CASUALTY RATES AMONG NAVAL FORCES ASHORE

Casualty rates for naval forces ashore across varying battle intensiti es are needed as input to medical and manpower planning models. Casual ty data of medical and construction battalions participating in World War II amphibious assaults, Korea, and Vietnam were extracted from arc hival sources. Casualty rates among naval ashore forces fluctuated wit h battle intensity. The rate during intense combat was 15 per 1,000 pe r day among hospital corpsmen organic to infantry units, 7.5 for medic al battalion personnel, and 2.1 among construction forces. Casualty ra tes dropped dramatically with decreasing battle intensity, especially among construction and medical battalions.