Freethought & Rationalism Archive

John Hancock · 03-24-2003, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kwigibo
Is it still called friendly fire when you knowingly attack your own men?

kwigibo

That is termed fratricide. Many junior officers (and some higher ranking ones too) were victims of this dishonorable practice. Althought the thought crossed the minds of many members in my own unit we could not betray our oath.

Martin Buber

elwoodblues · 03-24-2003, 03:05 PM

Quote:

That is termed fratricide. Many junior officers (and some higher ranking ones too) were victims of this dishonorable practice. Althought the thought crossed the minds of many members in my own unit we cold not betray our oath.

Hypothetically putting myself in, say, Vietnam, with a suitably fucked up/moronic/suicidal CO, I think I might.

HaysooChreesto! · 03-24-2003, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kwigibo
Is it still called friendly fire when you knowingly attack your own men?

They didn't knowingly attack that Tornado. The IFF wasn't working properly and so they had to assume it was an enemy. It's tragic to be sure. But it's downright mean spirited to say that Amercans shot Brits out of the sky just for the hell of it.
Why would you say something like that?

elwoodblues · 03-24-2003, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Why would you say something like that?

Err, I don't think he did. Sounded like an honest question to me.

ImGod · 03-24-2003, 03:15 PM

It's more likely he was refering to the US soldier who attacked his commanders.

Friendly fire doesn't surprise me considering with all of our high tech weapons the US has managed to hit two other countries with missles by accident. Adverse conditions contribute to the number of mistakes.

Duck! · 03-24-2003, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Deadend
Statistics from The American War Library

American friendly fire-casualties

WW II       - 21%
Korea        - 18%
Vietnam    - 39%
Gulf War I - 49%

Are those figures right?

I was of the opinion that c. 50,000 US troops died in Vietnam. Does that mean that almost 20,000 died at the hands of their own army?

Duck!

HaysooChreesto! · 03-24-2003, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by elwoodblues
Err, I don't think he did. Sounded like an honest question to me.

Maybe I'm missing something then.

Deadend · 03-25-2003, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by NialScorva
Vietnam was a clusterfuck, that's not up for a debate. Consider the scale of the action in Gulf War I, where the total death count for the coalition was around 100... 49% becomes somewhat misrepresentative of the situation. Perhaps a more useful metric would be friendly kills per 1000 troops per month of action?

I don't see where these numbers have any bearing.

True, 165 friendly-fire casualties (both lethal and non-lethal), according to 'The American War Library' on 600,000 deployed troops is not quite as impressive as 49% casualties due to 'friendly fire'

(Or 107 casualties and 17%, as most other sources claim)

Deadend · 03-25-2003, 01:59 AM

I must admit that I've been lazy. I had read about these numbers, and their source (The American War Library) in a Dutch newspaper article and assumed the reporter would have checked its credibility.

Quote:

Originally posted by Duck of Death
Are those figures right?

I was of the opinion that c. 50,000 US troops died in Vietnam. Does that mean that almost 20,000 died at the hands of their own army?

Duck!

Well, what I should have included, but hadn't, was: "Both fatal and non-fatal (These figures do not include murders or deliberate/accidental self-inflicted wounds/fatalities)"
After doing an internet search I could not find any other sources that name numbers as high as they are according to The American War Library.

Quote:

Friendly fire looms as wartime problem by Rick Montgomery
In World War II, fratricide claimed hundreds of U.S. troops during the Normandy campaign. Estimates of total casualties attributed to friendly fire vary widely: from 2 percent to 21 percent of all casualties in the second World War, 2 percent to 18 percent in the Korean War and 2 percent to 39 percent in Vietnam.

Most of the documents I've read put the percentage of 'friendly fire-casualties' of the conflicts preceding the 1st Gulf War at about 2%. The most likely source of those figures is "a landmark study of 269 instances of fratricide in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The study was completed in 1982 by Army Lt. Col. Charles R. Shrader for the Army Combat Studies Institute at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan." From here, that same article also notes:

Quote:

Friendly Fire by Stewart M. Powell
Mr. Hawkins, formerly a platoon leader and rifle company commander in the 101st Airborne Division, went back through casualty reports from one battalion during a four-month period of the Vietnam War in 1970. He found that more than thirteen percent of battlefield losses were due to friendly fire.

So who's telling the truth, I really do not know. The American War Library has a page with data on monthly casualties to 'friendly fire' for the period 1966-1971, the total number of which exceeds 29,000, this again includes non-lethal casualties, but still seems an awful lot.

That there has been an increase in 'friendly-fire' incidents, however, is pretty much undisputed. Again, the figures at 'The American War Library' differ from those used by most other sources. Where 'The American War Library' puts the percentage of 'friendly-fire casualties' at 49%, official sources say it is 17% (615 casualties, 107 from 'friendly fire' - of which - 148 fatalities, 35 from 'friendly fire').

An interesting explanation of this increase was given in one of the articles I read;

Quote:

In era of high-tech warfare, 'friendly fire' risk grows by Brad Knickerbocker
Contemporary soldiers are much more likely than their predecessors to actually fire their weapons. In World War II, fewer than half of all riflemen ever fired at an enemy, according to Army studies - and military historian S. L. A. Marshall puts that figure at less than 25 percent. This was due to fear and lack of sufficient training, but also because many soldiers thought it was wrong to kill - even in wartime - according to other studies.

As a result, the Defense Department changed its training to teach soldiers to shoot reflexively (rather than reflectively) by, among other things, using man-shaped pop-up targets instead of bullseyes.

Such training "maximizes soldiers' lethality, but it does so by bypassing their moral autonomy," writes Maj. Peter Kilner (USA) in a recent edition of Military Review, a publication of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. "Soldiers are conditioned to act without considering the moral repercussions of their actions; they are enabled to kill without making the conscious decision to do so."

The result? Firing rates rose to 55 percent in Korea and 90 percent in Vietnam. With additional bullets-per-soldier flying around, the risk of friendly-fire grows.

kwigibo · 03-25-2003, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by elwoodblues
Err, I don't think he did. Sounded like an honest question to me.

I was ostensibly referring to the 101st incident. ie; do those casualties get counted under 'friendly fire' as it were. It was an honest question, yes, i don't assume anything with statistics.

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03-24-2003, 03:15 PM	#15
ImGod Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Nebraska Posts: 6,264	It's more likely he was refering to the US soldier who attacked his commanders. Friendly fire doesn't surprise me considering with all of our high tech weapons the US has managed to hit two other countries with missles by accident. Adverse conditions contribute to the number of mistakes.

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