Sun video of friendly fire incident.

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grober

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Despite the sensational headlines everyone should watch this video. The picture quality is very poor, but just listening to the radio exchanges is enough. I'm not going to apportion blame but the impersonal nature of modern warfare is chilling stuff. :( :( :( http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11021-10043,00.html
 
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Thanks for posting that. It's tragic that with all modern technology they have not found a better way for friendly ground troops to identify themselves to air support.
 
Ah, that would be the tape that first of all "did not exist" and then when it did remains classified.

As might be expected there is outrage on the Military websites. This post sets out why:

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=57717/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html

"Quote::
1336.57 POPOV36:

Hey, I got a four ship. Looks like we got orange panels on them though. Do we have any friendlies up in this area?

Then because the FAC says there are no friendlies they then absolve themselves of taking responsibility for not being sure in their own minds they are not shooting up own forces. Just how unprofessional is that?

Quote::
1337.16 POPOV35:

Confirm, north 800 metres. Confirm there are no friendlies this far north on the ground.

1337.21 MANILA HOTEL:

That is an affirm. You are well clear of friendlies.

Again a point they should have questioned firing on these vehicles.

Quote::
1338.49 POPOV36:

They look like they have orange panels on though.

And again

Quote::
1339.09 POPOV36:

They’ve got something orange on top of them.

And AGAIN thewarning bells should have been blaring

Quote::
1340.13 POPOV36:

OK, well they got orange rockets on them.

1340.17 POPOV35:

Orange rockets?

And again FFS

Quote::
1341.24 POPOV36:

OK, do you see the orange things on top of them?

Obviously doubts were there but they carried on anyway

Quote::
1343.35 POPOV35:

It doesn’t look friendly.

And he knew straight away what he’d done

Quote::
1344.12 LIGHTNING 34:

Roger, POPOV. Be advised that in the 3122 and 3222 group box you have friendly armour in the area. Yellow, small armoured tanks. Just be advised.

1344.16 POPOV35:

Ahh s***.

Unforgiveable that they just ignored it and they knew they ignored it

Quote::
1351.33 POPOV36:

Yeah, I know that thing with the orange panels is going to screw us. They look like orange rockets on top.

5 times they talked about orange markers, 5 TIMES FFS! How could they not have known that orange markers were friendly vehicles? That is just down right negligent. And what’s more they realised immediately what they’d done! Sorry but these guys need to be brought up on charges. Unforgiveable. And for the MoD to be suppressing this tape is collusion and really needs someone to be called to account. "
_________________


[
 
There are so many questions to be asked and unfortunately lessons never appear to be learnt.

The technology is out there to prevent this. It is always suggested there is real time battle location information available to battle commanders. Do our military vehicles now have transponders or not? Aircraft have IFF equipment, if this is fitted then why did the FAC not take charge of the situation. If these transponders are not fitted then why not? This is the 21st century, it is the age of technology.

Why do we paint military vehicles with camouflage paint and then cover them with huge luminous orange markings? There MUST be a better system.

It is alleged that one pilot was a major, the other a colonel, neither was inexperienced, but I hate being a member of any 9 o'clock jury and will not condemn them. The video has been replayed time and again on television, I feel so sad to think we are witnessing the death of a serving soldier, but I wonder how many innocent Iraqis have suffered a similar fate?

Regards,
John
 
There is a lot of comment about the fact that the aircraft in question were flown by USAF Reservists, in this case from the Idaho Air National Guard’s 190th Fighter Squadron with pilots who at the time had absolutely no prior combat experience.

The Air National Guard has something of a history of this sort of thing having previously been responsible for the deaths of Canadian troops in Afghanistan:

"On Sept. 11 the Air Force charged Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umback, both F- 16 pilots of the Illinois Air Guard's 183rd Fighter Wing, with four involuntary manslaughter counts and eight counts of assault for bombing a Canadian live-fire exercise outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April.

In addition to the assault and involuntary manslaughter charges, the Air Force charged Schmidt with "failing to exercise appropriate flight discipline and not complying with the rules of engagement," according to a Pentagon news release. The Air force also said Umback "negligently failed to exercise appropriate flight command and control and to ensure compliance with the rules of engagement. "


Sound familiar?
 
Satch said:
There is a lot of comment about the fact that the aircraft in question were flown by USAF Reservists, in this case from the Idaho Air National Guard’s 190th Fighter Squadron with pilots who at the time had absolutely no prior combat experience.

The Air National Guard has something of a history of this sort of thing having previously been responsible for the deaths of Canadian troops in Afghanistan:

"On Sept. 11 the Air Force charged Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umback, both F- 16 pilots of the Illinois Air Guard's 183rd Fighter Wing, with four involuntary manslaughter counts and eight counts of assault for bombing a Canadian live-fire exercise outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April.

In addition to the assault and involuntary manslaughter charges, the Air Force charged Schmidt with "failing to exercise appropriate flight discipline and not complying with the rules of engagement," according to a Pentagon news release. The Air force also said Umback "negligently failed to exercise appropriate flight command and control and to ensure compliance with the rules of engagement. "

Sound familiar?
I actually read all the transcripts of that case and with respect those transcripts were a terrible indictment of very little self control, and a blatant disregard for standing orders. Oh and one of the pilots was taking amphetamines. That is NOT Internet gossip either.

I have no idea if these two pilots were National Guard or their experience, I have only found this:

POPOV36 is known to be a lieutenant colonel, and POPOV35 a major, but their identities have never been released. Neither has the result of a US Air Force inquiry

What was interesting was the fact the pilot asked for an identifying artillery round to be fired, just to confirm they were all talking about the same target. Was this round fired, and was the order given by the FAC to engage? I heard the 'You are well clear of friendlies' remark which in hind sight might not have been factually correct?

As I say there MUST be lessons learnt.

John
 
I hope Grober doesn't mind me taking this thread slightly off topic, but Satch mentioned the Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

This is a snippet of the findings. Note the punishment and fine:

Forfeiture of $2,836.00 pay per month for 2 months. Reprimand.

You are hereby reprimanded. You flagrantly disregarded a direct order from the controlling agency, exercised a total lack of basic flight discipline over your aircraft, and blatantly ignored the applicable rules of engagement and special instructions. Your willful misconduct directly caused the most egregious consequences imaginable, the deaths of four coalition soldiers and injury to eight others. The victims of your callous misbehavior were from one of our staunch allies in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and were your comrades-in-arms.

You acted shamefully on 17 April 2002 over Tarnak Farms, Afghanistan, exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline. When your flight lead warned you to "make sure it's not friendlies" and the Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft controller directed you to "stand by" and later to "hold fire," you should have marked the location with your targeting pod. Thereafter, if you believed, as you stated, you and your leader were threatened, you should have taken a series of evasive actions and remained at a safe distance to await further instructions from AWACS. Instead, you closed on the target and blatantly disobeyed the direction to "hold fire." Your failure to follow that order is inexcusable. I do not believe you acted in defense of Major Umbach or yourself. Your actions indicate that you used your self-defense declaration as a pretext to strike a target, which you rashly decided was an enemy firing position, and about which you had exhausted your patience in waiting for clearance from the Combined Air Operations Center to engage. You used the inherent right of self-defense as an excuse to wage your own war.

In your personal presentation before me on 1 July 2004, I was astounded that you portrayed yourself as a victim of the disciplinary process without expressing heartfelt remorse over the deaths and injuries you caused to the members of the Canadian Forces. In fact, you were obviously angry that the United States Air Force had dared to question your actions during the 17 April 2002 tragedy. Far from providing any defense for your actions, the written materials you presented to me at the hearing only served to illustrate the degree to which you lacked flight discipline as a wingman of COFFEE Flight on 17 April 2002.

Through your arrogance, you undermined one of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world, consisting of the Combined Air Operations Center, the Airborne Warning and Control System, and highly disciplined pilots, all of whom must work together in an integrated fashion to achieve combat goals. The United States Air Force is a major contributor to military victories over our Nation's enemies because our pilots possess superior flight discipline. However, your actions on the night of 17 April 2002 demonstrate an astonishing lack of flight discipline. You were blessed with an aptitude for aviation, your nation provided you the best aviation training on the planet, and you acquired combat expertise in previous armed conflicts. However, by your gross poor judgment, you ignored your training and your duty to exercise flight discipline, and the result was tragic. I have no faith in your abilities to perform in a combat environment.

I am concerned about more than your poor airmanship; I am also greatly concerned about your officership and judgment. Our Air Force core values stress "integrity first." Following the engagement in question, you lied about the reasons why you engaged the target after you were directed to hold fire and then you sought to blame others. You had the right to remain silent, but not the right to lie. In short, the final casualty of the engagement over Kandahar on 17 April 2002 was your integrity.


Here is another quick quote to back up my amphetamine statement.

The incident is explored in detail in the book Friendly Fire by Michael Friscolanti and many facets of the case are brought to light, including perceived problems in communicating the chaotic ground situation to pilots on a daily basis and the use of amphethamines to keep pilots awake during long missions. The book provides verbatim transcripts of long segments of both official boards of inquiry into the incident, as well as Major Schmidt's Article 32 hearing.
 
Hi,

Whilst this event is tragic the pilots did check for 'friendlies' in the area. Reply was NO thus supporting their initial suspicions that these were 'enemies'. Remember this is happening in real tim

They fired and then appeared horrified when the(ir) mistake was revealed.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but, as usual, especially in combat situations, any errors can lead to tragic events.

So who is to blame? and what do you think should happen to those pilots. Have they suffered enough? They don't come over as cold blooded 'killers' to me :eek: .

What is as important, as has been mentioned above, is that situations such as these are minimised but, by its very nature, war is (dis)organised chaos.

Cheers,
 
How very tragic and I feel for all concerned. These pilots have to live with what happened. Sadly a British soldier lost his life.

They clearly weren't going gung-ho and I too hope this doesn't turn into a public trial.
 
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pammy said:
How very tragic amd I feel for all concerned. This pilots have to live with what happened. Sadly a British soldier lost his life.

They clearly weren't going gung-ho and I too hope this doen't turn into a public trial.
From what we have seen so far I would certainly agree. I highlighted the previous incident regarding the Canadian soldiers to illustrate what is unforgivable, the two incidents appear chalk and cheese.

The question I asked about IFF, is now being voiced on various news channels so hopefully lessons might be learnt, but this will always happen.

John
 
Coroner to go.

The BBC 6 oclock news has just announced that the Coroner conducting this enquiry and many other IRAQ enquiries has been told his services will not be required after June/July of this year.
 
Regarding my battle awareness post, I had to go through my memory banks :eek: :eek: :)

Regards,
John
 
if in doubt ..don;t take em out . report position ........ask for sat tracking .......wait for confirmation ..... as these where no real threat at that hour being that far north .....a delay of 15 mins max ..we may have had no story at all, oh the yanks
 
Sorry but this does sound like an armchair jury complete with tears and blame the yanks.
It's war for goodness sake, which is not the nice clinical thing we see on movies, it's where sometimes well trained but often scared people are put under enormous pressure and given life or death authority and the means to carry it out. It's horrible, it's mean, it's unjust, it's not heroic, it's war. It's what we have to do sometimes and we shouldn't start blaming the people we put in the front line when it sometimes goes wrong. It is not a computer game, where you can get nice clinical locks and it is clear who the enemy is, it's continuous movement, jarring jumps, ear splitting noises, disorientation, uncertainty about everything, people trying to kill you. You have to react.
The Americans may not always get it right but when we in Britain have needed them they have been there to help us - gung ho or not. If it wasn't for their gung ho, reckless bravado it is also possible that we may still have been stuck on the beaches of Normandy, that we might have been pushed out of the Ardennes - there's two sides to this.
 
BonzoDog said:
- there's two sides to this.
There certainly is two sides, and don't forget this happened in 2003. I would expect there has been an inquiry, a decision would have been made and any action taken.

It now transpires that one of these pilots is now an instructor.

We have had some very tragic friendly fire incidents involving our own troops :eek: :eek:

In the first Gulf war, nine out of the 47 British combat deaths were due to 'friendly fire' :eek: , with the corresponding figure for US forces being 35 out of 148 deaths. So we are talking 19% of British casualties compared to 24% for the US. Just a 5% difference.

I was shocked when an American spokesperson stated how things have improved drastically since the Vietnam era when he stated the statistics were between 30 - 40%. Figures do not mean much but when we consider there were just over 58,000 US deaths then 30% is a huge number.

John
 
There is a military situation called "scenario completion". This is where people find a reason to shoot even though there is no evidence to support the action. IT is a forced human error caused by the anticipation of a combat situation.
 
Spot on MIRO.

Sounds as if the "scenario completion" you describe fits the bill exactly and I imagine would be quite common in aircrew inexperienced in real combat situations.
 
glojo said:
There certainly is two sides, and don't forget this happened in 2003. I would expect there has been an inquiry, a decision would have been made and any action taken.

It now transpires that one of these pilots is now an instructor.

We have had some very tragic friendly fire incidents involving our own troops :eek: :eek:

In the first Gulf war, nine out of the 47 British combat deaths were due to 'friendly fire' :eek: , with the corresponding figure for US forces being 35 out of 148 deaths. So we are talking 19% of British casualties compared to 24% for the US. Just a 5% difference.

I was shocked when an American spokesperson stated how things have improved drastically since the Vietnam era when he stated the statistics were between 30 - 40%. Figures do not mean much but when we consider there were just over 58,000 US deaths then 30% is a huge number.

John
I think that this is really an ethical question.
1. Should we have gone to war.
2. having gone to war do we all really understand what it means for teh various combatants, the local inhabitants
3. Can you really have rules and what makes them valid
4. Given that an aggressive (gung-ho) approach can be highly effective in achieveing objectives in the shortest time with a higher percentage of casualties in that time versus a steadier (Montgomery) approach that takes less risks but takes longer and possibly costs more in casulaties over a longer period.
I have zero experience in this area and would defer to those with experience but I have always found it peculiar that we ask men to fight on our behalf in difficult situations and then hinder them with rules of engagement. As far as I know this was not a requirment in WW2.
And also who suggested an orange top in a sandy desert?
 
BonzoDog said:
I have zero experience in this area and would defer to those with experience but I have always found it peculiar that we ask men to fight on our behalf in difficult situations and then hinder them with rules of engagement. As far as I know this was not a requirment in WW2.
And also who suggested an orange top in a sandy desert?

ROE existed in WW2 - as backed by the Geneva Conventions.

High Visibility Orange IR maker panels are very effective in a sandy desert. Normally they are mounted on the top of the vehicle.
 
grober said:
Sounds as if the "scenario completion" you describe fits the bill exactly and I imagine would be quite common in aircrew inexperienced in real combat situations.

Remember the civilian airliner the Americans shot down in the Persian Gulf ? Same thing. All the indicators pointed to civilian aircraft (even the transponder and airspace) and they still shot it down reporting it was descending whilst it was climbing.

The ship was in the wrong location and was more likely to intercept airline traffic. The rest of the details were provided by the nervous crew. Far from being an act of mallice it is a human weakness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
 

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