What was the most dangerous crew position in a vehicle?

by Kherda0

This may be better off in one of the military history subs, but this seemed like a catch all. In wartime, multi-man vehicles like tanks, large aircraft, and warships all saw combat. My question is if there's is any general trend in which crew positions saw the most combat losses? What about if we go back to the times of sail and oar based warships? Siege units? How about multi man chariot units?

Thanks in advance for the answers on such a broad question!

the_howling_cow

The U.S. Army conducted extensive studies on armored warfare shortly after World War II, including calculating casualty statistics. Overall, each crew position in the U.S. medium or light tank stood about a fifty to sixty percent chance of becoming some type of casualty when a tank was lost, either temporarily or permanently, through "violent" means. Losses of tanks to landmines and mortars are unique, as they rarely produced serious casualties.

The tables are too large to transcribe, so I'll give links to images;

Table XX: Sampling of U.S. First Army Crew Casualties - By Position and Cause Based on 48 Light Tanks (1370 Crewmen)

Table XXI: Sampling of U.S. First Army Crew Casualties - By Position and Cause Based on 274 Medium Tanks (192 Crewmen)

Source:

Coox, Alvin D., L. VanLoan Naisawald. Technical Memorandum ORO-T-117 Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Operational Research Office, 1954.