Kinetics in counterinsurgency: some influences on soldier combat performance in the 1st Australian Task Force in the Vietnam War

Counterinsurgency is often characterized by large numbers of small fire-fights interspersed with a few larger battles. Heavy firepower contributes to the outcome of the larger battles but the smaller contacts are often fought by infantry without heavy weapons support. Infantry combat performance in these fire-fights is therefore a key concern. It has been fashionable to discuss soldier combat performance in terms of ‘firers’, ‘non-firers’, and ‘posturers’, but we argue that other factors have a greater impact. We provide a detailed statistical analysis of a selection of combat factors, using combat data collected by the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) during the Vietnam War. An accepted measure of soldier lethality is the ‘shots per casualty’ ratio. Using this measure we are now able to describe the combat performance of the Australian infantry section in Vietnam in much greater detail than has hitherto been possible.