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Post by rusti on Feb 7, 2007 17:26:15 GMT 1
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Post by nervouspete on Feb 7, 2007 23:53:23 GMT 1
Yeah, I saw this last night. It's frightening how a mistake or failure of communication can lead to death and injury in the military. I'm a bit angry at how some elements of our British press are calling for heads to roll, though. Friendly fire comes with warfare, and overall in modern warfare the percentages are very low. It's not symptomatic of American soldiers, and to my ears the A10 pilots sounded genuinely remorseful. The only sin is that the MoD and the US Military lied about the existence of the tapes. If they had answered the request early then there would have been ample closure.
I've friendly fired in the flightsims I've played, and more embarrassingly in Battlefield 2. I imagine it's as easy in real life.
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Post by richardburton on Feb 8, 2007 10:33:57 GMT 1
Yeah, unfortunately, friendly fire has always played a part in warfare dating back to when man first created missile weapons like bows and catapults. There is always an element of confusion when a battle begins and sometimes the wrong people get hit. It's a horrible thing, but it happens.
Those pilots were genuinely distressed when they found out. They were not to blame - their intelligence on the ground was at fault. The US and UK governments should have been honest - the familiy would have got closure much sooner and the media frenzy would have died down ages ago.
I play America's Army online and you get quite a few friendly fire incidents on there too.
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Post by rusti on Feb 8, 2007 15:31:43 GMT 1
What got me though was the orange panels bit. Its clear they knew the orange panels were friendlies and they even discussed the possibillities of it being friendly. In my book that means they lay off the trigger until they get POSITIVE ID.
Nah the pilots are as much to blame. Its clear they could talk to british controllers you heard the Brit controller at the end calling them off. How hard is a radio call to HQ to see if the Brits are in the area.
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Post by richardburton on Feb 8, 2007 17:20:58 GMT 1
That's who they asked twice whether there were friendlies in the area and twice they were told there weren't any. The column was about to reach a village where they wouldn't have been able to engage and also with the possibility that they would occupy it. They had to make a snap decision based on the intel they had been provided. Tragically it was the wrong decision, but they had to make the decision based on what they had been told.
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