Lack of sleep rapidly decreases your mental capabilities. After only one “white night” (without sleep), you already start to forget things. Of course, this can be very bad in combat:
During a sleepless week in combat, I once forgot where I had placed an anti personnel mine that I had planted only minutes earlier. Lucky for me, instead of activating the mine, the tripwire dragged the whole mine out of the ground. When I finally realized that there was something on my leg and looked behind me, I saw that I was walking around with an anti personnel mine dragging behind me.
The worst thing is that you often do not realize in what state you are. You drink some coffee and feel physically fit, but in reality, your brain doesn’t work like it should.
While soldiers can cope relatively well with physical exhaustion, they have more problems with mental fatigue: Canadian soldiers during a break.
There is no real limit on how long a soldier can stay awake, some might go without sleep for up to seventy two hours, but combat readiness and efficiency already decrease after being awake for twenty four hours.
Good military leaders will tolerate a night without sleep for their soldiers, an occurrence which is quite normal in the field, but after thirty six or forty eight hours without a nap, you better relieve your troops and send them to rest.
It’s not about how much your soldiers can go without sleep, but at what point their efficiency has decreased to a level where they have such a limited combat worth that sending them into combat could only result in failure.
0 Comments