Health disturbances of German battle tank officers: Results of an interview with 64 commanding officers of a tank battalion

Abstract

In a former presentation, we reported the failure of commanding officers after a 320-km-long chain march. In this study, 64 commanding officers of a tank battalion were questioned regarding subjective health disturbances similar to the disturbances we have seen before. The soldiers indicated subjective troubles and frequency in dependence of the load duration. After 36 hours, one-half of the soldiers indicated feeling some pain, which consisted primarily of knee and back troubles. In addition to the marked disturbances after 24 hours, 50% of the soldiers indicated suffering from at least one health disturbance, and after 36 hours, 80% of the soldiers suffered at least one health disturbance. The disturbances appear faster and more frequently the longer the soldiers are on the battle tank as commanding officer. There is also a subjective increase in troubles with the years of service. Our results show that the vibration load on the battle tank can cause health disturbances. These disturbances seem to be a relevant problem of the commanding officers with no single case report.