldiers simply because increasing numbers of modern soldiers aren't in combat positions in the first place.
Artillery was the big killer, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of nasty close-quarters fighting. I'm not sure whether 'see your enemy' is meant in a broader sense or to mean being aware of the particular human being you're fighting, but the former was usual and the latter hardly unknown. Those sharpened shovels weren't for show.
To clarify: I've never heard figures saying that such large numbers of troops didn't use weapons. That would be remarkable. The study was saying rather that 2% of the soldiers 'polled' said that they were motivated in combat by a desire to kill the enemy. That large numbers probably didn't use their weapons at all was just adding some context to that.
Whole lot more likely. And would fit the profile better.
Well, John Keegan isn't the best source on WW1 (Too generalist), but he actually had a breakdown of what caused the most deaths. Interestingly, I think melee was less than 5% of all casualties. Still, I can't imagine what it would be like.