Friendly fire

[killagee 0]

When my Grandfather served on the HMNZS Achilles in WW II, he was only fired at once... By an american frigate in the same battlegroup...

When my Great Uncle served in the Pacific flying Kittyhawks, he was shot down by an American, in another Kittyhawk...

A few months back a New Zealand SAS FAC soldier (and 5 others) were killed by an american bomb dropped by an F/A-18 in Kuwait...

The Canadians bombed by F-16's in Afghanastan...

Not to mention hundreds of their own Blue on Blue casualties...

Does this occur purely because the americans have so many operations or do they actually have a problem?

How often do you have friendly fire problems in OFP?

[ralphwiggum 6]

probably becuase back then many ppl had enough experience to make sure they shoot at right thing.....the war was long, and if you survived sometime, you'd be able to think ok...but when US gets into war thesedays, it's short, and despite all the trainging, FFs happen...

i'm ususally the cause of FF in OFP

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Well, you gotta admit, you arent gonna have any FF incidents unless you are out there doing something. But I think also there is a certain measure of 'trigger happy' in American soldiers, who receive some of the best training and equipment in the world, and want to get a chance to use it. Coupled with our incredibly advanced (to a point- we can find em, but we cant tell if they are friendly or not lol) recon assets, and our extremely deadly weaponry generates an environment where when mistakes happen, there is a much higher chance of the mistakes ending up with pine coffins being sent home. Everyone wants to be high speed, but when you fuck up at high speeds it aint pretty.

So, as usual, I think the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle ground.

[killagee 0]

Yeah true enough. Surely there is a big market for Platoon / Vehicle based IFF systems. Difficult to do though I imagine., and difficult to make secure.

How about we make sure that in any given conflict in the future the enemy paint themselves red, and we paint ourselves blue...hehe

I think Friendly Fire will get worse before it gets better, owing to the increasing assymentrical nature of modern warfare. These days, you dont often have distinct frontlines.

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

imho its a case of technology, despite being pretty flash, being incapable of being relied upon to do EVERYTHING. Maybe a lack of communication between coalition forces as well.

Its like why women are better drivers - there are WAAAAAY mnore male drivers willing to dirve on motorways and in hazardous conditions, the US have WAAAAAAAY more pilots willing to fire off ordnance as well as waaaay more responsibility etc...

[Badgerboy 0]

They not 'better' drivers! They are 'safer' drivers according to Insurance companies.

Blokes tend to hammer cars into walls etc at high speeds, as we tend to drive faster (which isn't safe). Women run cars into posts, other cars etc all time when parking, which doesn't get claimed on the insurance. Therefore according to insurance companies women are 'safer' drivers.

'There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics'

As for 'better' drivers. Well look at Mr Schumacher. He pelts round a track at 180mph, which is not safe, but he is one of the best drivers in the world. How many females in F1 eh? (There was one, who got one drive, and slammed it into a pitwall)

(I only rant as I am fed up by women telling me at every chance that they are better drivers. Then I look at the dents and scratches all over the cars and wonder why)

*Disclaimer* This applies on average. There are good female drivers out there, but not as many as the insurance companies would like to make out

[Col. Kurtz 0]

A real notorius FF accidnet involving the Americans happened durring WW2 on the Western France somewhere in France. A large force of B-17 Bombers that were supposed to bomb enemy lines accidently, due to the weather, bombed their own lines. Over 1,000 American soldiers were killed including a US General over from Washington, the highest ranking US General to be killed in the conflict. But lets not let this stray on to another Anti-American thread. People make mistakes, the American military just makes more than the average bear, but let us not forget the accidental bombing of a civilian convoy of civilians by the RAF Durring the Kosovo conflict.

[killagee 0]

Yeah I aggree. You must be willing to place lives on the line whenever the military go into operations. Even training, excersices, driving to work in the morning, flying in a plane, walking down the street. I read once where an old woman was killed in her sleep when the frozen corpse of a stowaway, fresh from the undercarraige of a landing plane, fell through her roof and killed her.

[Col. Kurtz 0]

Damn.

True, civilians and FF happens when war does, but it can be kept to a minimum with careful planning which ceratin*unamed*armies lack.

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

woops

[Tex -USMC- 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Col. Kurtz @ Aug. 24 2002,14:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A real notorius FF accidnet involving the Americans happened durring WW2 on the Western France somewhere in France. A large force of B-17 Bombers that were supposed to bomb enemy lines accidently, due to the weather, bombed their own lines. Over 1,000 American soldiers were killed including a US General over from Washington, the highest ranking US General to be killed in the conflict. But lets not let this stray on to another Anti-American thread<span id='postcolor'>

That was a case of using a strategic weapon for a tactical purpose, in this case, to punch a hole through Panzer Lehr Division's line.

[Cloney 0]

Yes, things get messy when 800lb bombs start falling on your soldiers...

[cam0flage 0]

Friendly fire situations are really dangerous on every level. Especially platoon and company commanders must be aware of their squads movements at all times, otherwise there is a risk that squads might break the usual line formation, and get shot to pieces by other squads. Flanking movements are also very risky.

I got a good example when our military police company attacked a naval base in the southern coast of Finland. We were shooting blanks and using combat simulators (laser transmitter in the weapon and receivers in the combat vest). Communications systems broke down between the platoons, and 150 soldiers out of 200 were destroyed from friendly fire.

You can imagine how many push-ups we had to do after getting the results of the attack

// cam0flage

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

NATO forces are making all those visual displays with all the snazzy technology that among other things classifies hostile, friendly and neutral's. We'll probably rely on this technology too much and when it fucks up, we'll be killing our own troops all the time probably

[Rob 1]

Some day, just someday, the government will create headsets that will detect enemy and friendlies through walls etc and im sure then that they wont fuck up.

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Rob @ Aug. 26 2002,20:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Some day, just someday, the government will create headsets that will detect enemy and friendlies through walls etc and im sure then that they wont fuck up.<span id='postcolor'>

Governments say how things won't fuck up all the time and they still fuck up

[Denwad 0]

Well duh! Thats the catch with unproven technology.

But come on! The F-16 is still using 286's as their computer! The F-22 had a 100 mhz "supercomputer" back in 1996!

[RedStorm 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Denwad @ Aug. 26 2002,21:30)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Well duh!   Thats the catch with unproven technology.

But come on! The F-16 is still using 286's as their computer! The F-22 had a 100 mhz "supercomputer" back in 1996!<span id='postcolor'>

Huh?! So my Personal Computer is actually much more effective than the on-board computer system of an F-16 Fighter? Cool!

[Sadico 1]

100 mhz?? c'mon, i had a p-150 in 1996!

[Rob 1]

well i had a 166 at least.... nothing less

[Warin 0]

Ok, some things to remember:

The computer systems in a combat aircraft have to be hardened agains thingsl ike electomagnetic pulse. They also have to be able to stand high g loads, and the impact of landings.

Alo, they are not general purpose computers. They dont need to check email, or write an essay. And they certainly do not run on Windows

So trying to say 'Wow, that's weak' isnt really accurate, because that 100mhz computer will do the job it needs to and be hightly reliable at it. Unlike a home user,there really isnt a need to upgrade what is a good system already.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

I wanna upgrade to XP, but the fly by wire software is taking up all the resources! Useless POS!

lol

[dayglow 2]

This is from the Raytheon page:

The F-22 Common Integrated Processor is the first fully integrated avionics processing system.

Developed as “the brain†of the U.S. Air Force's F-22 Raptor, the F-22 CIP represents a breakthrough in modern processing technology. The modular, fault-tolerant F-22 CIP configuration employs 43 data processor nodes and 33 signal processor nodes, all interconnected for efficient sharing of computational tasks. Information is fused into a clear, concise picture of the combat situation. Such computing means dramatic reduction in pilot workload, allowing the pilot to focus on winning air-to-air combat and returning unscathed from battle.

The F-22 CIP features an advanced high-speed computer that conforms to the Joint Integrated Avionics Working Group (JIAWG) and Pave Pillar guidelines. Using a heterogeneous, switch-based architecture, the F-22 CIP hosts mission processing and sensor fusion; radar signal and data processing; integrated electronic warfare processing; and integrated communications, navigation, and identification processing applications.

The F-22 CIP's planned evolution includes two upgrades. The first, the CIP 2000 program, currently contracted through the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin, will further reduce the CIP's already attractive price. The second upgrade improves the CIP's impressive processing performance.

Air-cooled CIP modules supply the processing power to the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter's communication, navigation, and identification system. Liquid-cooled CIP modules are used for the F-22 Raptor.

There are 2 in the F-22 with room to add a third in the future. It all runs on a 50Mbit bus. In comparission the F-15E carries 3 286 processors to run everything.

COLINMAN

[Cloney 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Col. Kurtz @ Aug. 24 2002,14:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Damn.

True, civilians and FF happens when war does, but it can be kept to a minimum with careful planning which ceratin*unamed*armies lack.<span id='postcolor'>

..... Actually. I don't want to start a flame war so I wont say anything. Good Day ...

[DarkLight 0]

Aaaaaaaah come on, a good ol' flamewar is exactly what this forum needs!