The Roman Legions practiced decimation.
If a unit was cowardly or didn’t fight well - they would kill every tenth man.
When we say we completely decimated Iran’s navy- that means we
destroyed 10%.
Correct.
“The Roman Legions practiced decimation. If a unit was cowardly or didn’t fight well — they would kill every tenth man.”
According to Wikipedia, “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment)”, it was “... a form of military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort[!]”.