scope:

INTRODUCTION

This manual provides estimates of casualties and remaining operational strength after a nuclear detonation in a brigade-size unit during an out-of-area contingency operation. These estimates include the numbers, injury type (initial nuclear radiation, blast, and/or thermal injuries), and injury severity of nuclear patients based on several brigade scenarios. The scenarios include three different brigade-size units, in warned or unwarned posture, which have single detonations of 5, 20, or 50 KT in the unit area.

This manual is organized into 10 sections. Section 1 introduces the manual and presents background and medical planning considerations. Section 2 provides information on the methodology used to develop the estimates of fatalities, casualties, and effectiveness of individuals remaining in the unit. Section 3 explores the use of the casualty prediction tables based on combat effectiveness decrements and estimates of the number of casualties categorized by insult level. Sections 4 through 10 contain tables of casualty estimates.

A sample of this information is graphically depicted in Table 1-1 and 1-2. The casualty estimates used to prepare these tables are presented as Tables 6-4 and 10-4 in Sections 6 and 10 respectively. The use of these tables is explained in section 3.1 to 3.6. Sections 3.7 and 3.8 discuss how to use the manual for situations not explicitly addressed.

The effects of residual radiation on personnel are not included in this guide. AMedP-6 and AMedP-7 provide information about planning, operations, and treatment for a residual radiation situation.

This discussion is not intended as an authoritative treatment of the subject matter, but rather is presented as a guide which may be amplified and modified to meet the requirements of individual users.