A while ago I stumbled upon this site, which gives a rather realistic view into the casualty rate for the coalition forces (U.S.A., United Kingdom,…) in Iraq since the start of the war.

Iraq War Coalition Fatalities is a chart of the US and coalition military fatalities that have occurred in the war in Iraq since the onset, mapped across the dimensions of time and space. It is an ongoing project that is updated regularly, and will continue to go on as long as the war does.

The animation runs at ten frames per second “ one frame for each day“ and a single black dot indicates the geographic location that a coalition military fatality occurred. Each dot starts as a white flash and a larger red dot which fades to black over the span of 30 frames/days, and then slowly fades to grey over the span of the entire war.

Accompanying the visual representation is a soft “tic” sound for each fatality, the volume of which increases relative to the number of fatalities that occurred simultaneously that day. More deaths in a smaller area produces visually deeper reds and audibly more pronounced “tic”.

The project is done in Flash and is currently set to run from the start of the war (March 20, 2003) through March 21, 2006. In addition it gives you the option to show which coalition force you wish to view data for, so if you are only interested in seeing U.S. casualties you can. It’s rather sobering to watch.