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Subject: U.S. friendly fire
Devin    4/23/2002 1:12:42 PM
In my experience, the U.S. has a very bad rep for friendly fire and the troops of allied nations are always worrying about getting killed by U.S. forces. In Croatia when we heard news that the U.S. might send forces we (the troops) became quite worried because we didn't want to be shot at from both sides. American's make good peacemakers not peacekeepers(shoot first ask questions later) so we were nervous about things getting out of hand.
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/24/2002 1:19:03 AM
I don't think we have a bad record of friendly fire out of incompetence; I think the cases of friendly fire from U.S. attacks are in proportion to the amount of ordnance the U.S. unleashes, which is substantially higher than the rest of the industrialized world. If British, Japanese, Russian, etc. forces were attempting the same things we were, their records would probably be similar. The American style of fighting is to fight from as far away as possible; at the moment, that's our best force protection scheme, and America has historically had a low domestic tolerance for casualties. Unfortunately, fighting from a distance, while reducing the risk of hostile fire, increases the risk of friendly fire if their are friendly troops in the combat zone of the target. The sad fact, however, is that war involves casualties. People die every day in less noble ways than friendly fire. The U.S. Army doesn't like to publicize it, but we lose a few men just in training every year. Does that make training not worthwhile? I tend to doubt it. Willingness to take risks leads to some terrible tragedies, and we definitely feel sorry for the loss of allied soldiers, and none of us more so than the pilot who dropped that bomb. However, UNwillingness to take risks leads to absolute paralysis, and even the best army in the world can't do a thing if it's paralyzed. --Phoenix Rising
 
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Canadain Grunt    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/24/2002 9:02:20 AM
This is your opinon which you are entitled to. A few nights before this tragic accident happend 2 american A/C were waved off at the last min by air controllers "which stated those were Canadians " i won't get into the gulf war and how many friendly fire deaths there were...suffered not only by americans but british as well... And yes engaging ones enemy at max distance is a good idea,provided that your 100% sure that they are the enemy...with todays wpn's engaging beyond 5 km is normal however the sighting systems "IE thermal or regular night vision devices and even day sights do not make it 100 % clear "beyond a dought" that it is a enemy veh in there sights. Another fact that makes this tragic is the Tech is out there developed after the gulf war for ground vehs to be equiped with an FOF (friend of foe)system simalar to the one already in use by aircraft. Yes everyone losses men in training, every year. so much that cells have been set up to study each case and tighten up training standards to make sure they don't happen again...the more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle... taking risks is nothing new to Canadian soldiers we do more with less every year, so risks we know about and our history is full of examples... this was about a pilot who refused orders on not to fire...but went ahead with the bombing anyway, this was a totally aviodable accident and the pilot should be held accountable to the maximum degree. The US should take the lead and install this FOF system into all its vehs and make it manatory for thier allieds to follow suit.
 
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Ben    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/24/2002 12:09:16 PM
Statistically, our record is worse than many nations in part because we keep statistics and most don't. Of those nations that do keep statistics, part of the problem is the imbalance in sample sizes. We are the elephant. For example, there have been exactly two cases in which Harpoon missiles have locked onto civilians structures intraining excercises. One of them was Danish, and took out several apartments of a beach front hotel. As a result, the statistical safety record for Danish harpoon firings is abyssmal. The recent accidental downing of a civilian airliner by a Ukrainian missile puts that nation's statistics in the toilet as well. friendly fire casualties is a rare event, and if any fire at all is a rare event, you are looking at a rare subset of a rare subset, generating incredibly useless statistics.
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/24/2002 6:02:30 PM
"this was about a pilot who refused orders on not to fire...but went ahead with the bombing anyway, this was a totally aviodable accident and the pilot should be held accountable to the maximum degree." I agree on all counts, except about the accident being "totally avoidable." We give our fighter pilots a lot of leeway in the theater; this was a lesson we learned in Vietnam, when the lower ranks were up in arms about the top brass micromanaging the campaign from thousands of leagues away. This accident was avoidable, I agree; however, sooner or later, SOME accident was bound to happen. Perfection is an incredibly difficult standard to measure oneself against, even for the most well-trained, well-equipped, and well-disciplined fighting force on the planet. That being said, we didn't get to be this good by being gentle on failures and irresponsible decisions to go against higher authorities. That alone would be grounds enough for strong disciplinary action against the pilot. I strongly disapprove of the current culture of blamelessness that is creeping into American politics, and I would hate to see it creep into the military. The pilot made his decision. He may have had bad information, but misperception is not an excuse for dropping a bomb on allied men (it may be a reason, but it's not an excuse). --Phoenix Rising
 
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Pete S    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/24/2002 9:26:55 PM
According to the reports I have seen, this was not a split-second decision made with partial information in the heat of mortal combat. It occurred in a very benign environment, where there was no threat and very little pressure. The incident WAS completely avoidable simply by obeying orders not to attack. WHY the pilot chose to disobey and drop will be determined. These kinds of situations are why discipline is so vital in the military.
 
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Canadain Grunt    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/26/2002 9:43:13 AM
This guy was told by airbourne air controllers to put his wpns on hold and do not engage the target he had lite up. what more info do you need "unless the air controllers routinely refuse them permission to fire on any target",which means he took things into his own hands and engaged without knowing jack sh*t about the target, He will pay for his mistake, that much is fact. Perfection is not expected in combat, but following orders are, even if it means your death.when orders are given they are "not for indiv" interpretation the are to be followed to the letter,unless there are against the law. I do not hold the entire American military in disregard, just this pilot. as i would if he was Canadian or British ETC. All this pilot has done is angered the very force he was assigned to support and protect, and make it hard on his comrads because next time they fly over troops on the ground they may have a surface to air missle waiting in the wings,Just in case...
 
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Pete S    RE:U.S. friendly fire   4/26/2002 11:10:25 AM
Well spoken, CG. And yes, it is not unknown for troops to be forced to return fire on friendly forces in self-defence. In the SW Pacific during WWII, for instance, American PT boats were attacked by American aircraft, mistakenly. After attempts to identify themselves failed, the boats returned fire, and even shot down US aircraft.
 
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Macawman    RE:U.S. friendly fire-Phoenix   8/27/2002 10:00:28 PM
Phoenix, here is a dirty little secret. In the Gulf War a soldier at the front was more likely to be killed by his own side than an Iraqi. Of the eight Abrams knocked out, all eight were by friendly fire. Of the 37 Bradleys knocked out, only seven were by enemy fire. It may be getting to the point that airborne mission controllers in CAS operations be given the ability to electronically disable attack aircraft fire controls.
 
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macawman    RE: A follow up on U.S. friendly fire in the Gulf War   8/29/2002 3:19:18 PM
1. Of the eight Abrams tank losses some of them were mobility kills due to Iraqi mines. 2. The official Army count for fratricide deaths in the Gulf War is 107. 3. The reason IFF systems were dropped from the upgrade program M1s and Bradleys is as follows: "They were on the Battlefield Identification Combat System Test. They said the reason the test failed was that the test units used the test for gunnery practice. They system correctly identified the targets as friendly, but the crews fire anyway. You could hear them on the tapes: gunner-target friendly, commander-fire, gunner-shot out. So naturally all the test data came back negative. At the interviews all the crews laughed at the fact that they fired on friendly targets. So much for the "Fighting 4th Infantry Division" or as we call it the F***ing 4th." I believe my conclusion is correct. "That US soldiers at the fighting front were more likely to be killed by their own side than by an Iraqi soldier." The troops most vunerable to fratricide due to the lack of fire discipline are the scouts and the ACR because of there location on the battlefield. It comes down to the grunt mentality of "If it ain't ours, kill it." War is hell.
 
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Ehran    RE:U.S. friendly fire   2/28/2004 7:50:50 PM
friendly fire casualties is a rare event, and if any fire at all is a rare event, you are looking at a rare subset of a rare subset, generating incredibly useless statistics. i cannot speak to statistics but my friend's platoon sgt in the ppcli has been fired on 3x by us troops in the balkans during his peacekeeping tours there.
 
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Ehran    RE:U.S. friendly fire   2/28/2004 7:52:53 PM
That being said, we didn't get to be this good by being gentle on failures and irresponsible decisions to go against higher authorities. That alone would be grounds enough for strong disciplinary action against the pilot. strong disciplinary action means allowed to resign and return to civilian life without consequence for their actions. this was offered to both pilots involved in the incident and one took it while the other is demanding a court martial to "clear" his good name.
 
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