Canadian troops die under US friendly fire

[Encard]

It's a tragic accident. I don't see any reason to consider us trigger-happy or the like, though. I'm not in the military, so I obviusly can't be sure, but I'd guess that when you're being shot at you probably don't have very long to go and investigate every possibility. As I said, I don't know for sure, but if you're shot at and there's only one group visible, and they're shooting at something... it's not too hard of a mistake to make. People make smaller mistakes of that type a good deal, this one simply had a larger impact. I don't know anything about the tanks and can't remember much about the missiles, but wasn't the bombing of US marines caused by someone on the ground giving the wrong coordiantes for the drop? That doesn't seem too trigger-happy to me... correct me if I'm wrong on anything...

[Dreamer128]

Originally posted by Thoran: quote: Originally posted by Dreamer128: quote: Originally posted by Thoran: When you're zipping along at 500mph I imagine it's difficult to stop and ask someone if they're a bad guy

Well you can't just pull the triger 'just in case'.[/QUOTE]That's an easy statement to make when you're not the one who's being shot at. I've never been in that situation, so I would never presume to judge that Pilot for his actions... I simply feel sorrow for everyone in that situation.[/QUOTE]You make a good point there. I don't know enough about the U.S Airforce and the training their pilots recieve to judge this man or his actions.

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Well, what can I say? Though it's unmistakenly an accident, the death of 4 members of the 3 Princess Patricia's Light Infantry (and 8 more being injured by the bomb) is very troublesome. Don't get me wrong, their death is a tragic accident that shouldn't be made light of. However, friendly fire is a fact of life in the trenches. When will Americans learn to identify their target prior to dropping the bombs? It seems that you guys a trigger happy. I can't recal any civilized military that cause so many friendly deaths on the battlefield. I wonder when was the last time Israel killed one of their own soldier (FYI, the Israeli army is the best combat military in the world and it's the only military to win all it's wars in the later half of the 20th century). Next time, could you please make sure you don't drop live bombs on live troops within a designated live-fire exercise area! Oh and before you come and bash me for not knowing what the military life is all about, I should probably tell you that I'm a former Canadian Forces pilot who served for 9 1/2 years in as an officer and I'm a graduate of a Military university.

I do not bash you if you make valid points. You do seem to be saying that the US military is careless though and I would differ with you there. A coupl eof facts...1 American targeting mistakes get way more coverage than similar mistakes made by other forces. Compare the numbers of missions flown/conducted the accident rate I do believe is a reasonable percentage. I do think that the US has a problem coming out of the 90's where all training budgets were nearly zeroed out may be a cause of increased accidents. I also think that it will take a couple of years before the new budgets can make up for the lost training in the 90's.

I agree with you on your assessments of the Israeli's and for the record, I do not deserve the rep of "bashing" people. I do disagree and will argue my points but Only on a couple of notable exceptions I do not attack the individual....I really try to stick to the issues.
On the occasions where Ive gone over the edge and attacked the person, I have apologized in public and in PM to the individuals.

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Next time, could you please make sure you don't drop live bombs on live troops within a designated live-fire exercise area! .

Well I would say thats a good idea, however it requires an increadible amount of communications infrastructure to ensure EVERY single unit knows what every other unit is doing, especially when they are from different countries, it is looking more and more like it was a break down in comms that caused the problem. I will say that I have in the recent past been working on a C3 system that should greatly reduce this particular type of accidnet. Basicly the way it works is that every single individual, vehicle,aircraft and ship has a piece of hardware that in real time marks their locations and conditions, down to how many rounds of ammo he has, this is monitored in real time by c ommanders who can send messages to each unit by clicking on an icon representing that unit. It will be majorly cool when it gets fielded.

[Victor von Steiner]

Let me set something straight. The pilot was NOT given permission to fire. He was ordered not to fire he was allowed to paint the target only. The pilot in question was a reservist.

The Canadians were on a live-fire exercise near Khandahar.

[MILAMBER]

Originally posted by Avatar: sounds familiar? What is it with the Americans and killing friendly or neutral forces? They bomb the Chinese Embassy, knockout Albanian Tanks, blow up their own Marines and now kill Canadian troops. Apparently the pilot who is a national guard (part-time) was under fire and thought the Canadians had fired upon him. What is not clear is whether he was actually hit by enemy fire and then fired on Canadians nearby... or He saw Canadians firing at ground dummies in an excercise and panicked and fired at them.

Come on bro, now what kind of post is this?

Yup, all us Americans are blood-thirsty lunatics that revel in killing allies and sacraficing goats.

Right now Americans are running more operations in that area then any other country. Wouldn't it follow that the country running the most operations would have a higher probability of making a mistake? It's just statistics. Do you believe the pilot wanted to have the death of 4 allies on his conscience? I assure you that despite what you might think, all Americans are not alike. You might have heard people refer to America as "The Melting Pot" before. Do you think that means we were all the same?

I know you're a smart guy, so please be careful as to how you may come across to others before you write.

[Ryanamur]

[quote]Originally posted by MagiK:
[QB]

I do not bash you if you make valid points. You do seem to be saying that the US military is careless though and I would differ with you there. A coupl eof facts...1 American targeting mistakes get way more coverage than similar mistakes made by other forces. Compare the numbers of missions flown/conducted the accident rate I do believe is a reasonable percentage. I do think that the US has a problem coming out of the 90's where all training budgets were nearly zeroed out may be a cause of increased accidents. I also think that it will take a couple of years before the new budgets can make up for the lost training in the 90's. QB]

Fair enough. But so far, since the arrival of US troops in Afghanistan, this is the third case of death by friendly fire cause by the US. Similar incidents also took place during Desert Storm and in Viet-Nam. This doesn't count for friendly fire death during peace keeping missions and collateral damages.

The fact is the pilot was flying within a designated live-fire training zone for the ground troops. If he though he was under small-arms fire, all he had to do was to climb over 2,500' AGL and he would have been out of range. Did he do that? No, he twice asked permission to fire and it was twice denied. Still, he droped the bomb which resulted in the death of friendly forces. If you ask any foreing military if they think that the US forces are trigger-happy, I think that you'll be unhappy about the answer! Sorry, it's the stereotype that's out there!

Now, to the training issue. If your forces are not trained to adequate professional standards, then you should keep them at home until they are! Don't sent untrained forces in combat and put them beside trained personnel. They're more a liability than anything else.

Don't get me wrong. Not all American forces are incapable, in fact, the majority of them are well trainned and capable. Like everywhere else, you've got your rotten apple (don't worry, we have some too )

[Thoran]

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Well, what can I say? Though it's unmistakenly an accident, the death of 4 members of the 3 Princess Patricia's Light Infantry (and 8 more being injured by the bomb) is very troublesome. Don't get me wrong, their death is a tragic accident that shouldn't be made light of. However, friendly fire is a fact of life in the trenches. When will Americans learn to identify their target prior to dropping the bombs? It seems that you guys a trigger happy. I can't recal any civilized military that cause so many friendly deaths on the battlefield. I wonder when was the last time Israel killed one of their own soldier (FYI, the Israeli army is the best combat military in the world and it's the only military to win all it's wars in the later half of the 20th century). Next time, could you please make sure you don't drop live bombs on live troops within a designated live-fire exercise area! Oh and before you come and bash me for not knowing what the military life is all about, I should probably tell you that I'm a former Canadian Forces pilot who served for 9 1/2 years in as an officer and I'm a graduate of a Military university.

Well next time I'm dropping bombs... I will be sure to do that.

I know it's comforting to be able to find fault with others when something happens to you or yours, but I don't believe you have a chance in heck of finding statistics to support your rather inflamatory and poorely founded statement regarding friendly fire. If you take the number of troops/aircraft deployed and sorties flown by pilots I would suggest you'll find that US friendly fire percentages are no higher or lower than anyone elses. The fact that US forces are a high percentage of those deployed would of course dictate a relatively higher percentage of incidents.

Friendly fire will be a problem, is a problem, and has been a problem anytime men have applied deadly force to solve their problems. The more stand off the platform, the higher the probability of iff errors. The more our militaries use joint operations at the branch and even international level, the more the chance of communications errors (another prime cause of friendly fire accidents).

Pointing fingers and making broad generalisations doesn't really help anything now does is?

[dizzy]

I to am in the National Guard
so better lay off the blame
at least this guy was trying to serve his country and had he known
it was canadians he wouldnt have fire. sadly things like this accident will ocurr in these times

[Ryanamur]

Originally posted by Thoran: quote: Originally posted by Ryanamur: Well, what can I say? Though it's unmistakenly an accident, the death of 4 members of the 3 Princess Patricia's Light Infantry (and 8 more being injured by the bomb) is very troublesome. Don't get me wrong, their death is a tragic accident that shouldn't be made light of. However, friendly fire is a fact of life in the trenches. When will Americans learn to identify their target prior to dropping the bombs? It seems that you guys a trigger happy. I can't recal any civilized military that cause so many friendly deaths on the battlefield. I wonder when was the last time Israel killed one of their own soldier (FYI, the Israeli army is the best combat military in the world and it's the only military to win all it's wars in the later half of the 20th century). Next time, could you please make sure you don't drop live bombs on live troops within a designated live-fire exercise area! Oh and before you come and bash me for not knowing what the military life is all about, I should probably tell you that I'm a former Canadian Forces pilot who served for 9 1/2 years in as an officer and I'm a graduate of a Military university.

Well next time I'm dropping bombs... I will be sure to do that.

I know it's comforting to be able to find fault with others when something happens to you or yours, but I don't believe you have a chance in heck of finding statistics to support your rather inflamatory and poorely founded statement regarding friendly fire. If you take the number of troops/aircraft deployed and sorties flown by pilots I would suggest you'll find that US friendly fire percentages are no higher or lower than anyone elses. The fact that US forces are a high percentage of those deployed would of course dictate a relatively higher percentage of incidents.

Friendly fire will be a problem, is a problem, and has been a problem anytime men have applied deadly force to solve their problems. The more stand off the platform, the higher the probability of iff errors. The more our militaries use joint operations at the branch and even international level, the more the chance of communications errors (another prime cause of friendly fire accidents).

Pointing fingers and making broad generalisations doesn't really help anything now does is?[/QUOTE]Well, I got the "3rd time US killed friendly forces since the beginning of the campaign" from a CNN pop-up.

I'm sorry but there's no reason for what happened yesterday to have happened at all. The pilot should have know where he was (thanks to encrypted GPS technology). It was confirmed that he was denied the permission to fire his bomb yet he did. The safe and rational course of action would have been to climb out of range of small-arms fire. The pilot's lack of judgement resulted in the death of allied soldier.

Thrust me, I've seen your military in action. For the most part it's commandible. I did also witness one of your pilot shooting down (simulated) a friendly plane during a NORAD flying exercise. Errors happen everywhere. The only problem is that our militaries (note the "S") don't learn from their errors.