Friendly Fire

[Dinger]

I empathize with the pilots, but I'm afraid the tape clearly shows it's their responsibility here.

It's a saturated environment. The A-10 guys are working through the ANGLICO to adjust artillery fires. Meanwhile they're processing a second a target. There's also confusion on both sides about what other air traffic is on channel. (Or maybe not confusion, just plenty of other traffic)

So they spot these vehicles and wonder if they're friendlies. Among calls for the other target, they ask if there are any friendlies in the area. The ANGLICO says no, and they're not convinced. They call again. Eventually, based on the ANGLICO's information they "normalize" the cognitive dissonance, and decide those panels are orange rockets.

That's not how the process is supposed to work. When "something doesn't feel right",  it's often because the data on the world are in conflict. Especially in such a situation, you cannot rely on any single indicator. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about your eyes out the cockpit, the artificial horizon, or a FAC -- if you rely on a single source of information about the world, bad things happen.

As far as FACs go, ANGLICOs may be very good, but they still make mistakes. Pilots do too, and here they made the mistake of seeing what the radio told them to see, and not what their eyes saw. They made it worse by not vocalizing their dissonance to the FAC.

[Shamus]

Originally posted by LePaul
I

I also do not agree with someone in the Pentagon taking it upon themselves to leak classified data.  Regardless of their "good" intentions.

I disagree, screwup's  by government employee's should not be protected by the good old "classified" tag.

shamus

[Maverick]

The FAC's job is to spot and allocate targets. It's a bit similar to artillery. If the FAC hads dropped arty rounds on the vehicles, say guided munitions like Copperheads, would you be all over the arty crews for firing on the target?

The pilots questioned the target multiple times and were told multiple times there were no friendlies there, that this was a legit target. Orange panels are not an exclusive item. They are available outside the US and UK military. Just like hiding in a civilian environment as was done in Lebanon, panels can be placed on enemy vehicles by the enemy as well.

There is a reason for the phrase "fog of war". It's not a computer game where things are nice and simple and you get to have a "do over" if things don't go your way. Close air support is a danger to friendlies because you don't sit in nice prepared obvious locations that can be easily determined from 3 miles away.

It's a fratricide incident. It is extremely regretable but not something that does not and never will happen. Fortunately it is dropping in frequency from what it used to be but it will never ever go away for good. Combat and warfare are not easy, neat or predictable. Mistakes do and will happen and all you an do is to try to minimize them.

Those pilots will be punishing themselves for the rest of their lives over this. Don't think they won't feel bad about this situation.

If you want to punish someone it should be the one(s) that made the decision to try and cover it up or just hush it up. They made something very regretable into something very much like a conspiracy to those who have no clue what the world is like in that circumstance.

[rogerdee]

The families now know what really happend thats all they have ever wanted to know to try to under stand how and why it happened.

  if they had been told all them years ago it still would have hurt but not as much as all the lies told to them.

[Dinger]

Well, on your logic, the pilots engaged a target without the FAC allocating it. The FAC never cleared them hot on the Brits, and the first he knew they were engaging was their "rolling in" call. If the CAS mode required them to get permission to engage, then the A-10 pilots screwed up. If not, then the A-10 pilots were the ones who made the identification, not the FAC, and they were the ones who screwed up.

There are all kinds of accusations flying around (the Sun "expert" misinterprets every shred of detail to make these pilots look really bad.)
Rule #1 is "if you're not sure of the target, don't drop or fire on it."
They weren't sure of the target. That's evident. Yet they fired on it, anyway. Was theirs a criminal act? Frankly, I don't see what sending them to jail would do for anybody.

Now, why it happened is interesting: with the ANGLICO, they are adjusting fire on an artillery target (vehicles in revetments), that is different from the CAS target they spot. The ANGLICO is occupied with this process: he's in comms with the firing battery processing an adjust fire (NORTH 800) and getting an accurate timing so he can have the A-10s observe.

The pilots spot the "new target", and suspect it's friendly. At this point, things go askew. The pilots are fixating on the "4 or 5 evenly spaced vehicles", while the ANGLICO is heads down with a fire mission.

Rather than accurately call out the new target, the pilots prejudice the ANGLICO's answer, asking something like "There aren't any friendlies this far up North, are there?"
They are now talking at cross-purposes.

Whether the ANGLICO had accurate target information or not, he's focusing on plotting a target considerably north of where the pilots are looking. So even if he knew about the recce column, he wouldn't give a response concerning it.

Things now get bad, as the ANGLICO and the pilots step on each other trying to get information on their separate tasks. The pilots do not ask about seeing orange, but rather about what kind of rocket launchers the Iraqis have.

Now the envelope starts to close: the pilots are approaching the end of their alloted time, and the vehicles are approaching a village. Rather than waiting for an ID, or getting more target information from the ANGLICO, or setting up a closer pass for identification, or even trying to ask permission to engage (assuming they needed it), they roll in, guns hot, after not-quite IDing the target from 6000 feet.

You can imagine the surprise of the ANGLICO, who the whole time was working on a different target, when all of a sudden his A-10s break off and engage friendlies.
The aircraft acted independently of the the terminal controller.

[Mace2004]

Maybe I'm missing something here but where's the "coverup" or "lies"?  I've seen nothing where the US denied it happened or claimed it wasn't a blue-on-blue engagement.  I can see where some family member or friends of the family claim they were lied to, but they appear to be talking about the existance of the tape, not the incident itself.  There's alot of posturing and pontificating by lawyers and family friends but nobody claims they were told it didn't happen.  If someone has then please post.

As for the tapes, yes, HUD camera film is generally classified as are all military after action reports.  It's standard procedure because you don't want the enemy to have access to this info, it's not for "coverup" purposes.  Suppose for instance the video had been released and seen by Iraqi forces.  Think maybe we'd see a sudden proliferation of orange panels on top of Iraqi vehicles since that is obviously being used by coalition forces for visual ID of friendlies?  

As far as releasing the tapes, that's up to the political appointees in the Pentagon but there is no justification in doing so here and, quite frankly, I couldn't care less what the family "wants."  This isn't a case of some civilian walking down the street in London and getting intentionally swacked by some nutcase pilot in peacetime this is war and disciplinary action is well established as the purview of the military courts, not some civilian court.  I also love the holier-than-thou comments in the other links claiming that this is solely a US problem, I suppose the UK has never, and would never, ever have a blue-on-blue engagement.

Edit:  I just checked the report posted by Myelo.  Seems a UK Challenger hosed down another Challenger killing two fellow Brits and a UK Marine was killed by UK Commandos.  Also, the US reported the facts of the A-10 incident in Oct 2003.  The UK didn't even begin it's military inquiry until Feb 2004.  This UK MOD report came out in Feb 2006.  Again, where's the coverup and lies?

[straffo]

Originally posted by Maverick
...The pilots questioned the target multiple times and were told multiple times there were no friendlies there, that this was a legit target. Orange panels are not an exclusive item. They are available outside the US and UK military. Just like hiding in a civilian environment as was done in Lebanon, panels can be placed on enemy vehicles by the enemy as well....

I don't get it , if the orange panel have no purpose like you seem to suggest why use it ?

[bzek74]

Friendly fire happens everyday. If they burn these pilots they are just as wrong. Revoke flight status pending evaluation and appeals is what should happen here. Im not saying this is right but the media is trying to give the public the image of two John Waynes blazing out of the sky screaming die Brit die. These pilots will be seeing a shrink for years to come because of this and a regret that will never leave them. It was a judgement call and had they dove on a enemy convoy you wouldnt see heroic american pilots save brit convoy in the news.

Thats the sad thing about all this your sons and daughters and relatives serving overseas have the weight on thier shoulders of putting others lives in thier hands, and if they choose wrong they can get jailed for it. If they do the right thing its all a good day. Soldiers are not being recognized for the 110% effort they give daily and that a vast majority have the question of why am I here. Sure we have the whole ribbon thing and a few other means of support. Take a look around and notice how many of those car ribbons are faded. How many tattered flags hang in yards?

The military candy coats the numbers as overtime. If they posted it in military terms and came out and said yes thus far we have suffered a brigade sized element in deaths and sent a divisions worth back home banged up it might catch more public attention.

I cant image how it was for the Nam vets, but this whole war from start to present with the mess ups, media circus, the secrets and scandles enrage me there are TOO many unanswered questions. Our troops need to be at home, in 4 years we have not found one weapon of mass distruction which is why we invaded. Our men and women in uniform know this as does this country. We are slowly losing democracy and the American dream.

90prf

[Mace2004]

You're absolutely right bqek74.  We have between 40,000 and 50,000 people die every single year on the highways of America.  During the time we've lost 3,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan we've lost over 120,000 men, women and children driving or riding in cars.  In military terms that's something like 40 brigades, no telling how many divisions of wounded we have.  You're also right, so many unanswered questions and scandals like why don't we require 5 point restraint harnesses?  Why don't we require full face helmets?  Why don't our cars have roll cages or fire suppression systems?  Why are we sending our population out on the streets with inadequate protection and why aren't all of our cars up-armored?  I say it's time to call it quits and bring our cars home.

[bzek74]

Didnt require sarcasm, I did 10 years active and Ive lost a few friends and had twice that injured and suffering from other issues all due to events over there. And as far as your sarcasm go install a 5 point harness on your car and buy a helmet. Theres alot more we can do for control and prevention in the homeland. The men and women in the middle east have no choice but to follow orders...those orders passed probably from a general and a politician calling them in from a cell phone in Florida. I did a year in the desert and thankfully when it wasnt as explosive as it is now. If you did your time in the sand you merit the right to sarcasm if you didnt...well I wont go there.


90prf

[Maverick]

Originally posted by straffo
I don't get it , if the orange panel have no purpose like you seem to suggest why use it ?

I did not state they had no purpose. Neither did I imply it. I did state that orange panels are not exclusive to the UK or US military forces. In other words even the bad guys might give a thought to putting them on their vehicles to disguise them. The panels are not proof that the vehicle is friendly that's why the pilots asked repeatedly if there were friendlies in the area.

Same thing for popping smoke for inbound aircraft to mark friendly positions. You don't say what color smoke you will pop, you just pop it and have the pilot ID the color and you confirm it. The bad guys have smoke grenades too.

[Mace2004]

It wasn't meant so much as sarcasm as irony.  Just asking for a little perspective as those that harp most about losses evidently think it's far more important to be comfortable when driving down to the corner store for a pack of cigarettes than to serve national interests.  

(Sarcasm alert) Orders passed on by a General who takes his direction from the civilian politicians?  How astonishing.  Oh, wait, isn't that the way it's set up in the Constitution.  What would you prefer, the PFC's running the show?  Just so you know, the war is being run from in theater, not here in Tampa.

BTW 24 years and about a year combat time over that desert or doesn't that count since it wasn't technically "in the sand"?

[Wolfala]

Gentlemen,


Those of us who are professionals and deal with these issues every day know that blue on blue incidents can never be eliminated during war.

I'd encourage you to remember back in 1991 when Apache's opened up on friendly Bradley IFV's b/c the grid coordinates he was given didn't match up with his computer, but he made the decision to fire anyway. Here is that video on my site:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=662494965

Even with comms from the Apache's going back to the TOC asking about the locations of the enemy armor and noticing his INS wasn't matching up the grid he was told their location was - the decision making process was much the same in this incident 15 years ago as it was for these A-10 drivers 3 years ago.

Other things we don't know are the ROE being used by the A-10s. Was it a free-fire zone? We're the Marine FAC's talking to the A-10s before they rolled in or were they on a different NET?

Part of the reason you don't see many blue on blue incidents in the USMC is their FAC's and air assets are organic. Item's we've seen implemented since 03 have been limited deployments of blue-force tracking - especially for the Army units.

You will never eliminate fracticide, communications will break down and in the end, the pilot has to live with the decisions made. That in of itself is a punishment enough. Its not our right to judge him for making a decision which 95% of us did not join up to make, and i'd gather would rather have someone else make for us.


Respectfully,

Wolf

[bzek74]

Sorry then Mace I tend to take this whole affair rather serious, it seems like 911 gave most americas a shot of I love my country they all went out and bought flags to hang up and such...years later those same flags are hanging as rags in the same place.

I remember telling my mother when I was being deployed and her reaction and I know theres parents and soldiers on here and I couldnt imagine being a parent. Its the support they get from letters and calls from home that help them get back safe.

Alot of Americas brass are opposed to the war overthere so if its in tampa or a comm truck on the frontline suits still carry weight. Theres always gonna be a 50/50 opinion on this from kids in school, to the warrant 5 with 36 years service.

With this whole Iraq deal these pilots are another log on the fire to appeal to the masses who want to be assured that we are handling issues in a professional manner. Makes me wonder if there had been more media in ww2....

90prf

[Benny Moore]

Originally posted by bzek74
Makes me wonder if there had been more media in ww2....

... Then we'd probably be speaking German or Japanese right now.

One question - what if that convoy headed for the town had been enemy, and the A-10 pilots had not attacked?