Talk:Gangplank/@comment-98.194.34.189-20110305182354/@comment-3358335-20110307234316

It is based on an old practice of shooting those that retreat. You are more scared of the officers than you are of the enemy so you go forward. It was used as late as WWI on the Western Front and purportedly by the Russian Army in WWII. But it was more common in earlier armies mostly composed of Conscripts, or on ships at sea in which most of the crew "volunteered" for the Voyage while drinking at a Bar the night before they sailed.