For those who've read my previous questions, you might begin to see a "subtle" recurring theme.

Context

You can skip this part if you're just interested in the problem.

In a near-future post-WW3 world, a little less than 1 out of 1000 people is a mutant. Not (necessarily) the gross-green mutant type, rather the human with super-ability type. Geopolitics worldwide can be basically explained by a generalized cold war, with no peace treaty signed, but enough powerful mutants on each side to keep some semblance of status-quo. Less powerful mutants live a "normal" life. The rest are basically super-heroes against super-villains.

Question

Let's set the scene. 50 people are in a urban non-descript location (a bank, a street, an opera), when Bad Guys A, B, and C come in, guns blazing. They want to rob/murder/take people hostage.

What you see in a Hollywood movie is, usually, people fleeing in every direction, screaming, panicking, with no organization and little to no care for others.

In reality, things seems to be a bit different. I looked into some papers to get a basic idea, so I've only got second-hand knowledge (thus, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). But, apparently, a lot of people just stay there, stunned by what's happening. There are a few heroes helping others (diffusion of responsibility), a few quick ones who react and run away (probably a better capacity to deal with stressful situations, by my own interpretation), but most people just stay frozen during the first shock.

The question is: what would happen if out of these 50 people, more than 40 of them had basic military training? A mandatory national service exists, so apart from children and people too old when the measure was passed, everybody has been through at least 6 months of military training. Would we observe a difference in reaction? Would the proportions change? More heroes, more runners, less frozen people?

They know help is on its way. People trained and equipped to react will be coming to deal adequately with the situation. Would they (statistically) be inclined to try to take matters into their own hands, or react in a disciplined manner and fall back until backup is there?

TLDR: Statistically, would we observe a significant difference in the way people react to a crisis situation when most of them have received military training, and if so, what kind of difference?

I'd prefer answers backed up by facts and/or studies, but I admit I failed to find any on this particular scenario. I'm not qualified in behavioral studies, so information in this question is to be taken with care, as I may have misunderstood some things.

In a general emergency situation, individual reactions vary widely as you have noted. Training for a particular situation can help, as does a well-established chain of responsibility. However, military training alone does not guarantee a better reaction.

Military training is offset by PTSD experienced by veterans of actual combat. In extreme cases, all it takes to reduce a former soldier to jelly is a loud "bang",

At the recent Florida school shooting, we saw unarmed former military and off duty active police try to step in, while the armed and specifically trained person who was supposed to take charge, and his first line of backup ran away.

Depends upon the "military training." Six months is paltry: That means a couple weeks of orientation, but most training on-the-job. Little combat training for many before the six months expires.

So a former aircraft mechanic's assistant or single-cruise submariner is likely to know very little about close quarters combat or active shooter situations. Under stress, many folks do indeed tend to freeze...until somebody reminds them to focus upon what they have been trained upon.

Conscription-based (or National Service) militaries tend to use a small career cadre to provide training and leadership...to do that reminding. This type of organization tends to be hierarchical (of course), and much of the orientation for conscripts revolves around obeying orders and NOT exercising initiative. This is very different from the professional forces that do encourage initiative in, say, many (not all) NATO countries.

This is a longwinded way of saying that six-month conscript response is unlikely to be much better than non-conscripts, except around the edges - rallying around the police, initial first aid, etc.

There's an assumption here that the six-month conscription does not include some kind of Active Shooter or Emergency Response or Close Quarters Combat or First Aid training. If your society DOES include several days (preferably a week) of that training, including (expensive) multiple exercises and scenarios, then your citizenry's response will be much better.

This is pretty simple: assuming the 50 people are unarmed, there isn't much they can do. There is really no place to hide, but people will try anyways. The big difference is that there is a larger probability that somebody will try to take down an attacker while he is reloading - if he/she can. With 3 attackers, that's not likely.

I suggest you read up on the 2009 Ft Hood shooting by MAJ Nidal Hasan. 13 dead and more than 30 injured. 3 actually tried attacking Hasan - two died and the third was wounded.

Furthermore, what exactly does "react in a disciplined manner and fall back" mean? For the scenario you've described, this would only apply to a few who were lucky enough to be located near rear doors, and they would need to slip out quietly in the confusion. Which is exactly what happened at Ft Hood.

"Military training" is not magic, and it basically lets you do what you have been trained to do - no more, no less. Unless that training specifically addresses being confined to a killing field with no weapons, it's hard to see how it can help.

Six months of millitary training is a laughable amount and wouldn't change a single thing.

Mandatory millitary training is mostly utilized to "shape" young men into responsible and strong people and maybe give one or two of them a perspective for the future. The training itself consists of blindly following rules and orders, keeping your room and uniform in order, doing lots of physical excercises and some schooting, and being woken up in the middle of the night to be sent on some equivalent of adventure camping.

Only those who saw a perspective for themselves in the millitary and who enlist for a longer period of time are given additional training in a specialized field of their liking (like paramedics, paratroopers or engineers).

Most people I know hated basic millitary training, even though some of them actually enlisted for several years. Whoever didn't enlist was happy to forget what little they did learn. 6 month are much too little to develop the kind of muscle memory required to make a difference in a hostile situation. As soon as you are a common civilian again, you forget the training within a few months anyways.

Gary Klein did a number of studies with military and fire departments, studying how people made decisions in very high stress situations. He has written several books detailing this research and Sources of Power is the easiest to read. He calls his model of decision making Recognition Primed Decision-making. While this isn't exactly the scenario you were looking for, Klein's studies were about how real-world experts can/did make decisions in very high stress environments.

a lot of people just stay there, stunned by what's happening

That is exactly the purpose of sudden violence. SWAT teams depend upon it to surprise, stun and overwhelm their targets. A majority of civilians would first respond with "this can't be happening" followed by a long pause to try to determine what is happening: trying to orient and decide what to do (in the terms of OODA).

You may wish to ponder the sort of response to such an armed robbery that would happen in Switzerland and Israel. Both countries have mandatory military service.

In your post-WW3 world, you may want to have your future Hollywood prepare civilians by showing exactly how they should behave. Not the freezing of current Hollywood movies, but instead the sort of responses you want your public to have. I think people significantly underestimate the power and influence of storytelling that movies have on the public.

Basic military training does nothing in a situation of armed robbery, because that situation isn't covered by the training.

The more general effects of training are twofold. First, to make reactions automatic. I'm trained in martial arts, and when I was in full training, the specific blocking technique I learnt became so much second nature, that I'm confident I would've had a good chance to instinctively block an attack coming out of the blue.
Secondly, training prepares you for the general situation intercepting the flight-or-fight response. I'm not afraid of fights anymore and would more or less calmly stand my ground against an unarmed attacked. In fact, I've done so. Without having experienced contact fights, I'd probably run or do some panicked stupid attacks.

So, in your situation, the military trained people would benefit from not being totally schocked by the mere presence of guns. They are unlikely to run around screaming. But they wouldn't know how to react to the specific situation anyways. They'd be more calm than untrained people, but would probably not do anything specific, and still react as individuals.

Veterans, people who actually experienced combat, are a different thing.

From what I have seen, the effect of training to deal with emergencies (such as military training) has one primary effect. Such training permits the individuals to incorporate information about what is happening faster.

Tangurena mentions that many people often end up standing around, stunned. They can't incorporate the information about what happened fast enough. Non-emergency training might help you decide to run towards the nearest exit (if you knew where it was to begin with). Emergency training might permit:

• Ducking for cover while looking for your next move. This would be most visible in posture. A person who intends to make a next move will keep their limbs in a position to act if given a chance. A person who intends to stay put may flatten their body as much as possible.


• Identify who is attacking and how they are armed. Perhaps determining what kind of training they appear to have.


• The ability to remain still when the opponent is trying to get them to move. Shock and Awe is a lot less effective against trained opponents. A trained individual retains the ability to stay still or move when they want, not when their opponent wants.