During the 1991 Gulf War there were 12 American casualties a day per division. By comparison, during World War II the daily losses per American division were usually over a hundred a day. On the Russian front, it was often several hundred casualties a day for German and Russian divisions. The spectacular six week German conquest of France in 1940, saw their combat divisions taking 30 casualties (on average) per day. But during another spectacular military victory, the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli casualties the were 110 per division per day, and that actually went down to 90 a day during the less spectacular 1973 war. So by any measure, American troops have learned how to avoid getting hit. That continued after 2003. When the Iraqi Sunni Arabs began their terror campaign in late 2003, and the media was full of stories of American casualties, but no one pointed out that the losses were again at a historical low. In 2004, there were 4.5 casualties per division per day, while in 2005, that went down to about 3.5. All this time, the troops were heavily engaged.
In the Iraq War invasion?
While the media didn’t notice it, the people in the Pentagon, and military historians, were shocked at the low casualty rate of U.S. troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The casualties (killed, wounded missing) per division per day were about SEVEN. That’s a historical low.
I would argue that this is too high. While Strategypage doesn't give the base figures, since it is commonly said we invaded Iraq with three divisions (3rd ID, 101st AB, and 1st Marine Division), I bet this is the division number.
But as I've argued many times, we did not invade with just three divisions. Our invasion seemed like the test for the concept of our current move to brigades fighting as independent units with few support units backing them on the ground and instead relying on air power. I counted (or rather, Global Security counted them) sixty American maneuver battalions in the invasion (and 10 British), which is the frontline equivalent of six American divisions (ten battalions per division). So we should halve the rate given for the invasion, and call it 3.5 troops per division, per day. This is amazing.
Mourn our losses, to be sure. Every casualty is painful to read about. But celebrate what they've accomplished. And celebrate the skill with which they've done it.
Our enemies like to believe that we can't endure heavy casualties to beat them. That is debatable. But what is not is that we don't actually need to endure heavy casualties to rip apart our enemies.
