Comparing Wounded

And here is the wounded in 2004/wounded in 2005 table I promised you. (Months are ordered from highest number of wounded to lowest).

[Disclaimer: the stats are, as I understand it, for American soldiers wounded in combat. This is comparable to my previous table on combat deaths in that it does not include non-hostile woundings (e.g. vehicle accidents), but not as good in that it does not include the wounded of other nations in the coalition].


2004...2005
1424...662/627
1212...634/600
895....602
757....595
706....572
648....545
589....539
552....508
544....498
323....477
189....413
150....371

(Wounded totals for November are not out yet, and December is not over yet, so I estimated the number of wounded based on the number of fatalities for that month (I used an estimate of 68 for December, as I did in the earlier post), and based on the killed/wounded ratio for 2005. The first number is based on taking the killed/wounded ratios for each month (from Jan. 2005 to Oct. 2005) and averaging them, the second from taking the total killed and wounded for the first ten months. these numbers were 9.32 and 8.83, respectively).

The average number wounded per month for 2004 was 665.8, with a standard deviation of 379, and for 2005 was 534.7, with a standard deviation of 86.7. (Taking the 10 months we have actual complete statistics for, we get an average of 512 and a standard deviation of 75.7 for 2005).

This would indicate that the month-by-month rate of injuries for 2005 is smaller than in 2004, and more consistent.

Is this all due to the two assaults on Fallujah? Well, if we take April and November of 2004 and pretend that the wounded toll for those two months was the average of what it was for the other ten, then the comparison looks like this:


2004...2005
895....662/627
757....634/600
706....602
648....595
589....572
552....545
544....539
536....508
535....498
323....477
189....413
150....371

2004: 535.5 ± 224.3
2005: 512.0 ± 75.7 or 534.7 ± 86.7

(Note: StDev for 2004 is based on ten months, not twelve)

Of course, if we assume that the high wounded rate of May 2004 was also due to the assaults on Fallujah, and adjust by assuming the wounded rates for April, May, and November sans Fallujah to be the average of the other nine months (about 510.7), we get:


2004...2005
895....662/627
706....634/600
648....602
589....595
552....572
544....545
512....539
511....508
510....498
323....477
189....413
150....371

The average for 2004 then becomes 510.7 wounded per month, with a standard deviation of 245.6 if calculated based on the 9 months where actual statistics are used, and 209.4 based on twelve months, with 510, 511, and 512 used as the numbers for the three "adjusted" months (April, May, and November).

So it does appear that contrary to my previous assertions, the assaults on Fallujah were the driving force behind the higher numbers of wounded last year, but not the driving force behind the higher variability in numbers wounded per month.

It has also occurred to me that I ought to do a more sophisticated analysis of the hostile death count. Stay tuned.

That is all.