Leaving the aircraft as a pile of wreckage in a smoking hole while you descend by parachute could hardly be classed as successful.
Quite so. The military mantra: when in doubt, punch out. In most military aircraft, a successful forced landing off-field is not an option. In virtually all light piston civillian singles, it's an absolute necessity.
Besides, the statistics were for light piston singles which don't tend to have ejector seats.
Again, true. However, the military flies very few light piston singles, and most military pilots have never flown a piston airplane. Even training single engine aircraft include ejection or bailout capability (T-6 II, for example). The use of statistics is nearly always misleading, and a comparison between civillian forced landings in light singles, and those in military aircraft is hardly a good one. Certainly it doesn't speak to training or skill. By sheer numbers, civillian forced landings far outweigh military ones. Even with a much lower percentage number, the number of successful forced landings exceeds those of military operations by a substantial number.
If the military during a given period made two forced landings, one of which was successful, one of which wasn't, one could hold that the military shows a 50% success rate. If during the same period civillian forced landings total one hundred and thirty are successful, one might suggest that with only a 30% success rate, this clearly shows that the military exhibits better training and a much higher success rate. Get the military to do 100 forced landings during the same period and see if the numbers still hold true. You'll find it's not the case, and instead you'll be recording record numbers of ejections or bailouts.
When was the last time the military trained a student to actually land on a country road or in a field?
The success of a forced landing is based on the sucessful landing of an intact aircraft.
That might represent one standard, but hardly a good one. A forced landing in a heavily wooded area is often best conducted by intentionally putting the fuselage between tree trunks in order to allow the wings to absorb the impact...destroying the aircraft, but reducing impact forces on the occupants. The aircraft is far from intact, but the results are survivable...by the standard you've suggested, this doesn't represent a successful forced landing. Tell that to the survivors.
In the forced landing I conducted two years ago, described previously, the aircraft was relatively unscathed. The tailwheel assembly collapsed during the rollout, but otherwise it was in good shape. We were able to move it to a farm road eight days later and fly it out after repairs were conducted. I continued using it after it underwent a month of inspections. However, as I exited the burning canyon and made my turn to put it on the hillside, the intactness of the aircraft was the least of my worries. I expected to end up inverted. I had nearly full fuel tanks and expected at least a groundloop if not ending up inverted, and thus expected a wing tank to be ruptured, and a fire. My sole concern was getting stopped and getting clear. Had I ended up inverted and on fire, and had I been clear, I would certainly have considered that a successful forced landing. Intact aircraft, or otherwise.