This paper presents historical data on selected aspects of personnel losses to divisions and lower echelon forces, including individuals, in land combat operations. Its analysis of selected aspects of personnel losses and loss rates in combat operations spanning a wide range of scales gives US Army operations analysts a much improved foundation for judging future casualty numbers, casualty fractions, and casualty rates on the basis of historical land combat operations. Properly used, this information can be exploited to improve U.S. Army treatment of personnel attrition in models, war games, studies, and analyses.

"April 1997"--Cover.

Executive summary. Background -- Objective -- Scope -- Assumptions -- Approach -- Findings, observations, and conclusions / Background. Introduction -- Definitions -- Summary of selected findings from prior work / Analysis of US 12th Army Group data. Introduction -- Summary tabulation of strengths and losses -- TBC rate distributions -- Violin plots of TBC rates -- Time series analysis of TBC rates -- TBC number versus exposure / Analysis of data other than US 12th Army Group. Introduction -- Long-term trends and other considerations regarding total battle casualty rates -- Divisional casualties and type of tactical operation -- Some miscellaneous division casualty data -- Some World War I data -- Some World War II data -- Some Arab-Israeli War data -- Some miscellaneous operation data / Analysis of data on the principal components of divisions. Introduction -- Some general features of casualties to forces smaller than a division -- Proportion of casualties to major division components / Analysis of data on battalion and company sized combat maneuver forces. Introduction -- Brinkerhoff's data on contingency operations -- Bartley's data on US forces in the Iwo Jima campaign -- Cockrell's data on US and German forces in World War II -- Clark's data on US infantry battalions in World War II -- Best's data on battalions and companies in the Korean War -- Compton's data on battalions and companies in Northwest Europe during World War II -- Gould's data on British rifle companies in World War II --Summer's data on combat maneuver companies in Italy during World War II -- Best's World War II rifle company data -- Kuhn's National Training Center data / Some aspects of casualties to individuals. Introduction -- Casualties to individuals by branch or military occupational specialty -- Battle stress casualties to individuals -- Causative agents of battle casualties -- The anatomical distribution of wounds -- The effect of fire support on battle casualties -- Casualties due to friendly fire / Appendix A: contributors -- Appendix B: study directive -- Appendix C: bibliography -- Appendix D: technical notes -- Appendix E: figures for chapter 3 -- Appendix F: figures for chapter 6 -- Appendix G: distribution.