Better command and control?

[Warin 0]

According to this story on CNN, it turns out that the first casualty during operation Anaconda was not from AQ/Taliban mortar fire, but instead fire from an AC-130 gunship.

I really believe that for the most part the American Army is pretty damn professional, but why the high incedences of friendly fire lately?

[Tovarish 0]

It's damn hard to tell what you're shooting at from a moving aircraft. This stuff has been happening ever since planes were used for war. You just hear a lot more about it these days....no internet around in WWII when a bomber formation would stray off course and bomb the wrong side of the front.

[DracoPaladore 0]

*Anti Aircraft Fire from a wedding

Errr...an AK?

Anyways, who ever is pilothing this thing should be taken out of the force. So far he's probobly killed more friendlys than Al Queda.

[dayglow 2]

It really is the advances in detection without IFF coming to the same level. When you've got millimeter radar and FLIR that can detect targets with pinpoint accuracy, and teh computer control to have afiring plateform like that then it's a lot of firepower that can be consintrated. Really C&C needs to catch up. 1000s of units are moving around and comms hasn't reached that level yet.

As for the wedding if you are flying and you see a bunch of tracers rising off the ground it looks like AA fire. Its a tragic mistake.

COLINMAN

[Akira 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tovarish @ Oct. 29 2002,17:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">no internet around in WWII when a bomber formation would stray off course and bomb the wrong side of the front.<span id='postcolor'>

Is in Operation Cobra.

Use B-17s for close support. Hmmmm...what could go wrong?

[Papageorge 0]

I think I the answer everyone is coming to. America's army of one isn't working. Tisk tisk, shoulda' joined the Marines and learned you are part of a brotherhood not alone ;-)

But seriously, no idea myself. Probaly just bad stroke of miss comunication like in Operation Desert Storm, when some un lucky Allies traveled through a Killbox that they were not informed about.

[FSPilot 0]

Accidents happen, that's just the way it is. There's no use trying to find fault or point fingers, it was an accident. Nobody meant for it to happen.

[Warin 0]

With all the micro miniaturised technology, they cant make an IFF transponder that can be carried at a squad level so these guys dont have to worry about getting their asses shot off by their own air support?

If they can spend all sorts of cash on OICW, why cant they spend some money on IFF for footsoldiers?

I realize that having something that radiates on a frequency could be bad if the opposing forces know where to listen, but at some point you need to have a way to diferentiate between the good guys and the bad guys before you blow the hell out of them.

Wouldnt have helped at that wedding, but it would have saved this guy, and four Canadians as well.

[advocatexxx 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Warin @ Oct. 29 2002,13:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I realize that having something that radiates on a frequency could be bad if the opposing forces know where to listen<span id='postcolor'>

Al Qaida and Taliban disallowed TV in their country prior to US intervention. I wouldn't go as far as to think they have the capability of monitoring, furthermore being able to pinpoint the source of any such transmission.

[Warin 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (advocatexxx @ Oct. 29 2002,19:36)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Al Qaida and Taliban disallowed TV in their country prior to US intervention.  I wouldn't go as far as to think they have the capability of monitoring, furthermore being able to pinpoint the source of any such transmission.<span id='postcolor'>

I was thinking more in a general sense with a more technologically capable opfor

[FSPilot 0]

To find a cure for these accidents, if it's even possible, you'd have to go through each incident, find something in common, then fix that. For all we know the pilots may have known exactly where the friendly forces on, but dropped the bomb wrong. Maybe the friendly forces gave their coordinates wrong. Maybe the bomb malfunctioned and went someplace else. There's a whole list of things that could go wrong.

And I believe the new land warrior program does have some sort of IFF. Not IFF persay, but sort of a GPS that shows everyone's location. I think I saw it on TV, lol.

[Angry Radish 0]

I'm not sure how the other services work, but we only loaded 2 days worth of IFF mode4 codes on our aircraft. I figure that bmp's and the like would HAVE to have codes for longer, if they are deployed, but how would you handle troops being equipped too? Also, wouldn't safeguarding the equipment be more difficult? Sorry if I sound stupid on this, I've just never really thought of the application of IFF outside the little bubble I worked in:-)

[Warin 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Angry Radish @ Oct. 29 2002,20:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I'm not sure how the other services work, but we only loaded 2 days worth of IFF mode4 codes on our aircraft.  I figure that bmp's and the like would HAVE to have codes for longer, if they are deployed, but how would you handle troops being equipped too? Also, wouldn't safeguarding the equipment be more difficult? Sorry if I sound stupid on this, I've just never really thought of the application of IFF outside the little bubble I worked in:-)<span id='postcolor'>

That's a really good point. With encrypted satellite communications being as good as they are, I am sure they could download new IFF codes every couple of days as required.

The way I see it is not that each man would have an IFF device. Now, not being in the military I am just making a semi educated guess, but doesnt each squad carry some sort of radio? How hard would it be to add an LSI to these radios that would handle frequency usage and the actual IFF queries? Of course, you'll always run into situations where that radio has been shot up, or is out of batteries, or got dropped in a pool of water, etc. But still, something would be better than nothing, right?

[arkadeyevich 0]

The choise of evils as I see it:

1. Add more encrypted gadgets

or

2. Less effective air power: More restrictive ROE, more micro managing

or

3. Accept that friendly fire is something that happens form time to time

I don't think adding more gadgets is the answer. There is the danger of becoming dependent on them, and when the gadged fails as they tend to do from time to time, the result could be just as fatal as todays FF incidents.

Besides, anything encrypted that is as critical as this is a mayor hassle to handle securely. What happens if the man carrying the codes in one squad is missing after a contact?