How and Why dose friendly fire happen?!?

David J

Usually it's as simple as a communications problem, which makes it all the more tragic when a blue on blue kill occurs.

The problem with a coalition of forces is that each nation's troops have their own comms networks, and they usually aren't compatible with those of the foreign allies' systems. This means that there are usually liaison officers who's responsibilities are to relay intel, information, and plans back and forth between the various allies. It's a way around the non-compatible comms issues, but it's slow and it's not infallible.
What needs to happen is ONE system for ALL allied forces, with clear friend or foe identification capabilities. It's the only real way to prevent blue on blue attacks.

Edited to give a real-life example:
One of my cousins (Grant) served with the Royal Navy on the carriers during the first Gulf War, his posting was as a naval air traffic controller. Once Desert Storm really got underway in a big way it was clear that the comms incompatibilities were going to make things complicated, so Grant was loaned to the USN to serve on one of the American carriers as a liaison. He was tasked with trying to help co-ordinate British and American naval flight ops, and he said it was like juggling with one hand while playing piano with the other, while standing on one leg.
The thing that really annoys me is that was way back in 1991, and yet we still don't have a fully integrated and inter-compatible allied comms network 16 years later!!! THAT is truly shocking, and THAT'S why blue on blues occur so frequently.
It's all about cost, the various governments send our various forces overseas without the exact tools they need to to do the job properly....and that sickens me.
Anyway, I bow my head to the fallen troops (regardless of nationality), may they rest in piece.

trooper3316

Most often, someone is not where they are supposed to be and get mistaken for the enemy. It can be the shooter, or the victim that is not where they are supposed to be. They should have a contigency plan to account for these things, but quite often they get overlooked in the confusion. Keep in mind it is not always possible to think clearly when someone is trying to kill you.

Cloudcity CC

Incorrect Intelligence, Inaccurate Co-ordinates, confusion during a raid... could be various reasons...

It happens more often than it should... usually airstrikes rather than small arms fire is responsible.

Army Retired Guy

Uncertainty of battle. Also referred to as the fog of war. Situational awareness also plays a big part. When fire and maneuver occurs regardless of whether its armor, infantry on foot, whatever, the battle field is a fluid environment and you aren't always aware of whats transpiring to your left and right. Warfare is 3 dimensional, you have aircraft, ground maneuver, all sorts. Its an unfortunate side effect of war, we do things to mitigate it, try hard as we might, but there is always fratricide. We have come along way to prevent it, but to a degree it will always occur.

rotorhead

It's called the chaos of battle.

And stop being so hysterical. It lowers your credibility.

madderthanthehatter

Sometimes as in the case of the English soldier it is incompetence -- the commander(s) didn't check their situational briefings for the day. This is about the fifth incident of friendly fire deaths and all of them have been due to incompetence of the commanders who for some reason did not check or pay attention to their situational briefing.

MustangPride

Well obviously you wouldn't understand since you have never been in war and in this day and age we use weapons that are very efficient in killing.
Here's a scenario theres a fire fight and you see movement about 200 yards away and your not really sure if its your guys or not you see them open fire and you obviously panic and return fire they get hit and killed you find out later it was one of yours that got lost or had to change locations in a hurry and forgot to radio in their new location that happened to be in your fire sector.

Tommy S

Accidents happen ALL the time. People die driving to work. In what is called the "fog of war", people die. a bullet has no mind.. it hits what is in its way. It is too bad when accidents happen, but "whoops" there it is....

crymeariver

Well, friendly fire happens when some firing is going on and a person will shoot someone who is on their side usually accidentally. It just happens during the combat, as for the english soldier, it's sad true but he took that chance when he went into combat. Sure no one is going to believe they are going to get shot, but this just happens.

mAT2t

Wars are fought by human beings, that's why.

So as an alternative, if nations or people want to wage war on each other, what they should really do is both sides build their own giant Rock 'em Sock 'em Robot.

Let the robots decide!!

Amos S

It's called "the fog of war".No matter how much you train,in the heat of a battle,mistakes will happen and friendly combatants will be wounded or killed.The US and her allies use realistic training scenarios as well as extensive planning.The problem is that a battle does not follow a script;it is a dynamic event with many variables.You can formulate a good plan and utilize well trained forces and the unfortunate events will still occur.

erehwon

Have you ever been in a combat situation? I can tell you it is not like the video games you all play. It happens, it is sad, and it is a reality of war.

ARKARNG

Friendly fire really isn't all that friendly-- or so says Murphy's Law. Really though, I am stationed in Iraq right now and let me tell you it could be very easy for a blue on blue incident. Think about all the different armed forces in theater right now, and now come up with some way of letting all of these people, that speak different languages, to get on the same page, and be able to identify themselves to each other. Hell, the US Army by itself sometimes has a difficult time of getting it's own forces on the same page, and we all speak english! There are different visual signals, and radio signals to ID everyone, but sometimes it comes down to being as simple as a radio malfuntioned, or an ID flag came off of the antenna. Our biggest fear is that we will fire on the good guys, that are blending in with the bad guys, that are hunting insurgents. When everyone looks the same you have to rely on whether or not they are firing at you or a fellow coalition troop, and pray like hell that they are not good guys making a misidentification error. Generally speaking though we do a VERY good job of identifiying friend and foe, but when it does happen the media blows it out of the proportion it should be in. Fratricide is a very serious mistake, and should never be taken lightly, but on the flipside the press makes it look all we do over here and in Afghanistan is shoot civilians, and friendly troops, when that is ultimately not the case. My unit has gotten into more firefights than I can count, and we have NEVER killed a civilian, and the only blue on blue we had was a gunner misidentified the headlights of an Abrams, and fired a single warning shot with a M-16. We have taken care of innumerrable terrorists, and insurgents though. So i would have to say that simple error, human error, for the most part is the cause of blue on blue engagements. trust me, whenever a coalition soldier is killed we take 10 minutes of silence as a unit to remind us to be more careful, and to offer our respects.

jed slade

Iagree with you,what with the modern gps and position fixing technollogy,you would,nt think it possible for your allies to fire on and kill you.THE PROBLEM STARTS WITH THE FIRST FIX,if the ground troops give a wrong map ref. then the parcels will be delivered to the wrong address.then there is the passing of the information,someone reads one wrong ref number and everything is out.then you have the pilot coming in with the ordnance very fast,no room for errors,makes yer think.

Melois Koro

It just does....

R M

Friendly fire can happen for a lot of different reasons:
Fog of War
Incompetence
The solders get trigger happy
The list goes onâ€¦.

Perhaps an experiment should take place in which each coalition force will take care of its own close air support. In this experiment we can measure how many close air support missions each coalition force does assuming they have the capability to do so, and how many friendly fire incidence occur as a result of their close air support operations. Maybe we will see a drop in friendly fire incidenceâ€™s, maybe more Americans will accidentally kill one another, perhaps we will find more British accidentally kill one another.

The British them selves have a history of Friendly Fire:

1939 (10 September - early World War II) â€“ British submarine HMS Triton sank another British submarine, HMS Oxley, mistaking it for a German U-boat and having received no responses to challenges. Oxley was the first Royal Navy vessel to be sunk and also the first vessel to be sunk by a British vessel in the war.

1982 - HMS Cardiff shoots down AAC Gazelle (UK) in the Falklands Islands.
1982 - 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, British Army (UK) Companies A and C engage each other in an hour-long firefight in the Falkland Islands involving heavy weapons and artillery strikes. At least 8 UK casualties.
1982- United Kingdom UK Special Boat Service Commando killed in firefight with UK Special Air Service Commandos. Falkland Islands.
2003 - British Royal Marine Christopher Maddison killed when his river patrol boat was hit by missiles after being wrongly identified as an enemy vessel approaching a Royal Engineers checkpoint on the Al-Faw Peninsula, Iraq.
2003- British Challenger 2 tank came under fire from another British tank in a nighttime firefight, blowing off the turret and killing two crew members, Corporal Stephen John Allbutt and Trooper David Jeffrey Clarke

Mind you that the list of American Friendly fire is much larger.

dinkydau41

It could be a lot of things. In combat you have a person that is spotting a target. It could be that the grid coordinates were given wrong . Combat is very stressful and mistakes can and do happen. Every effort is being made to keep them from happening with new technology. But it is always a possibility that it can and will happen, due to equipment failure or human error.

foxymoron

my husband was in the military and before he went in i thought wow what smart, intelligent, strong men to serve our country... then when you are around them see who these men actually are its scary as hell... they are the poor, uneducated teens from poverished cities, men who have gone in to the military instead of prison or guys who are on the verge of mental retardation... this is simply how it happens... they are young, dumb and scared

Kevy

Obviously you have never been to war or in any type of crisis situation, ever.

bert

Stupid mistakes by half trained panicky morons !

JD Zombie

its the heat of battle, its pure chaos in there some people freak, starts shooting wildly hitting friendlies by accident. There's so many ways to go wrong I can't give a straight answer.

valf

Mistakes happen especially when at war......It is a bit distressing calling it friendly I prefer human error.........I don't think they are saying oops.....They are probably embarrassed that it has happened more than once I just hope they learn from it to ensure that it doesn't happen again........I doubt it......

Chris

The shooter can not see the target properly, yet is scared or nervous or jumpy and fires anyway.
The victims move into an area where other soldiers are told only the enemy is. They see people moving, think only the enemy is around, and fire.
Poor communication between units.
One unit is off course, they do not know they are lost, and when they see something, they think no one else is around and fire.
The shooter is just plain scared, his mind starts to play tricks on him, and fires at the first thing he sees.
Aircraft move in on attack, they can not get a good visual on the target, if they get to low they will be shot down, so they have to attack from an attitude where they can not quite identify the target.

wayfaroutthere

That's all anyone says in a friendly fire situation--oops, sorry--what else is there to say? I'd guess (having never been in combat) that it is easy to miscommunicate and not know a friendly's position or they don't know yours, one unit walks up on the other, and someone attacks the other thinking they are the enemy. With a bunch of guns sending hundreds of hunks of metal through the air, it could take a few deadly seconds to realize you are firing on allies, and once you realize it, you still have to figure out a way to stop the battle without dying.

Cooly McCool$hit

maybe because there are thousands of bullets flying around all over the place?? just a guess...

Joanna S

nothing friendly about weapons of any kind.

darwinsfriend AM

Because militarily the Americans are useless.They shoot first and don't think about the consequences.
In the first Gulf War more British soldiers were killed by Americans than by the enemy.

firey_cowgirl

Sugar, it hasn't been just brits who have been killed my friendly fire. Lot's of our boys have been too.

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