Is RUb 'combat fatigue' system realistic?

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by JBClark

In RUB you don't regain energy in quarters. You just don't lose any there. In all other compartments (more in the most stressful like torpedo rooms) you get more and more fatigued the longer you are at sea. Wow! Who would have thought?

But with experience your crew can function even when fatigued.

I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all but by God, this reflects real life. I've been working on the road for almost 20 years, testing power plant emissions. These jobs come up with almost no warning. The phone will ring and we will have to drive or fly somewhere the next day for what we are told will be a few days, or a few weeks. The actual duration often exceeds the estimates by a factor of 5 or more. In 2000 I went to Sumatra for a two week job and was there for six months. We usually work 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week until the project is complete.

The kids can't handle this kind of life. Maybe one out of 20 new hires actually survive long enough to learn to be useful. You would be suprised though by how many 50 year old guys can work 14 hours, go to a bar and drink for 6 hours, sleep for three hours and come back and do it again. Day after day. Experience counts.

End of lecture. I like the RUB fatigue model.

JBC

Hi!

One good lecture deserves another.

I would like to differentiate between "fatigue" (as in tired - the stock SH3 fatigue model and what you seem to be describing in your post) and "combat stress" (known in WWII as "battle fatigue" and what is purportedly modeled in RUb). As the first citation below states,

Feeling stress in a war zone is, as one Navy psychiatrist said, "a normal reaction by a normal person to an abnormal, horrific situation." The stress you feel helps you brace for danger. But you can sometimes witness an event so severe or experience a threat so prolonged that your body may continue to maintain that state of high alert long afterwards, when your body and mind need to rest.

Historically and IRL, sleep is one of the methods that real military organizations use (and have used since WWI) to reduce and eliminate combat stress reaction. Not including sleep and other kinds of "downtime" as a means to relieve combat stress reaction (as is done in RUb) is completely at odds with reality. See the following sources (URLs provided where available):

1. USAF Office of Special Investigations, “Combat Stress,� http://public.afosi.amc.af.mil/deplo...batStress.html

2. Technical Guide 240, “Combat Stress Behaviors,� U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/deployment/tg240.pdf

3. Technical Guide 242, “Battle Fatigue/Combat Stress Reaction Prevention: Leader Actions,� U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/deployment/tg242.pdf

4. Field Manual 22-51, “Leader’s Manual for Combat Stress Control,� Headquarters Department of the Army, http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...army/fm/22-51/

5. “Combat Stress Reactions: normal responses to abnormal conditions,� U.S. Navy Personnel Development Command, http://www.lifelines.navy.mil/dav/ls.../CombatStress/

6. Psychological and Psychosocial Consequences of Combat and Deployment with Special Emphasis on the Gulf War, David H. Marlowe, MR-1018/11-OSD, 2000 RAND, http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/...marlowe_paper/

7. Berg, Jennifer S., Grieger, Thomas A., and Spira, James L. “Psychiatric Symptoms and Cognitive Appraisal following the Near Sinking of a Research Submarine,� Military Medicine, Winter 2005. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...01/ai_n9478288

8. Harris, Wayne C., Hancock, P.A., and Harris, Scot C. “Information Processing Changes Following Extended Stress,� Military Psychology, Vol. XVII, No. 2, pp. 115-128. 2005.

9. Textbook of Military Medicine: War Psychiatry, BGEN Russ Zajtchuk, MC, US Army, and COL Ronald F. Bellamy, MC, U.S. Army, eds. Office of the Surgeon General. 1995. See especially Chapter 9, “U.S. Naval Combat Psychiatry,� by CAPT John Mateczun, M.D., U.S. Navy. http://www.vnh.org/WarPsychiatry/Ch9.pdf

RUb's fatigue model is certainly convenient, but realistic...the evidence indicates that it is not.

Pablo