'Rogue pilots' friendly fire

Originally posted by WestPoint23

Originally posted by Flyer
It seems to be an American thing, I dont recall a single error being the other way round.

Might want to read this...

Two members of a British tank crew were killed and two critically injured after their Challenger 2 tank was fired on by another Challenger tank in southern Iraq. A single tank round took the turret off the tank in the misdirected attack, which happened on Monday in pitch darkness.

"The soldiers were tragically killed in a 'friendly fire' incident during a period of multiple engagements from enemy forces on the outskirts of Basra," Colonel Chris Vernon, a British military spokesman, said.

Link

Now was that because those British troops were "poorly trained or trigger happy idiots."? Of course not! It's because, as the UK commander put it, ..."Regardless of the careful planning and measures taken in the type of operations in which we are engaged and in the heat of battle there is always a risk that incidents such as this might happen.".

Perhaps if you can get your head out and manage to post without hatred for the US you would see that. But then again, maybe some of us are just that ignorant.

[edit on 7-2-2007 by WestPoint23]

Westopoint thats not what he meant and you know it - he means Brits attacking Yanks, Please find an article about that if you want to challenge him.

In anycase that chally 2 example is completely different - close quarter, heat of battle, night fighting, kill or be kill senarios are a whole world away from cruising arround in a heavy armoured A-10 with rookie pilots taking pot shots at vehichles which would have little/no way of returning fire. In broad daylight might i add, after having regognised allied markings. Oncemore i post the question of - who has large luminous orange rockets in the desert? Answer that please.

Also i suggest you quit playing the "your bashing the US" card it wont work, i am clearly not - maybe if you gave a simmilar example we might listen to you.

Its because of the attitude that the US is infallible that you get flak.

[edit on 7/2/07 by C ROBERTSON]

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
The law of averages works both ways;

The USAF flew the most, ok. How many planes were shot down by UK forces none!

Well…the same goes for the number of US ground crews, batteries etc…

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
The UK flew alot less but still one of the RAF's tornado's get blown out of the sky, why? because it was mistakenly ID'd as an Iraqi missile

Good mention…and very similar situation which was extremely early in the invasion campaign and the primary operational IFF on the Tornado was not functioning….

Two sides to every point:

As a result of the accident, the RAF is speeding introduction of a new successor Identification Friend or Foes system onto 40 Tornado GR4 aircraft and 27 Tornado F3 fighters by the end of the year, with all RAF aircraft fitted by 2007.

Among its 12 recommendations are that closer coordination is needed on planning and operations between the United States and the UK in the use of airspace and that the two nations work more closely in combined air operations centers.

The senior RAF official denied suggestions that there might be cultural differences between the way the British and Americans operate, or that the Americans' had a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude than has not much improved since the USS Vincennes accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus with 270 passengers over the Persian Gulf in 1988.
Source, UPI

The entire article does not allow blame to fall on one side…as you suggest.
Nor does the RAF lend itself to even recognize your secondary accusations which follow:

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
For the people on this thread who are saying they followed protocol, you are wrong, wrong, wrong! You are arguing with sentimental, blind love of your country and will not accept that the incident this thread is about was caused due to incompetance.

Ironically, the blindness displayed in your post is…well…very visible as well.


mg

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
The USAF flew the most, ok. How many planes were shot down by UK forces none!

How many were shooting at planes? Did Iraq even have an air force this time around? I don't think so, correct me if I'm wrong though since you were there.

The UK flew alot less but still one of the RAF's tornado's get blown out of the sky, why? because it was mistakenly ID'd as an Iraqi missile

Who ID'd it as a missile? Was it a computer system or a trigger happy American idiot visually ID'ing the plane? When we rely on electronics, crap is gonna happen and that crap can be reduced if ALL the allies are completely on the same page with computer systems and command structures instead of communicating through two or three middlemen.

For the people on this thread who are saying they followed protocol, you are wrong, wrong, wrong! You are arguing with sentimental, blind love of your country and will not accept that the incident this thread is about was caused due to incompetance.

Blind love of my country? I am totally against this war and I despise my government, but I'm positive those soldiers didn't mean to attack their allies and there was a competency issue but it was with the entire communication system and it seems you're arguing with blind rage which I guess since it was one of your men it's understandable but keep in mind many US soldiers are killed by their own, does that anger you equally?

If you ran over a pedestrian because of dangerous driving, you are likely to do prison time! This incident is not much different.

That's totally different and you know it, we don't rely on orders coming through several channels before reaching us to make driving decisions, if we did and we were told a light was green and to proceed and after we hit somebody we were told no wait it's red, it would not be so cut and dry...

Originally posted by missed_gear
[teries etc…

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
The UK flew alot less but still one of the RAF's tornado's get blown out of the sky, why? because it was mistakenly ID'd as an Iraqi missile

The entire article does not allow blame to fall on one side…as you suggest.
Nor does the RAF lend itself to even recognize your secondary accusations which follow:

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
For the people on this thread who are saying they followed protocol, you are wrong, wrong, wrong! You are arguing with sentimental, blind love of your country and will not accept that the incident this thread is about was caused due to incompetance.

Ironically, the blindness displayed in your post is…well…very visible as well.


mg

Yes the tornado incident was an accident but never the less it was an American patriot missile that shot it down. Now read this

"The Patriot Battery crew were monitoring for Iraqi Tactical Ballistic Missiles when [Tornado] ZG710 was tracked by their system. The symbol which appeared on their radar indicated that an Anti-Radiation Missile was coming directly towards them. The track was interrogated for IFF [identification friend or foe] but there was no response. Having met all classification criteria, the Patriot crew launched the missile, and the Tornado, mistaken for an "Anti-Radiation Missile", was engaged in self-defence. The Patriot crew had complied with extant self-defence Rules of Engagement for dealing with Anti-Radiation Missiles.

Regarding the Patriot battery's crew, the report notes:

Patriot crews are trained to react quickly, engage early and to trust the Patriot system. If the crew had delayed firing, ZG710 would probably have been reclassified as its flight path changed. The crew had about one minute to decide whether to engage. The crew were fully trained, but their training had focused on recognising generic threats rather than on those that were specific to Iraq or on identifying false alarms. The Board concluded that both Patriot firing doctrine and training were contributory factors in the accident."

Read it all here;

www.mod.uk...

IGNORANCE DENIED

As for my blindness how about you being my seeing eye doggy and lead me to the truth, why don't you prove me wrong.

There are six errors made by the pilots:

1, Error one came when they asked the Forward Air Controller, call sign Manila Hotel, if friendly forces were around the Iraqi vehicles they did not ask if there were freindlys 3 miles to the west. In a war situation you MUST give specifics!

2, neither pilot gave the precise grid references for the British convoy to double check its identity.

3, Convincing themselves the identification panels were really orange rocket launchers.

4, POPOV36 decides to attack, saying he is “rolling in” — without permission from the Forward Air Controller. POPOV35 asks for artillery to fire a marker round into the target area to clear up confusion.

error 5 came when POPOV36 attacked without waiting for the marker that POPOV35 requested.

6, POPOV36 strafes the column for a second time but still doubts its identity. If in doubt don't fire!

I had hoped the US A-10 pilots would have learned from the blue on blue in desert storm where pilots killed 9 Royal Fusiliers in an almost identicle situation.

Now I realise that missed_gear, westpoint and the like will never see this incident any other way as they are stubborn.

Guys noone is saying ALL Blue on Blue is caused by incompetance, not at all! most of it is caused by circumstance, but in the case we are all talking about in this thread was caused by these two USAF's pilots incompetance.

Be safe.

An article everyone should read written by Lt. Col. Charles R Shrader US Army

www-cgsc.army.mil...

Jimmy, that link does not work. And not to mention that the Patriot battery AI was to be blamed on for shooting down the Tornado, not the people who manned it. There is another report that the same Patriot unit was responsible for the destruction of the F-18.

Originally posted by 27jd


Who ID'd it as a missile? Was it a computer system or a trigger happy American idiot visually ID'ing the plane? When we rely on electronics, crap is gonna happen and that crap can be reduced if ALL the allies are completely on the same page with computer systems and command structures instead of communicating through two or three middlemen.

Please see my post above, this was an accident, cause by computer error and human judgment.

Originally posted by 27jd
Blind love of my country? I am totally against this war and I despise my government, but I'm positive those soldiers didn't mean to attack their allies and there was a competency issue but it was with the entire communication system and it seems you're arguing with blind rage which I guess since it was one of your men it's understandable but keep in mind many US soldiers are killed by their own, does that anger you equally?

Yes all accounts of carelessly taken lives angers me, I don't do my job because it pleases me to kill.
It upsets me to see the amount of blue on blue that happens in the US areas, it's normally the privates and other low ranks that die because they are following a cowboy superior officer.
Also when I've met US soldiers alot of them seem to be young guys pulled out of some poor part of town, given a rifle and shipped to Iraq! The poor buggers were terrified, this amount of inexpirience in the ranks is asking for problems. Moral must be rock bottom for an US infantryman.
As for my own countrymen being killed yes that get's me down being killed by the enemy is an accepted risk but being killed by you ally is like being killed by a brother.

Originally posted by 27jd
That's totally different and you know it, we don't rely on orders coming through several channels before reaching us to make driving decisions, if we did and we were told a light was green and to proceed and after we hit somebody we were told no wait it's red, it would not be so cut and dry...

Sorry the emotions are running high, my bad

Originally posted by C ROBERTSON
Westopoint thats not what he meant and you know it - he means Brits attacking Yanks, Please find an article about that if you want to challenge him.

What's the difference? The incident involving the two Challenger tanks is more relevant in proving that no matter what friendly fire incidents will always happen in wars.

Here you have a trained British Challenger 2 tank commander looking through his thermal/NVG equipped optical gun sight which does not care if it's night or day and not recognizing another Challenger 2 tank! Think about that... it's like an A-10 pilot mistaking another A-10 for a Mig-29. "Idiots"? Don't think so, it's just the human element and fog of war combined with the stress of a fluid and dynamic combat environment.

Originally posted by C ROBERTSON
Also i suggest you quit playing the "your bashing the US" card it wont work, i am clearly not - maybe if you gave a simmilar example we might listen to you.

Have you read half the replies to this thread? Most don't even concern the topic as much as they display anti US sentiment.

Originally posted by C ROBERTSON
Its because of the attitude that the US is infallible that you get flak.

I don't think that, I do think however that outright BS comments such as "they are poorly trained or trigger happy idiots" should not go unanswered. And if I get flak for that so be it, it's damn worth it.

Just to appease some of the American contingent here:

MOD

Thursday 24 November 2005 16:35
Ministry Of Defence (National)

FINDINGS OF BOARD OF INQUIRY INTO CHALLENGER 2 INCIDENT

The findings of the Board of Inquiry (BOI) into the incident in which Corporal Stephen Allbutt and Trooper David Clarke died in Iraq have been made public today. The Board has identified a number of contributory factors and has made recommendations to minimise the chances of a reoccurrence in the future.

The Board concluded the soldiers died when the Challenger 2 tank (CR2) they were in was hit by "friendly fire" from another CR2 in the early hours of March 25, 2003. Two other soldiers were severely injured in the incident.

The second tank fired two high explosive rounds from its main armament. One hit the open hatch of Cpl Allbutt's tank, triggering an explosion inside.

The BOI was an exhaustive internal review which sought to establish the facts of the incident, and identify any lessons for the future. BOIs are not designed to apportion blame.

Under Secretary of State for Defence Don Touhig said the Board of Inquiry had been an in-depth investigation of the incident:

"This was a shocking loss of life which has caused great pain and distress to the families of those who died. My thoughts are with the families and with the injured soldiers. I hope that the inquiry's findings will give them a much better understanding of this awful tragedy.

"The Board of Inquiry is not there to apportion blame, but to establish the facts and make recommendations in an attempt to stop such a tragedy happening again. Those recommendations have been accepted and are being implemented."

The incident occurred on the outskirts of Basrah, at a time when the main threat was believed to be T-55 tanks and infantry armed with rocket-propelled grenades. It was in the war fighting phase, with all the pressure and difficulties associated with an operational environment.

As well as the Board of Inquiry, an investigation was carried out by the Royal Military Police's Special Investigation Branch. The case was referred to the independent Army Prosecution Authority, which concluded that no-one should face charges in connection with the incident.

The BOI concluded that factors which may have contributed to the incident included:

* Boundaries between units and arcs of fire should have been better briefed and disseminated.

* The location of the friendly tanks and the dam should have been more generally known.

* The brief for the handover of a tactical position should have been more structured with the troop and platoon acting in a more co-ordinated and unified manner to ensure adequate liaison and communications.

* The crew of the tank which opened fire should have "displayed more inquisitiveness" about the details of the task over the bridge.

* The crew of the tank which opened fire was not orientated accurately and so placed the potential target on the wrong side of a nearby canal.

The Board's recommendations, which are in the process of being implemented, include improvements to training, target recognition and fire control. They include training for crew commanders to exploit Bowman digitisation situational awareness capability, upgrades to the Unit Recognition Trainer and the reinforcement of fire control and discipline in training.

ENDS

There you have it.

But I shall add once again, this thread is about the American incident!

If you wish to start a General thread on "Friendly Fire" be my guest.

Sending Westpoint a big sloppy kiss from across the pond xxx

post script:

Westpoint I'm imagining from your name you may be an American Officer, am I right. Or is it just a username?

I also saw on CNN the incident that happened at the begining of the war, with brithish forces involved, it was gound control who failed to provide the correct intel needed.
If the pilots are not responsible and it looks like their not some one is any way, some one should go to jail for not doing his job.

I've just scanned the MOD's intranet here is the official finding to the challenger 2 incident. Don't worry it's no longer classified. It's a scanned document in PDF format;

www.wikiupload.com...

Edit:

I just wanna add AGAIN, no US blood has been spilt at the hands of British forces in Iraq (Apart from a few bloody noses in the bar )



[edit on 7/2/07 by Jimmy1880]

It seems the link I posted about the tornado incident has been taken off the MoD's site sorry if anyboody's been trying to view it;

no worries, I found a way around it hehe

link

[edit on 7/2/07 by Jimmy1880]


[edit: fixed link]

[edit on 8-2-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

Originally posted by C ROBERTSON
In anycase that chally 2 example is completely different - close quarter, heat of battle, night fighting, kill or be kill senarios are a whole world away from cruising arround in a heavy armoured A-10 with rookie pilots taking pot shots at vehichles which would have little/no way of returning fire. In broad daylight might i add, after having regognised allied markings. Oncemore i post the question of - who has large luminous orange rockets in the desert? Answer that please.
[edit on 7/2/07 by C ROBERTSON]

Westpoint i still fail to see how you can possily think those incidents are simmilar, yes i agree there is anti US sentiment from some posters here and granted its not required, but what im saying is that you cant simply pass off people complaining about US forces cocking up as yank bashing. US forces do cock up - all forces do. However , those pilots do apear to have been poorly trained and have poor moral character, either that or they were just plain stupid and could'nt follow orders. Someone should pay for this incident...

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
I just wanna add AGAIN, no US blood has been spilt at the hands of British forces in Iraq (Apart from a few bloody noses in the bar

)

If this is true then it does show something, youd think with the amount of brittish forces accross there that we'd have at least a couple of FF run-ins with the yanks. But no...

Originally posted by Jimmy1880
Yes all accounts of carelessly taken lives angers me, I don't do my job because it pleases me to kill. It upsets me to see the amount of blue on blue that happens in the US areas, it's normally the privates and other low ranks that die because they are following a cowboy superior officer.
Also when I've met US soldiers alot of them seem to be young guys pulled out of some poor part of town, given a rifle and shipped to Iraq! The poor buggers were terrified, this amount of inexpirience in the ranks is asking for problems. Moral must be rock bottom for an US infantryman.
As for my own countrymen being killed yes that get's me down being killed by the enemy is an accepted risk but being killed by you ally is like being killed by a brother.

Those pilots clearly found it funny, cant say thats too proffesional.

[edit on 8/2/07 by C ROBERTSON]

Damn, Double Post my bad.

[edit on 8/2/07 by C ROBERTSON]

Originally posted by C ROBERTSON
US forces do cock up - all forces do. However , those pilots do apear to have been poorly trained and have poor moral character, either that or they were just plain stupid and could'nt follow orders. Someone should pay for this incident...

Okay, first off, I'm not really sure what 'cock-up' means. I assume it's a British term for making a mistake but to me it's what happens when I see my fiance in her underwear. Come on man, speak English, lol (irony noted).

But to be serious, I really think it's unfair to say they have poor moral character or were poorly trained and stupid, they were in a war, and there was a group of what they believed to be Iraqi armored vehicles that they were sent to blow up. They requested confirmation a couple times and were advised there were NO friendly forces in the area, we all heard that, it SUCKS SO BAD that ANYBODY Iraqi or otherwise has to die for these bastard politicians on all sides, and it sucks even worse that they accidentally killed their own brothers, and yes you guys are our brothers (we were a British colony to begin with you know). As for the orange panel issue, is it really impossible to believe that the Iraqis wouldn't be above spray painting panels or rocket launchers on their vehicles in order to fool allied forces into coming in for a closer look and firing a rocket at them? Orange spray paint isn't exactly hard to come by.

If this is true then it does show something, youd think with the amount of brittish forces accross there that we'd have at least a couple of FF run-ins with the yanks. But no...

The force levels are FAR from equal and it's not a fair comparison IMO. Most of the accidents seem to have involved mistaken identity air strikes and there really weren't many British planes in action there. Pilots seem to rely very heavily on computers and third party info and it's just a given that mistakes will be made when there are seperate command chains working on the same field.

Those pilots clearly found it funny, cant say thats too proffesional.

I didn't hear any laughing at all, how is it clear to you they found it funny? They may not have screamed out in sorrow and disbelief but that could be because they were in a bit of shock and it hadn't fully sunken in that they attacked their allies, I really think you guys are being VERY unfair. Have any of you ever done something by accident that upset you so much you kind of sit there in half shock hoping you are wrong and it didn't really happen that way? I know I have.

I know its a bit off topic but going back to the shoot down of the tornado by the patriot battery at the opening stages of the war.

The tornado was identified as a Anti-Radiation Missile did the commander of the patriot battery not think hold on I've got a ARM that has just appeared from nowhere. Intelligence indicates there is no enemy air activity, AWACS and JSTARS aircraft report no contacts and neither does the combat air patrol.

And also do the Iraqi's have anti-radiation missiles and if so how did an Iraqi plane launch a ARM from cruising altitude with in the missiles strike range(lets say 80 miles) with out being detected. Also why is a high-speed missile(2000mph) travelling at the cruising speed of a combat aircraft(400+mph?).

.

Originally posted by carslake
The tornado was identified as a Anti-Radiation Missile did the commander of the patriot battery not think hold on I've got a ARM that has just appeared from nowhere. Intelligence indicates there is no enemy air activity, AWACS and JSTARS aircraft report no contacts and neither does the combat air patrol.

This is from the MoD on the issue....

The Patriot Battery crew were monitoring for Iraqi Tactical Ballistic Missiles when ZG710 was tracked by their system. The symbol which appeared on their radar indicated that an Anti-Radiation Missile was coming directly towards them. The track was interrogated for IFF but there was no response. Having met all classification criteria, the Patriot crew launched the missile, and the Tornado, mistaken for an "Anti-Radiation Missile", was engaged in self-defence. The Patriot crew had complied with extant self-defence Rules of Engagement for dealing with Anti-Radiation Missiles.
www.theregister.co.uk...

And also do the Iraqi's have anti-radiation missiles and if so how did an Iraqi plane launch a ARM from cruising altitude with in the missiles strike range(lets say 80 miles) with out being detected. Also why is a high-speed missile(2000mph) travelling at the cruising speed of a combat aircraft(400+mph?).

From the same article that is basically bashing the Patriot computer system, not the trigger happy yanks...

Patriot System Anti-Radiation Missile Classification.

9. The Patriot system identifies hostile missiles through their flight profile and other characteristics, including the lack of an IFF response. The criteria programmed into the Patriot computer were based on the many different Anti-Radiation Missiles available worldwide, and were therefore very broad.

ZG710's flight profile met these criteria as it commenced its descent into Ali Al Salem. The Board considered that the criteria should have been much tauter, based on the known threat from Iraq, and concluded that the generic Anti-Radiation Missile classification criteria programmed into the Patriot computer were a contributory factor in the accident.

And as far as the speed goes, I believe there are ARM's and HARM's, the latter being of high-speed, correct me if I'm wrong anybody...



[edit on 8-2-2007 by 27jd]

The verdict of the British enquiry is now in, as reported here and I must say I agree with it.

The impression I got from the reporting of the incident and the video itself is that the pilots acted in a gung-ho fashion paying little heed to procedure. They seemed to be keen simply to get a kill and managed to convince themselves that they were seeing enemy vehicles with orange rockets.

I guess all we can do now is try to make sure this sort of incident doesn't happen again, whether by reinforcing authorisations needed to engage enemies or by greater use of technology.

The pdf of the report can be found here.

originally posted by 27jd
As for the orange panel issue, is it really impossible to believe that the Iraqis wouldn't be above spray painting panels or rocket launchers on their vehicles in order to fool allied forces into coming in for a closer look and firing a rocket at them? Orange spray paint isn't exactly hard to come by.

The problem I have with this is that the orange panels should have at least given them pause for thought. If you know that friendly forces in the area will have something orange on top then you have to be 100% certain before going after something that fits that description.

Originally posted by Chris McGee
The problem I have with this is that the orange panels should have at least given them pause for thought. If you know that friendly forces in the area will have something orange on top then you have to be 100% certain before going after something that fits that description.

At the same time though, it would then be too easy for enemy forces to create ALOT of confusion and hesitation on the battlefield that would likely also cost allied lives by painting all their armor with orange, I doubt that's against any conventional rules of war, a color is a color, it's not like flying a false flag or anything. I think the orange paint is an extremely flawed idea and instead of a color, more (I'd shoot for 100% if I ran things) technical and command coordination is needed to avoid this type of incident.

[edit on 8-2-2007 by 27jd]

Originally posted by 27jd
At the same time though, it would then be too easy for enemy forces to create ALOT of confusion and hesitation on the battlefield that would likely also cost allied lives by painting all their armor with orange,

I'd agree with that in principle but in this particular case I don't think there were any reports of the Iraqis having orange rockets and, again in this particular case, it seems a little hesitation wouldn't have hurt their mission at all.

I think the orange paint is an extremely flawed idea and instead of a color, more (I'd shoot for 100% if I ran things) technical and command coordination is needed to avoid this type of incident.

Yes, with the computing power and technology available to us no-one can tell me that orange painted panels are the best we can come up with. I mean, would it be so difficult to have positions periodically reported through gps to all units in the area?

Thanks for that reply 27jd cleared that up nicely.

I suppose you take the human out of the loop your going to have mistakes like that.

.

[edit on 8-2-2007 by carslake]