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I've seen the sorts that hide the bodies before......so it starts again. No bodies means questionable reports. It works on the sheeple. Viable tactic. But when Abdul don't come home with the flon then the reality drops on his family.......but not on the population as would a ring of ears on a warriors belt.

Stay Safe .......

I think we need to hook up some "gun cameras" perhaps, to authenticate some of this? Or just don't make numerical claims any more. Just say we "inflicted heavy casualties" and leave it at that. Of course, there is always the chance to take them ourselves, and bury them in pigskins.

We should all acknowledge - that EVERY damned estimate of enemy KIA in a fire fight where the ground is not occupied, secured and the bodies collected is unreliable..
Counts can be WILDLY exaggerated -- especially if the grunts know there is NO WAY to confirm or deny his claim..

Every grunt is convinced he killed at least half the assholes he fired at... doesn't usually happen that way.
The biggest surprise to me - was how many of the enemy will attempt to disappear the moment he realizes he's been spotted and targeted -- and not safely taking pot shots at his enemy...
Also - when green or excited grunts fire - and the enemy STOPS FIRING BACK FROM THAT POSITION- he almost always assumes he killed the bastard...
Hell, sometimes they do exactly as we do -- FIRE AND MOVE.

We may never know - but a rule of thumb in a fire fight of this size - with over 100 U.S. troops involved, is to maybe cut the claimed KIA in half...maybe more.

Semper Fi

I've seen the sorts that hide the bodies before......so it starts again. No bodies means questionable reports. It works on the sheeple. Viable tactic. But when Abdul don't come home with the flon then the reality drops on his family.......but not on the population as would a ring of ears on a warriors belt.
Stay Safe .......

There used to be a fella whose idea of psychological war was to use an auger to dig a final resting place for VC runners and couriers caught operating on the trails in his TAOR. After they had a half-dozen or so collected, he'd have them buried standing up, with one arm sticking up out of the ground, and in the hand a written message: surrender or die.

It worked reasonably well, and his area remained one the bad guys prefered to avoid, until he and his team were rotated out and a regular army battallion moved in to take over for the dozen Americans and their 600 Montagnard pals. Then the new troops started taking casualties, often from mines, no big deal, usually just one or two a day. Every day, until they left that place for good on 30 April, 1975.

-archy-/-