How many humans have been killed by shrapnel wounds throughout history?

?????? Thousands? Millions?

So just remember that when a fucking scumbag chickenhawk repuke tries to diminish John Kerry's wounds in Vietnam. To receive a shrapnel and live to talk about it is a gift from God.

Talk about charmed!

youre right btw, its a blessing. They act as if war is so easy, well I got news for them, its not.

flying at you and it hit's you in the arm.... Could have been the head or heart..... It boggles my mind that the repukes diminish this type of wound.

On edit... Not only the repukes but some anit-Kerry folks here on DU in the past... Idiots!

yeah war sure is fun. I am afraid of owning a gun for christ sakes. I thought the republicans cared about the military man, oh they think sharpanel is nothing, I bet they would love to have a grenade thrown at time.

who served in Viet Nam, and had shrapnel wounds all over his stomach.

I used to cringe looking at it.

has been around since explosions have, you'd have to say well into the...hell, how do you quantify it? Thousands isn't even in sight any more.

Rocks from catapults will shatter and throw off shrapnel as well.

...

Shrapnel, the best mankiller the Artillery possessed for over a
century, was invented by Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel, Royal Artillery.
Before its introduction in 1803 the Artillery defeated attacks by
Infantry or Cavalry with 'canister' or 'case', a tin container filled
with iron balls or bullets varying in weight from 57 to 142 grams
each, according to the nature of the gun. When the gun fired the
container burst open at the muzzle, releasing the balls which spread
out with a shotgun effect. Up to 300 metres it was guaranteed to cause
heavy casualties.

...

Lieutenant Shrapnel reasoned that if a shell filled with musket balls
could be made to release them above the enemy's troops, they would
carry on with the 'remaining velocity' of the shell, spread out and
hit anyone who happened to be in the way. If the point on the
trajectory at which the shell burst was well chosen the balls would
reach the target with lethal velocity. Recognition and utilisation of
this principle has perpetuated his name among Gunners.

He first proposed 'spherical case' as he then called it in 1784, but
the authorities took little notice.

...

In 1852, following a request from Shrapnel's family, the British
Government ordered that spherical case henceforth be known officially
as 'shrapnel' in honour of its inventor - and 'shrapnel' it has
remained ever since.

...

Interesting page on this at http://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/shrap/

in a war. They are loud mouth chicken hawks mostly. Screw them. We vets know what Kerry went through because we were there too.

exactly..and it's the worst kind of cowardness! (sp)

granted there are some but many of em didnt go.

Not me though, I stayed on the ground mostly. I was a radar repairman but I had to go to many of the hot spots to do the repairs. They would fly us out but we had to hitch hike our way home. Many times we were left on a deserted runway in the jungle to wait for the next plane or helicopter to pick us up. My brother joined the Green Berets. He joined before I got home. I wanted to try to talk him out of joining but didn't get the chance.

... take "Apocalypse Now" as any kind of accurate depiction of Vietnam. It was an adapation of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." While there was certainly a surreal overtone to the "Vietnam experience" ... the depicted events in A.N aren't anything to base an understanding on. I really haven't seen any movie that does it for me, although "Hamburger Hill" and "Full Metal Jacket" might come a little bit closer than most. You really can't put the year-long experiences of millions of soldiers and sailors into a 2-hour movie.


On edit: Strangely enough, I got more of a 'flash' from "Saving Private Ryan" than any of the others. I think it was the more realistic sound of gunfire. Dunno. :shrug:

For those who don't know, Hamburger Hill is about the battle for Dong Ap Bai in the lower A Shau Valley of I-Corps in South Vietnam from May 10th through May 21st, 1969. Ap Bai (Hamburger Hill) was a brutal and prolonged fight that proved, ultimately, futile. This battle was the inspiration for Sen. Ted Kennedy's watershed anti-war speech on the floor of the US Senate later in 1968.



"Full Metal Jacket" is half-and-half. The first half is an excellent picture of Marine boot camp. The second half follows the USMC boot-campers to the fighting in Hue City during Tet '68. With Fallujah occupying the USMC's attention now, I think I'll pull out my DVD of "Full Metal Jacket." Gunny Sgt. Hartman's DI lingo was priceless:

http://www.moviesounds.com/fmj.html

The vet's here will expose them instantly---- screw them!!!!!!!!!!

Let's try hard to recall that battlefield wounds have, for most of history, been more likely to be fatal than not. Until the 19th century ...

A 'step forward' in survival - During the Civil War, the battlefield surgeon (not much more than a barber) was able to save lives ... at the cost of a limb. Amputation, even though quite likely to cause death itself, saved lives.

Another 'step forward' in survival - During WW2, prompt evacuation (by litter and jeep) to rear medical facilities made large strides in survivability.

Another 'step forward' in survival - During the Korean War, M.A.S.H. units brought emergency care closer to the wounded, reducing the time-in-transit of evacuation. This again increased survival rates along with limited use of choppers.

Another 'step forward' in survival - During the Vietnam War, extensive use of choppers and even more fully-equipped and trained medical personnel made a quantum leap in survival. Most remarkable were burn victim survivals.

Between the Civil War and today, the mortality rates due to war-inflicted wounds have declined dramatically, perhaps from around 60-70% down to around 10% ... even as weapons become deadlier. While medical science itself has made great strides in 150 years, it's irrelevant unless the victim receives care within a short time.

It's probably worth noting that the dramatically increased focus on getting a wounded soldier to medical care actually caused a backlash impact on battlefield tactics: the punji pit. The Vietnam War saw the notable increase in a tactic of deliberately wounding (rather than killing) a solider. A dead soldier just lies there, reducing the opposing force by one. A wounded soldier gets carried by two or more others to the rear, reducing the opposing force by three or more. (This is also a reason GIs carried shotguns, even though outlawed by Geneva Conventions.)

you're just too bad!!

:loveya:

er -- I mean that in a good way

:D

:loveya: (Makes me hope I'm a cat in my next life. :silly: )

When I got to the replacement battalion I was sent out on guard duty with a only a sawed off shot gun and a handful of shells. I think I was more of an early warning device than a guard.

... more like Quang Tri, Cam Ranh, or Da Nang? (I don't even remember where the other in-country repo depots were. That was a bizarre place. More stressed-out, clueless neurotics per square foot than nearly anywhere.)

The ones I saw them with were Stevens pumps, IIRC.

Now that I think about it, I'm sure they were loaded with lead 00 buck pellets. Wasn't that against the Geneva Conventions? (Yeah, I know the North wasn't a signatory, so we did a lot of things, like permitting our medics to carry weapons if they wanted to).

to wound an enemy rather than killing him. Wounded soldiers use up a lot more resources than dead ones.

Remember the old saw--it takes 5 men to evacuate one wound victim:
2 stretcher bearers
2 road guards
and somebody to count cadence.

--Ex Infantry Sp4 Jackpine
1st Cav '67-68

Dad got his leg chewed up by shrapnel from a mortar round in Korea in 1950. It wasn't a pretty sight. I don't think they ever got all the metal out either. He was patched up and sent back into the action.