RAF / USAF ranting and expostulating

[Steve Pyro]

< The following was posted by 'Monkey' whilst I was spliting and moving the topic.  His comments have been reproduced in full here - Steve / Mod >

If you want to launch into a tirade about what happened, then start a f**k*ng thread and yell at your computer till your hearts content.
Fax

Now why would I want to do that when I have your attention here. Tirade? don't think so, yelling at my computer, na. Just passing a comment, adding to the debate. You have made your possition clear on the contribution above. I hope I have made mine clear too. And without the need to insert too many infantile *'s.

By the way, what is a fricking??

[monkey]

Thanks Steve.

[Boorish Grobian]

Lawnmower Man put it pretty well.  There are countless checks to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen.  I mentioned the Bradley, it was carrying a electronic identifying device, it had all the correct markings, but it still happened, just like the friendly fire tragedy that's been brought up.  I don't for a second mean to try a downplay what a horrible thing took place, but war in itself is a horrible thing.  In my opinion we (the US & Brits) shouldn't even be there in the first place, but that's another subject.  However as long as you have a bunch of people trying to kill each with devastating weapons, mistakes are going to be made, there are going to be system failures, and despite all the checks & training, casualties by friendly fire are going to happen.  The only thing you can do is review what happened, get everyone's accounts, determined what went wrong, discipline if necessary and try to put in place procedures to make sure it doesn't happen again...but it will!
Someone will shoot down the wrong plane, or drop a bomb on the wrong target, or shoot each other up in a firefight.  There's no way to get around it.
But getting on a soapbox and ranting about US pilots in Top Gun sunglasses and all that crap is just juvenile.
I'm glad to hear that RAF pilots have never bombed the wrong target or hit allied troops by mistake.
Fax

[Rhino]

It's bad it's happened, but how many lives of British troops have they saved the rest of the time? The Americans provide the majority of air cover.
Mistakes happen, it's what they learn from it that's important.

[Papa Lazarou]

Exactly, Rhino.  As long as there's people in a theatre of war, the wrong ones will get killed (assuming there are "right" ones in the first place).  If the tables had been turned and we had been providing air cover for US forces and such an accident had occurred, you can guarantee that there would be an equal amount of shock/outrage/finger-pointing then, as is going on now. 

All we can hope to recover from what's happened is that, as Fax says above, people on all sides will hopefully learn from their mistakes, and procedures will be improved to reduce the risk of this happening again.


Dunno about the comment regarding RAF accuracy though Fax... giving the hornets nest one more poke with a stick there?

[Matt Harper]

Late in on this one, but here's my tuppence worth.
Friendly fire is a old as warfare itself.
The British coalition in Iraq and Afgahnistan is very much appreciated here in the US and the event has caused as much distress here as it surely has in UK.
One observation however - and unless I am mistaking the meaning of the transcript, both A-10 jocks were told that there were 'no friendlies' in the area of the co-ordinates they were targeting by their ground support people - and the pilots did question this at least twice.
In our day-to-day lives, the addage, "If in doubt, do nowt" doesn't really apply in a combat situation.
In summary, a sad, but inevitable aspect of armed conflict - that should have been admitted by US authorities as soon as it became clear what had actually happened. No comfort to grieving families and wounded servicemen, but as others have said, it will always happen from time to time and always has.

[Dave H]

Stepping away from the "Americans must die... Brits are Best!" topic and back to the thread....

I just witnessed the most incredible aircraft experience in my life.  I've seen many fly-overs at sporting events and races over the last 20 years, and I've seen the Blue Angels do their stuff a couple of years ago which kept me off the Viagra for months after.  But I attended the Super Bowl in Miami last Sunday in a misty, rainy and very low ceiling.  As Billy Joel belted out the last line of the Star Spangled Banner, we were watching in-cockpit footage over the shoulder of one of the F16s approaching the stadium - all this projected on massive big-screens at each end of the field.  You could see another aircraft a few feet off his wing.  It was dark - around 6:15 p.m. local.

As Mr. Joel hit the word "brave", 4 F16s passed what had to be no more than a few hundred feet above the stadium, their formation completely filling the entire sky for a fraction of a second at best.  They were moving so fast that they were gone before your brain fully processed their presence.  It flooded my sensory system - sound, sight, vibration (sucked the wind out your lungs) - and smell... well, I think a few people cacked themselves.

Who gives a crap "who's got the best team" etc.  Just getting close to them gives you a whole new appreciation of how insane that hardware really is.

And here's to getting all those poor buggers (regardless of nationality) out of that lawless, sand bowl of a crap heap part of the world (Middle East, not Crawley).

[Boorish Grobian]

Papa, not poking, just making a point.  Americans have hit the wrong target, Brits have, the Germans have, the French have...the Italians?  Not sure, they may not be able to hit anything   (Just joking for a second in a serious argument)
Without beating this to death, when you've got a split second decision to make about whether or not these guys are friendly's or insurgents, and your mates may be a few hundred yards away, and there's no recognition from them that they're friendly's....Your protecting your mates on the ground and unloading the hell a A-10 can laydown.
As Rhino said, this was a tragedy, but how many times have British troops lives been saved because a A-10 may have been prowling in the area?
Dave, big congrats on the Colts, those were the Thunderbirds that rocketed over during the anthem, that was damn cool even on TV.
Fax

[chop456]

big congrats on the Colts

Blech.

There's my hostile contribution to this thread. 

[Lancs Se7en]

I think that the difference here is that everyone gets to see the incident on the telly and we all suddenly become experts. My old man who flew B24's during 43 - 45 reckoned that there were significant numbers of blue on blue incidents during his time of flying but no one ever got to see them on the telly and few were reported in the press. Split second decisions involving life or death, even though these guys are the best around, involve many elements and as we were not there we cannot know all of the circumstances.
The best that we can expect is that mistakes are admitted, investigated properly and action taken to prevent re occurrance. Probably the main issue surrounding this incident is that the evidence was seemingly withheld for whatever reason and that imho is wrong unless there are clear security issues that could affect the loss of other lives at stake.
One of the issues to day of course is that everyone is covering his or here rear end and spin is out of control.

[Steve Pyro]

< Added 18:05 10th Feb - The thread to which I had refered to earlier has now been deleted by the author of said post - many thanks >

No doubt you've gone into a great deal of research to come up with the above list.  Despite your opening comment, I feel that the list is somewhat weighted and biased and could prove to be inflammatory.

As you know, a fairly innocuous thread regarding the Red Arrows became somewhat contaminated and distorted.  I subsequently split this thread topic off from that earlier topic.

I am the first to hold my hand up to going off-topic.  However, I get the feeling that this thread is going nowhere and the main protagonists continue to bear bait each other.

As, I feel, this is not in the spirit of Club Arnage, I think it's time to turn the key on this one

This is something we rarely do, but in this instance, I feel it is for the best.