Friendly Fire from aircraft

[The Black Captain]

I have a whopper of an anecdote for this topic. Yesterday was playing a Vietnam 1968 battle. My Skyraider attacked a Marine helicopter! That is a little ahistorical.

[Shadowcougar]

Well it seems that flying a airstrike is about the second modt difficult thing you can do as a pilot. I think only a night trap is more difficult.

A F-16 pilot would 1. have to find the target area 2. find the target 3 ID the target. 4. employ his weapons 5. egress the area all without mating with a tree, hill, other aircraft... wlth everyone taking a pot shot at him.. Also he is listening to the FAC yelling in one ear and his wingman yelling in the other ear and remembering what is flight instructor said about Speed is Life.. not a easy task.

the A-10 has much the same issue ecept the Speed is Life issue.. No speeed ... no problem

I use TAC Air away from my forces and alwast being them accross the front of my forces.. never over them.. all it takes is a ARCLIGHT mistake to drive that point home

[Chaim_Krause]

@ Big Jim

If you are going to make statements like that, back them up with facts. Fratricide is a huge problem

And speed doesn't have anything to do with it. Aircraft have blue on blue even at a hover.

[BigJim]

Chaim_Krause said:
@ Big Jim
Lets see if I got your point you think that IFF or the existance of IFF needs tons of research???? As to the last part of your statment thats just silly on the face of it.
If you are going to make statements like that, back them up with facts. Fratricide is a huge problem

And speed doesn't have anything to do with it. Aircraft have blue on blue even at a hover.

[kevin]

OK guys, let's stop beating up on Big Jim here. This is a case where everyone is right.

Fatricide (from the air is extremely rare these days, compared to Vietnam Korea and WWII), but all fatricide has consistently remained the cause of approximately 10% of US casualities from the Revoulutionary War up to ODS. (I don't know the figures from OIF)

Fatricide is a huge problem. Put yourself in the position of the family. Your loved one has died and because of a mistake made by someone on his/her side. I have heard conferences where US Officiers and other lecturers have stated it may be better to pursue tactics that may result in more casualities overall, than to pursue a strategy with a lesser chance of overall casualities, but higher chance of friendly fire. In short: better to loose 25 guys to the enemy than, 10 guys to the enemy and 10 to fratricide for 20 total.

I've never been involved in calling in an airstrike in combat, but have in training. IMHO technological improvements are over-rated as solutions to the problem. They key is communicating. I don't mean having a better radio, I mean having everyone working on the same page. Usually a Forward Line is established. Units on one side are bad guys, units on the other side are good guys. Well, with advancing land troops in pursuit of the enemy, it's easy to cross the line without anyone knowing.

Also, imagine how hard it is to make sure to tell everyone when the line is moved. You have to coordinate between ground forces in combat (platoon, company, Battalion, Brigade, Division, Corps, Area Component commander, CINC) just to determine where the grunts are and how soon to and how far can you advance. The farther up the chain that guestimate is made, the more likely it is to be wrong. Then again, those closest to the action are the youngest and most inexperienced troops.

Okay, a decision is made, you have to send the answer down the ground chain, and then down the air chain: CINC, Air Component Commander, # Air Force, Wing, Squadron, Section, Pilot) Shadowcougar described what it's like for the Tom Cruise wanna-bes in the air.

In summary, it's the network systems, C&C, IVIS, GPS which are the best tools to use, but it is the end users of those tools that ultimately reduce blue on blue.

As far as the game goes..... I like holding my Air back to use against arty. If using it as true CAS, make sure you have a direct spotter, try to go for a target in the open and stay put once the strike is called.

[BigJim]

My point was and still is that in the game you call in an air strike and while over flying your own tanks WELL behind the targeted area and WELL within your own area of control you spot a tank and fire on it. With modern IFF that just doesn't happen much, all the comentary has been directed at CAS with near by friendlys, which of course has cause alot of FF kills and is well documented. That was NOT my point, my point was well answered on the first go round, which was that it would take massive progamming to take it out and not worth the trouble, I accept that.

[Pyros]

Pyros said:
Also don't forget that WinSPMBT refers to a period of 70 years and the friendly fire by air assets was a fact in many wars during that period (Vietnam).

cheers,

Hi people,

I agree with Kevin.

everyone is right

Just try to be more precise to what you mean.

For example in Korea and Vietnam casualties from friendly fire was a reality.

Even in Desert storm this was a fact.

But what will happen after 2014?

With the new technologies based on military GIS (satellite positioning) and the applications of Future Combat Systems (FCS)sensors the "blue on blue" or "friendly fire" or "fratricide" won't be a serious issue in the futuristic battleground.

In other words BigJim is right concerning dates after 2010!

So, everyone is happy.

cheers,
Pyros

p.s BTW, it would be great if we could discuss the future of these new technologies!

[Pyros]

Gentlemen,

Maybe we should think another aspect of the WinSPMBT game...
Giving the fact that the commander/player has total knowledge of the positioning of all his troops and everything that these troops see, THEN we may assume that in the game the commander takes profit of a limited military GIS (satellite positioning)!!!

cheers,
Pyros

p.s I think this makes things a bit more complicated as gameplay interfere with realism, so we must accept that in a game we can't have 100% realism in all the aspects of battle simulation.
p.s Using satellite positioning:
all participants in the battlefield can know where everybody else is at all times

[PlasmaKrab]

Pyros said :
Giving the fact that the commander/player has total knowledge of the positioning of all his troops and everything that these troops see, THEN we may assume that in the game the commander takes profit of a limited military GIS (satellite positioning)!!!

Well, that kind of technology is way easier to work out in video games than on the field. It is even harder indeed not to have total control and vision on the battlefield.

And in SPMBT as in most of these games, the battlefield network is far above the wildest wet dreams of any commo general! But even better than running liaison units allover to have short glimpses of the situation...
Call that gameplay compromises.
Although that would be fine to pour in some identification issues, but I dopubt this would be feasible...

p.s Using satellite positioning:
all participants in the battlefield can know where everybody else is at all times

Nope, that is when you have GPS + instant tactical network + everyone with a computerized interface. There is no advantage in knowing where everyone is, but having to tell them on the radio each time!
You need something more like the navigational aids you get in cars these days (or in SP howitzers), only networked.
Most of all, you need data transfer. Ask the US guys in Western Asia who have to buy off satellite band from private comm satellites!

[narwan]

kevin said:

Fatricide (from the air is extremely rare these days, compared to Vietnam Korea and WWII), but all fatricide has consistently remained the cause of approximately 10% of US casualities from the Revoulutionary War up to ODS. (I don't know the figures from OIF)

You do realise you're more or less contradicting yourself here? How can it be extremely rare these days and still account for 10% of the casualties?

It SEEMS rare because no combat operations of the kind and on the scale seen in Vietnam, Korea, etc have taken place recently. And yes, I do know about the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but that's exactly what I mean. Those saw only limited conventional combat operations on the ground and for only a relatively short period (days or weeks).
During those relatively short combat campaigns quite a few incidents occurred. And it'll happen again, I'm sure of that.

Technology is NOT the answer here, at best it can be a tool helping the humans using it, but it can also be the cause for unwanted incidents. As someone else pointed out, the more gizmo's the more room for technological error.

narwan