I was watching the movie Saving Private Ryan last night. Man, that was bloody. There are some things in life that you can go without seeing. A man with his face shot off is one of them. :vomit:
Anyways, with the number of dead people they showed in that movie, I was wondering how many troops actually served compared to how many died. I pulled up some numbers that said 500,000 U.S. dead. I couldn't find anything on actual number of troops enlisted or drafted. Thanks.

My knowledge about this is limited to the amount of dead soldiers the US had and thats about 382.000 men but not sure is my number realible.

The most common number floats around 300.000 US soldiers IIRC.
Another book stated 1.5 million troops were in the US army. Half of the troops were logistics troops, but I don't know if that 1.5 million is fighting troops only or logistics counted in.

At the start of the war, the US army had 174.000 in service.
At the end of the war, all American armed forces counted 14 million men, of which 8.3 million in the regular army (and halve that logistics).
2 years after Pearl Harbor the army was expanded by 5 million men.

These should be quite reliable :)

You forgot the contributions of the Mexican Air Force! :nono:

Thanks, Zee. That sounds pretty accurate. 7 million fighting(half logistics for army, navy, air force) with 300,000 dead... that's let's see...4.3% of our troops killed. Wow, I'd have thought that it would have been a lot higher. Not complaining, tho.

The US attacked an already broken Germany with total air superiority and overwhelming production :)
You should compare allied soldiers vs axis soldiers;

12.1 million vs 5.4 million

This isn't taking into account civilians.
Germany lost 3.5 million btw, of 13 million mobilized men (27%)

the numbers for the soviet union's losses are widely dispersed, ranging from 9 million on wikipedia to 13 million on achtungpanzer.

@Zeekater - No one will ever know what Russian losses really were; David Glantz
guesstimated that Soviet losses could have been as high as 15-20 millon, the plurality
of which came in 1941.

@Dragonrunner - A bit of perspective here. US casualties on D-Day were
(IIRC) ~3100. Union casualties a Shiloh (the first big battle of the US
Civil War but not nearly the bloodiest) : ~11500.

The Union army at Shiloh was of comparable size to the forces put
ashore in Normandy.

Yes, but the Union wasn't attacking a bunch of old or wounded people now were they? :lol:

We will never know what their real losses were, since the Russians didn't record losses, and the Germans GREATLY exagerated them :)
( Although this is something common to war, since the English also exagerated German plane losses during the Blitz )

We do however now the exact losses of about any other country, just not the Soviet Union :)

The US attacked an already broken Germany with total air superiority and overwhelming production :)
You should compare allied soldiers vs axis soldiers;

12.1 million vs 5.4 million

This isn't taking into account civilians.
Germany lost 3.5 million btw, of 13 million mobilized men (27%)

the numbers for the soviet union's losses are widely dispersed, ranging from 9 million on wikipedia to 13 million on achtungpanzer.
5.4 million Germans was the total size of the army or just the Western Front (I'm thinking total)?

In 1944 there were about 50 German divisions in France to fight the Americans, British, Canadians (and other allies). There were 150 divisons in Russia and that doesn't include many of the divisions already destroyed by the Russians.

IIRC the only time there was ever more tanks and SPGs on the western front compared to east was during the Bulge. During that period there was more tanks in that small area than the entire eastern front.

To be fair to other comparisons of divisions and troop levels though, it's hard to pinpoint specific numbers because divisions would tend to be transferred between the two quite often and there would be specific periods where one front or another would recieve priority for reinforcments and replacements. For example, Market Garden was considered so important that heavy reinforcements including King Tigers (Despite their reputation for eastern front fighting) were rushed into the area, even though they were facing only light infantry. On the face of things, the west might have been seen as less important, but given the high proportion of elite formations fighting there throughout the campaign, another picture emerges.

i thought 500000 troops died, but only 300000+ died in actual combat.

At the end of the war, all American armed forces counted 14 million men, of which 8.3 million in the regular army (and halve that logistics).

I'm pretty sure that the ratio of support to combat personnel was actually much higher then 50:50. Does anyone have a copy of the offical US Army history of how the divisions were raised and maintained? - it should have the definitive figures.

It's important to note that casualties were concentrated on the small minority of the Army that served as rifemen. Riflemen made up less then 10% of the Army's strength,* but took something like three quarters of all casualties. Noted military historian John Ellis has calculated that infantrymen who fought in the European Theatre of Operations for more then a few weeks had an almost 100% chance of being wounded or killed.

*For instance, each infantry division, with a total strength of about 12,000, had only 27 rifle companies, each with about 100 riflemen, for a total of 2,700 men, or about 21% of the division's personnel. There were obiously no riflemen in the support and logistics units at Corps level and higher.

i thought 500000 troops died, but only 300000+ died in actual combat.

407,000 were know to have died. (Includes sailors, marines, airmen soldiers and civilians)

Nearly 80,000 are still "missing" and not officially dead. Almost of those were lost at sea

The WWII memorial in DC only has 4,070 stars when there should be around 4,900.

I'm pretty sure that the ratio of support to combat personnel was actually much higher then 50:50. Does anyone have a copy of the offical US Army history of how the divisions were raised and maintained? - it should have the definitive figures.

It's important to note that casualties were concentrated on the small minority of the Army that served as rifemen. Riflemen made up less then 10% of the Army's strength,* but took something like three quarters of all casualties. Noted military historian John Ellis has calculated that infantrymen who fought in the European Theatre of Operations for more then a few weeks had an almost 100% chance of being wounded or killed.

*For instance, each infantry division, with a total strength of about 12,000, had only 27 rifle companies, each with about 100 riflemen, for a total of 2,700 men, or about 21% of the division's personnel. There were obiously no riflemen in the support and logistics units at Corps level and higher.
In each infantry division, only 2700 were riflemen. What were the other 10,000?

According to my (normally reliable) sources:

at the end of the war 45% of the army was part of the logistics.
No more then 3 out of 10 had a combat duty.
Even in a combat division 25% didn't take part in combat.

Hope this clears some bits up :)

Yes, but the Union wasn't attacking a bunch of old or wounded people now were they? :lol:

We will never know what their real losses were, since the Russians didn't record losses, and the Germans GREATLY exagerated them :)
( Although this is something common to war, since the English also exagerated German plane losses during the Blitz )

We do however now the exact losses of about any other country, just not the Soviet Union :)

The Russians have Now released the figures if dead which were kept secret. And now declassified as it were.

Russian losses at Moscow 41 were estimate at 1.5 Mil
Russian losse at Berlin 45 were 680,000

Estimates now are of 28Mil Russian dead (Including civilians)

Only 1 in 5 persons in the U.S. Military were combat personell.

The Russians have Now released the figures if dead which were kept secret. And now declassified as it were.

Russian losses at Moscow 41 were estimate at 1.5 Mil
Russian losse at Berlin 45 were 680,000

Estimates now are of 28Mil Russian dead (Including civilians)

You gotta be kidding me, they declassified it?
Also AFV losses?

More importantly, got a link for that? :D

The Russians have Now released the figures if dead which were kept secret. And now declassified as it were.

Russian losses at Moscow 41 were estimate at 1.5 Mil
Russian losse at Berlin 45 were 680,000

Estimates now are of 28Mil Russian dead (Including civilians)
Most of the deaths at Moscow were civilians, right? Well I suppose most of the deaths in Russia and the whole war were civilians.