One Bullet In 100 Hits Man In War

1916

IT TAKES 3,500 TO KILL ONE COMBATANT.

Massed Formations Excepted, of Course — Shell Fire Not So Deadly as Shrapnel.

It has been estimated that only one bullet in every hundred that is fired hits a man and of those men hit only one in thirty-five succumbs. In other words, it takes 3,500 bullets to kill a single soldier.

In view of the awful slaughter that has taken place during the present war these figures sound rather startling, yet they are well within the mark.

Of course such calculations as these refer to averages only. An enemy advancing in close formation, as the Germans have been doing recently before Verdun, may be mowed down wholesale by rifle and machine gun fire, and in such cases the average of fatal casualties, compared with the number of rounds expended, will be considerably higher.

Shell fire is, as a general rule, even less destructive than rifle or machine gun fire, says a writer in the Boston Post. A modern high explosive shell makes no end of a row when it bursts, kills possibly a couple of men if it explodes inside of a trench, frightens a lot more, and — that is about all. The ruined walls of Rheims cathedral will testify for many years to come that the shell that shattered one statue seldom hurt its next door neighbor.

Shrapnel Fire Is Deadly.

Shrapnel is more dangerous, provided the fuse is timed just right and the gunner who fires it knows his business. A shrapnel shell contains a number of small round bullets, each about the size of a marble. What execution a shell of this sort can do, given a favorable opportunity, was shown at the "battle of the landing" in Gallipoli, April, 1915.

An attack was about to be launched against the British left and a fold in the ground hid the attacking Turks from the British forces. They were, however, observed by the Queen Elizabeth far out at sea and a projectile from one of her big guns was dropped right plump in the midst of them.

It was a shrapnel shell weighing 1,500 pounds and holding 1,000 bullets. The attack was smashed and 250 Turks were killed. This works out at one man per fifty-two bullets, and it probably represents the maximum efficiency of shrapnel fire during the present or any other war. For, you see, the conditions from the gunner's point of view were exceptional and ideal.

When There Were Few Fatalities.

On the other hand, there are many remarkable instances of shell fire — even concentrated and prolonged shell fire — accomplishing little or nothing in the direction of destroying life. During one of the tremendous preparatory bombardments, for example, that ushered in the early stages of the battle of Verdun, the Germans fired between 20,000 and 30,000 shells of all calibers against the French lines in the short space of five hours. Yet the fatal casualties amounted to fewer than 100 out of about 18,000 engaged.

One reason for this is, of course, that modern armies, when acting on the defensive, dig themselves in so deeply and so cunningly that they are practically immune from other than very high angle fire.

Yet the power of the modern shell is tremendous. If the charge of one of the larger caliber ones — say a German "Jack Johnson" — were burned away quickly it would send some millions of cubic feet of gas into the air. But instead it is detonated in a thousandth part of a second, and these millions of cubic feet of gas, with their steel casings, crush everything in their immediate vicinity to the finest powder. Yet men even a comparatively few yards away, especially if they are lying down or under some sort of cover, however slight, usually escape with their lives at all events, and more frequently than otherwise they are not even injured.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 9.