Means to measure soldier performance?

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Player 0

Junior Member
Hi guys, i had a general question about what means is used to measure the performance of soldiers during live combat situations.

Today the US army, since Vietnam i believe, has used the number of dead enemy soldiers to measure combat effectiveness and rate the potential of soldiers for promotion, this is also similar to China's historic system of soldiers beheading enemies, used since the Qin dynasty, to measure a soldier's merit. But this historically has also led to the committing of atrocities by soldiers looking to advance their careers: In Vietnam American soldiers attacked and killed civilians for just that reason, fudging the data and claiming they kills Vietcong when really they were murdering civilians, in China there are also reports of during the Imjin wars of Chinese soldiers beheading Korean civilians to this end, and in the Belgium wars in the Congo soldiers took the hands of Congolese people they encountered to claim they killed rebels when in reality they just butchered whoever they encountered.

So my question is, what methods have been used, by either the US military, Chinese military, or other militaries historically to measure soldier performance, since this method is now more viable since soldiers take pictures of dead combatants to back up their claims.
 
rhino123

rhino123

Pencil Pusher
VIP Professional
Frankly speaking, in my opinion, when there are wars... there will be atrocities committed... no matter what method to use. There is always means and ways to beat whatever systems. Like what TS had mentioned, using the number of killed enemy soldiers to measure the merit of a soldier and soldiers abusing their strength and prowess by killing innocents just to reach that end. Even if photos are to be taken... but photos can lies too... you can photoshop, or kill a civilian, strip him/her of the cloths and put on opposing soldiers uniform on the corpse then take photo of that 'enemy soldiers'.

Even if all the measure are in place, who was to actually control these soldiers from killing just for the fun of it? Look at youtube and other sources out there, the amount of atrocities that happen throughout wartorn areas around the world (I will not say who committed these atrocities... because it can be anyone).
 
N

no_name

Colonel
Maybe have a helmet-mounted compact video/sound recorder to record all actions and judge merits based on the footage later.
We already put something similar for car dashboard in case of traffic dispute.

If tampered merit = 0.
 
rhino123

rhino123

Pencil Pusher
VIP Professional
Well... like I say before and will repeat again and again... as long as there is war... there will be atrocity occuring. We can go all out to check on the soldiers... but the question is do commanders actually want to do too much as to tying their men's hand to their own balls and thus lowering their overall effectiveness?

Anyway, the only thing to prevent atrocities from happening was to prevent war by itself... and from human history... it seemed almost impossible. The person who suffered the most in war... is always the weaker people aka normal citizens.
 
L

Lezt

Junior Member
I don't think there is much merit in such a performance matrix. War is not a contest with simple rules and regulations what the UN would like us to believe. What if you have a 10:1 kill rate when the enemy had a 11:1 numerical advantage? A battalion of Rambo's will not do much better than a battalion of conscripts in conventional warfare. A sniper who can hit a target at 1500 meters will not perform much; if better than one whom can hit only to 1000 meters.

What can one panzer Lehr division do to the multitude of allied armies it faced? How did the "superior" Japanese naval airmen fare when their numbers were exhausted? History have shown that, once a war become a grinding one, the side with more men and stronger determination win.

So such matrix is inherently flawed as it will see the soldier in a perceived combat position that may not be true at all.
 
N

no_name

Colonel
Well It might be important when deciding promotions and new commanding positions, as you still need to refresh the ranks even in the middle of a war.
 
P

pissybits

Junior Member
Player 0 said:
Hi guys, i had a general question about what means is used to measure the performance of soldiers during live combat situations.

Today the US army, since Vietnam i believe, has used the number of dead enemy soldiers to measure combat effectiveness and rate the potential of soldiers for promotion, this is also similar to China's historic system of soldiers beheading enemies, used since the Qin dynasty, to measure a soldier's merit. But this historically has also led to the committing of atrocities by soldiers looking to advance their careers: In Vietnam American soldiers attacked and killed civilians for just that reason, fudging the data and claiming they kills Vietcong when really they were murdering civilians, in China there are also reports of during the Imjin wars of Chinese soldiers beheading Korean civilians to this end, and in the Belgium wars in the Congo soldiers took the hands of Congolese people they encountered to claim they killed rebels when in reality they just butchered whoever they encountered.

So my question is, what methods have been used, by either the US military, Chinese military, or other militaries historically to measure soldier performance, since this method is now more viable since soldiers take pictures of dead combatants to back up their claims.
Click to expand...

the ratio of war dead is a rather crude way of measuring military performance. it is a very good way at measuring how many people you can kill and how brutal you can be, but alas this is not the point of war. (or it ought not be) war is about the fulfilment of political objectives, whatever they may be: territory, influence, etc.

but political objectives are more difficult to classify and quantify, thus commanders often rely on kill ratios to more easily gauge their "performance" and get promotions.
 
R

Rowing_Ming

New Member
I don't know for other countries but in the Canadian Army, we have a yearly evaluation. Even in peacetime, every soldier receive a yearly evaluation on drill, discipline, general readiness, morale, teamwork, efficiency when on task, score on yearly physical and weapon requalification, and etc. We are also evaluated the same way when we are on a qualification course.

We are generally being evaluated by the commander of our level. For exemple, an Lt/Capt commanding a platoon will be evaluate by the company commander (generally a major in the CF), and a private in an infantry section will be evaluation by the section commander. And the chain goes like that. And there's no specific evaluation date, every time you wear that uniform and you're coming to work you're being evaluated because we can't allow complacency and stuff like that.

We keep the same kind of evaluation in wartime, because being a soldier is not solely about combat performance (especially when a lot of soldiers are non-fighting personnel), but also all the work, the preparation, the teamwork, and the dedication we have to put in before arriving to that point in war.
 
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