Those causality figures include sick and wounded. The article has a different figure for dead and missing for the Soviets: 478,741 killed or missing (650,878 wounded or sick).
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I didn't include the "wounded or sick", only "killed or missing"
I see, thanks.
In that case we first should define the term "casualty" before trying to answer the question.
A sick, captured, wounded, dead, missing or otherwise disabled soldier is a casuality in military terms.
Except if he/she can still fight. So if you got shot in the leg but still can man your gun you are not a casuality.
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Like I said, Battle of Berlin.
If you include civilian casualities its Leningrad by a HUGE margin tho.
If you include civilian casualities its Leningrad by a HUGE margin tho.
Casuality is clear as glass.
OP must define if he wants the death toll or casualities.
Yes but dead and missing is a permanent casualty a sick one probably fight another battle another weak and wounded... well depends on the wound.
This is only of marginal interest for this issue since captured soldiers often dont return either and untill recent times the death toll on sick soldiers was extreme high. Infact usually more soldiers died due to sickness or desertion than battle usually.
Lots of armys had a high casuality rate (attrition) without even fighting.
A battle can have 1000 casualities
130 dead
70 missing
200 wounded
600 captured
If Francois got wounded at Waterloo and he couldnt fight anymore he is a casuality of that battle regardless if he recoverd a month later or not and had a fine life afterwards.
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On the other hand if he was defending Fort Douamont he could easily be shot in the leg at the first month, got a pneumonia at the third one, yet returned and took part in recapturing the said fort.
Of course.
You can be a casuality several times untill you cant recover into a fighting condition like death or losing several limbs.
which makes killed, missing (and captured) probably a better metric for a prolonged battle like Verdun/Somme/Ypern
How is the casualty count in such a batte if Günther was hospitalized three times but returns to service right before the battle ended is he 3 casualty / 1 casualty / 0 casualty?
All of the above - depending on the point of view
Reason for 0:
He was not lost to his organization only tempary unavailable. But of course at the moment he was in hospital he was a casualty. And therefore...
Reason for 3:
...hew was one casualty three times. So in terms of battle casualties he counts thrice. But...
Reason for 1:
...each battle casualty can only occur once at a time.
So Günther is 1 Wounded in Action in three cases, therefore 3 Battle Casualties but in the end he recovered and can fight again and thus is 0 Casualty.
But that is just my opinion and interpretation, mind you. My google-fu was not able to summon a definitive answer...
I guess the truth is somewhere in between.
Source of the definitions:
https://wss.apan.org/432/Files/Events/TE-03/Supporting Documents/NATO Terms and Definitions.pdf linked in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualty_(person)
That's because there isn't one. Exactly how a casualty is counted varies depending on the time and army involved. This is one of the problems of trying to come to a strong conclusion about stuff based on casualty figures alone. In a number of battles you will find units suffering a greater number of casualties than its starting strength. Some of this is replacements, but many of these are lightly wounded or sick soldiers returning from a front line casualty station after a day or two.
But i meant "killed or missing", as i have mentioned before.
Wether or not you find it a good metric, deal with it
.. actually as i mentioned feel free to discuss wether it's a good metric, but don't make all the discussion about that pls.
And admittingly i understand why there is some confusion so i will edit the OP to make that clear.
Yeah, I figured so much and especially for historical (i.e. pre-NATO) numbers. But I assumed that at least NATO would have a clear definition. Apparantly I was wrong or it is not as easy accessible.
/edit: And tyring for "Bundeswehr Verlust Definiton" or similar didn't yield any useful results. I didn't try with any other national military, though...
Byzantine vs arabs fought for hundreds of years without much border Changes as neither side was strong enough to defeat the other and eventually turks defeated both. They also fought a naval war during the same timeframe. In terms of casulties it may not be that massive but not insignificant.
The sieges of Constantinople is listed to have massive casulties which is maybe too high to be realistic but high enough that the arabs lost Control over Anatolia which was a big setback since the byzantine empire was pretty much dead at that Point.
The sieges of Constantinople is listed to have massive casulties which is maybe too high to be realistic but high enough that the arabs lost Control over Anatolia which was a big setback since the byzantine empire was pretty much dead at that Point.
I suspect that the winner is some point along the Tigris and/or Euphrates river, given that there has been fighting over that part of the world since the beginning of human history. Otherwise somewhere around Nanjing (or some other Chinese hotspot), or a WW1 hellscape.
The Isonzo River in Italy has to rank somewhere up there. Wikipedia lists 645,000 Italian and 450,000 Austro-Hungarian and German casualties over the course of twelve distinct battles between May 1915 and October 1917.
There's also Verdun. Remember, the whole reason the Somme happened was to take the pressure off the main battle at Verdun.
There's also Verdun. Remember, the whole reason the Somme happened was to take the pressure off the main battle at Verdun.