Posted on 03/31/2003 6:41:45 AM PST by Phlap
LONDON -
A British soldier who survived a "friendly fire" attack from an American warplane has accused the pilot of being a "cowboy."
One British soldier was killed and three others were wounded when a U.S. anti-tank aircraft attacked their armoured vehicles on Friday.
The American planes swooped down over the two British vehicles, fired on them, circled and fired again.
One of the surviving soldiers called the U.S. pilot a "cowboy" with "no regard for human life."
Another soldier, 18-year-old Trooper Chris Finney, was wounded in the incident and flown back to Britain.
Once he realized it was a U.S. plane attacking, he says he staggered out of his burning tank and tried to signal the pilot that they were not enemies.
"I noticed it was an American plane, but I sort of didn't want to believe it was. I was feeling scared and then there was just a sense of helplessness like there was nothing I could do about it," said Finney.
Another surviving soldier said it was ridiculous that the U.S. pilot could not recognize the British armour, given the advanced technology in his aircraft.
The attack was the second time British troops were killed in what the military calls "blue on blue" incidents, attacks by one coalition member on another.
British Col. Chris Vernon says the incidents are not causing problems between the two armies.
"It's sad. We really aim not to get it. I can understand the upset back home. Does it cause any rift between us if it's American on British? No, it certainly doesn't," said Vernon.
Spokesmen for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the "friendly fire" incident is being investigated and efforts are being made to minimize the number of casualties in these accidents.
One of the problems that we encountered during Desert Storm was incompatible communications equipment. Some radios have preset frequencies and different nationalities use different frequencies. If they haven’t practiced together you don’t realize this problem until you actually get into battle.
Another problem is that troop movements are very fluid. The aircrews get briefed on the last known location of friendly forces before they take off. This information may not be accurate at briefing time, or could change in the two hours that it takes the pilot to get to his target area.
A lot of military equipment looks very similar from the air.
There’s usually a lot of smoke and dust in the air further obscuring the vehicles on the ground.
The enemy intentionally tries to create situations where this happens. They disguise their vehicles, they create smoke, the jam radio frequencies, they sometimes get on our frequencies and call in air strikes on our own troops.
Unless things have changed a lot in the last ten years, the only way a pilot can positively identify friendly ground forces is by visual recognition. The pilot is flying at 350 mph. He’s trying to avoid other aircraft, avoid hitting the ground, watching his instruments, scanning for AAA and SAMS and positively identify a target at the same time. The air is full of dust and smoke; the enemy is trying to jam our communications. In many cases the only exposure that the pilot has had to the targets and friendly forces is a sketch of one or two aspects drawn on 5x8 cards that they study when they get into the theater.
There is not acceptable level of fratricide. Every incident is devastating to both sides and eliminating it is always one of the highest priorities. I think fratricide and civilian casualties are two of the saddest parts of war.
I understood from a Scotsman article which I cannot find that the system was not funded for the British army under Blair's MoD budget.
Maybe it would have helped prevent this incident, maybe not.
I think some A-10s are getting some sort of pods, but this sentence is wrong. The A-10 has the least technology of any other U.S.aircraft.
How soon you forget. Canada buried four because of "friendly fire" in Afghanastan.
I think you're being less than understanding considering he's just seen one of his mates blown straight back to Britain in a body-bag thanks to that pilot. Apparently all the pilot had to do was switch on his thermal-imaging display and he would have instantly recognised them as British. You carn't blame the English trooper for being upset over someone else's incompetence that ultimately led to a brave man's death.
Traitain
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