Found this last post above quoting Little Franke in 2014 and the thread has been dead since then...I think he was spot on and MOST of the guys who shot in the 90's war were throwaways themselves. The math was that the shooters were mostly Half or full Irish rather than Italian, even for the hardcore cosa Nostra stuff. Not all were throw-aways, like Devlin and Gillis shooting it out in Eastie...Salemme had some serious guys around him from prison, it seems, but they were fighting for a family takeover that they were never going to get made from and were always going to be dependent on mercy from Italians when it came time to be paid.