NOTE: I will be posting
either a soldiers’ quote or soldiers’ article once a month.
I
chose an article on Friendly Fire as the Soldiers’ Article of the Month, as
Arthur Aaron Louis was killed in a Friendly Fire on this date, 13 August 1943.
I got the information from Wikipedia.
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Friendly fire
is an attack by a military force on friendly forces while attempting to attack
the enemy, either misidentifying the target as hostile, or due to errors or
inaccuracy. Such attacks often cause injury or death. Fire not intended to
attack the enemy, such as negligent or malicious discharge, or deliberate
firing on one's own troops for disciplinary reasons, is not called friendly
fire. Nor is unintentional harm to non-combatants or structures, sometimes
referred to as collateral damage.
Use
of the term "friendly" in a military context for allied personnel or
materiel dates from the First World War, often for shells falling short. The
term friendly fire was originally adopted by the United States military.
Many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) militaries refer to these
incidents as blue on blue, which derives from military exercises where
NATO forces were identified by blue pennants and units representing Warsaw Pact
forces by orange pennants.
1 Addressing friendly
fire
Friendly
fire is often seen as an inescapable result of combat, and because it only
accounts for a small percentage of casualties, can often be dismissed as
irrelevant to the outcome of a battle. The effects of friendly fire, however,
are not just material. Troops expect to be targeted by the enemy, but being hit
by their own forces has a huge negative impact on morale. Forces doubt the
competence of their command, and its prevalence makes commanders more cautious
in the field.
Attempts
to reduce this effect by military leaders generally come down to identifying
the causes of friendly fire and overcoming repetition of the incident through
training, tactics and technology.
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1.1 Causes
Friendly
fire arises from the "fog of war" – the confusion inherent in warfare.
Friendly fire that is the result of apparent recklessness or incompetence may
be improperly lumped into this category. The concept of a fog of war has come
under considerable criticism, as it can be used as an excuse for poor planning,
weak or compromised intelligence and incompetent command.
Errors of position occur when fire aimed at enemy forces may accidentally
end up hitting one's own. Such incidents are exacerbated by close proximity of
combatants and were relatively common during the First and Second World Wars,
where troops fought in close combat and targeting was relatively inaccurate. As
the accuracy of weapons improved, this class of incident has become less common
but still occurs.
Errors of identification happen when friendly troops are
mistakenly attacked in the belief that they are the enemy. Highly mobile
battles, and battles involving troops from many nations are more likely to
cause this kind of incident as evidenced by incidents in the first Gulf War, or
the shooting down of a British aircraft by a U.S. Patriot battery during the
Invasion of Iraq. In the Tarnak Farm incident, four Canadian soldiers
were killed and eight others injured when a U.S. Air National Guard Major
dropped a 500 lb (230 kg) bomb from his F-16 onto the Princess
Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry regiment which was conducting a night firing
exercise near Kandahar. Another case of such an accident was the death of Pat Tillman
in Afghanistan, although the exact circumstances of that incident are yet to be
definitively determined.
In
preparation for the invasion of Normandy "invasion
stripes" were painted on Allied aircraft to assist identification. Similar markings had been used when the Hawker
Typhoon was first introduced into use as it was otherwise very similar in
profile to a German aircraft. Late in the war the "protection
squadron" that covered the elite
German jet fighter squadron as it landed or took off were brightly painted
to distinguish them from raiding Allied fighters.
A
number of situations can lead to or exacerbate the risk of friendly fire. Poor
terrain and visibility are major factors. Soldiers fighting on unfamiliar
ground can become disoriented more easily than on familiar terrain. The
direction from which enemy fire comes may not be easy to identify, and poor
weather conditions and combat stress may add to the confusion, especially if
fire is exchanged. Accurate navigation and fire discipline are vital. In
high-risk situations, leaders need to ensure units are properly informed of the
location of friendly units and to issue clear, unambiguous orders, but they
must also react correctly to responses from soldiers who are capable of using
their own judgement. Miscommunication can be deadly. Radios, field telephones,
and signalling systems can be used to address the problem, but when these
systems are used to co-ordinate multiple forces such as ground troops and
aircraft, their breakdown can dramatically increase the risk of friendly fire.
When allied troops are operating the situation is even more complex, especially
with language barriers to overcome.
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Specialist Patrick Daniel Tillman (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman)
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1.2 Solutions
1.2.1 Training
Most
militaries use extensive training to ensure troop safety as part of normal
co-ordination and planning, but are not always exposed to possible
friendly-fire situations to ensure they are aware of situations where the risk
is high. Difficult terrain and bad weather cannot be controlled, but soldiers
must be trained to operate effectively in these conditions, as well as trained
to fight at night. Such simulated training is now commonplace for soldiers
worldwide. Avoiding friendly fire can be as straightforward as ensuring fire
discipline is instilled in troops, so that they fire and cease firing when they
are told to. Firing ranges now also include 'Don't Fire' targets.
The
increasing sophistication of weaponry, and the tactics employed against
American forces to deliberately confuse them has meant that while overall
casualties have fallen for American soldiers in the late 20th and 21st
centuries, the overall percentage deaths due to friendly fire in American
actions have risen dramatically. In the 1991 Gulf War, most of the Americans
killed by their own forces were crew members of armored vehicles hit by
anti-tank rounds. The response in training includes recognition training for
Apache helicopter crews to help them distinguish American tanks and armored
vehicles at night and in bad weather from those of the enemy. In addition, tank
gunners must watch under fire in drills for "friendly" robotic tanks
that pop out on training courses in California's Mojave Desert. They also study
video footage to help them recognize American forces in battle more quickly.
1.2.2 Technology
Improved
technology to assist in identifying friendly forces is also an ongoing response
to friendly fire problems. From the earliest days of warfare, identification
systems were visual and developed into extremely elaborate suits of armour with
distinctive heraldic
patterns. When radar
was developed during World War II, IFF systems to identify aircraft
developed into a multitude of radio beacons.
Correct
navigation
is vital to ensuring units know where they are in relation to their own force
and the enemy. Efforts to provide accurate compasses inside metal boxes in
tanks and trucks has proven difficult, with GPS a major breakthrough.
Government contractors are rushing to perfect infra-red and
carbon dioxide laser
beacons that can be mounted on armored vehicles and that will identify
themselves to their own forces.
Other
technological changes include hand-held navigational devices that use satellite
signals, giving ground forces the exact location of enemy forces as well as
their own. The use of infra-red lights and thermal tape that are invisible to
observers without night-goggles, or fibres and dyes that reflect only specific
wavelengths are still in their infancy, but may prove to be key identifiers for
friendly infantry units at night.
There
is also some development of remote sensors to detect enemy vehicles – the
Remotely Monitored Battlefield Sensor System (REMBASS) uses a combination of acoustic,
seismic vibration, and infrared to not just detect, but identify vehicles.
1.2.3 Tactics
Some
tactics make friendly fire virtually inevitable, such as the practice of
dropping barrages of mortars on enemy machine gun posts in the final moments
before capture. This practice continued throughout the 20th century since
machine guns were first used in World War I, and the high friendly fire risk
has generally been accepted by troops since machine gun emplacements are tactically
so valuable, and at the same time so dangerous that the attackers wanted them
to be shelled, considering the shells far less deadly than the machine guns.
Tactical adjustments include the use of "kill boxes", or zones that
are placed off-limits to ground forces while allied aircraft attack targets,
which goes back to the beginning of military aircraft in World War I.
The
shock and awe battle tactics adopted by the American military – overwhelming
power, battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of
force – are employed because they are believed to be the best way to win a war
quickly and decisively, reducing casualties on both sides. However, if the only
people doing the shooting are American, then a high percentage of total
casualties are bound to be the result of friendly fire, blunting the
effectiveness of the shock and awe tactic. It is probably the fact that
friendly fire has proven to be the only fundamental weakness of the tactics
that has caused the American military to take significant steps to overturn a
blasé attitude to friendly fire and assess ways to eliminate it.
Historical
examples
There
have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military
history, and no doubt before, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all
casualties in battle. The examples listed below illustrate their range and
diversity, but this does not reflect increasing frequency. The rate of
friendly fire, once allowance has been made for the numbers of troops committed
to battle, has remained remarkably stable over the past 200 years.
Please
go to this link to learn more.
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