So I just finished watching this documentary...

...on the History channel about the disaster at Nasariah (spelling it right?) during Iraqi Freedom. The part that stood out was the friendly fire incident involving a pair of A-10s. So Bravo company and Charlie company lost track of where each other were (and no radio connection) and both were pinned down and under enemy fire. Bravo company was able to contact an A-10 and his wingman and authorized fire on the northern bridge area where Charlie company was. Bravo company figured that Charlie company hadn't reached the objective yet. So what gets me is that one of the A-10 pilots contacted the foward observer of Bravo, and told him that he spotted enemy units at the northern bridge area. That was b4 Bravo authorized the attack. Umm... since when did the Iraqis have armored vehicles that look like American APCs? How could the A-10 pilot have thought that it spotted enemy units? I mean, did the Iraqis at the time have any armored carriers at all? I'm just curious; I don't know anythng about military procedure at all, but what was the A-10 pilot thinking??

Stress can do a lot of stuff... and at long distance it might be difficult to tell one APC from the other.

Yeah the Iraqis had all sorts of APC's.

From 4 miles on the FLIR camera or Mav cam you can't tell a Yank tank from a Russian/Iraqi.

The Pilot gets told to roll in on someone at such and such a position, thats what he does.

Even an A-10 doing 250-300kts at 500feet, with the pilots head looking all around for SAM's, he is going to have a real hard time telling friend from foe.

Poor guy

Well,it's a difficult task to identify an APC!

Here is some unclassified information from my time in the danish army:

We were trained to indentify targets via the thermal sights up to ranges of 3 miles. It's absolutely possible to positively identify an APC at this range, but it takes far more practice than most people think. We spent 2 weeks learning the basics and then 2-3 hours every week just keeping those skills alive. Things look a little weird through a Thermal/FLIR sight!

And please remember, those people where among some of the best in the NATO contests in Germany, Böselager among others.

Throw in some stress, sleep deprivation and fear of f...... up...and things suddenly happens

I've been on recce-missions in helicopters a few times, and things look very different from above. Suddenly you can't see much of an APC, just the faint silhuette and the placement of the turret...and thats not much when you are trying to indentify it! Add the speed to this...you might have one second to decide whether it's a friend or foe.

After an exercise in 2001, we saw some HUD footage of a F16 attack run on our squadron. Things happens extremely fast, the pilot had less than 10 seconds to aquire the target visually and line up the attack. Afterwards he told us that he only saw 2 out of 13 vehicles, and he was not sure whether is was APC's or MBT's.

Surely you can do some things to prevent those Blue-on-Blue situations: You can put markings on your vehicles roof, mark your position with smoke and IR lights, extensive use of phase-lines...but many of these things tend to attract enemy fire as well. The keyword will allways be communication, and Mr. Murphy will assure that coms will be lost sometimes or map-reading errors will occur!

As a final note, Bill Gunston wrote in his book "Modern Air Combat" that many pilots skill in recogniton of APC's/planes, might need a little brush up;) I don't know if this has anything on it...I will assume that pilots are just as profesionel as the rest of the armed forces.

Regards

Rene Nicklas

I watched this too last night. What I really thought was funny (not really funny) was all the Army recruitment comercials they played between the commercial breaks.

I bet people were like, Join the Marines/Army ?? **** that! As this was really along the lines of another Black Hawk Down episode.

I'm really surprised more of our people didn't get killed as it really was a very bad situation for them.

Being on the recieving end of two A-10's, is plenty bad.

War is h*ll and sh*t happens, the modern world sometimes forgets this. The general public have been seduced by TV "experts" talking about precision strikes, etc. and then they go nuts when a single / handful of such incidents occur. The big one, WW2 was only 60 yrs ago but Allied aircraft losses were 40% (yes forty!) to friendly fire - and how much easier is it to pick out an aircraft shape in the sky compared to a camouflaged AFV on the ground?

Personally I am amazed that in the 2 Gulf Conflicts there were so few blue on blue incidents. I also recall reading that if Gulf War One had been a NATO exercise with the same number of troops, then the casualties would have been expected to be higher (folks getting run over by accident, etc).

 

Personally I am amazed that in the 2 Gulf Conflicts there were so few blue on blue incidents. I also recall reading that if Gulf War One had been a NATO exercise with the same number of troops, then the casualties would have been expected to be higher (folks getting run over by accident, etc).

Yea I'm sure i read somewhere that more British Soldier's were killed just on exercise (manuvers at home in England) than were killed in the Iraq war.

War is h*ll and sh*t happens, the modern world sometimes forgets this. The general public have been seduced by TV "experts" talking about precision strikes, etc. and then they go nuts when a single / handful of such incidents occur. The big one, WW2 was only 60 yrs ago but Allied aircraft losses were 40% (yes forty!) to friendly fire - and how much easier is it to pick out an aircraft shape in the sky compared to a camouflaged AFV on the ground?

 

Personally I am amazed that in the 2 Gulf Conflicts there were so few blue on blue incidents. I also recall reading that if Gulf War One had been a NATO exercise with the same number of troops, then the casualties would have been expected to be higher (folks getting run over by accident, etc).

Damn Skippy. During WW2 There was a single accident during a REHEARSAL that took more lives that has been lost since this war started. Horrible & tragic- but shit does happen during war. Sadly, families wept. But they knew what had to be done & they certainly didn't have a bunch of pointy headed idiots on TV -armed with nuclear hindsight- picking it all apart for days on end.

Vehicles are not all that easy to positively identify from the air. The MUCH higher tempo of battle can lead to fratricide, and as others have said, its absolutely amazing that it doesn't happen more often than it does. Freaky stuff happens in war, my brother was actually hit on his Kevlar with a glancing shot from an RPG while he was on patrol in Hit. The impact didn't cause the RPG to fuse however, so he walked away from it with little more than a nasty headache. Unfortunately, it killed a friend of his who was near a building on the opposite side of the street.

Blue-on-Blue engagement

And remember this nasty event, where two US Blackhawks were shot down by two US F15 AFTER VISUAL IDENTIFICATION ! The Blackhawks were identified as Hinds...

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/04/remembering_eag.html

Yes, stress can do a lot of stuff - and a trigger happy guy with lack of training too !

Whatever. :icon_roll

Try actually being in that situation before you pass judgment and accuse someone of being poorly trained and trigger happy, m'kay.

And remember this nasty event, where two US Blackhawks were shot down by two US F15 AFTER VISUAL IDENTIFICATION ! The Blackhawks were identified as Hinds...

 

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/04/remembering_eag.html

 

Yes, stress can do a lot of stuff - and a trigger happy guy with lack of training too !

nice lack of training or maybe a all helos looks the same at 800 miles an hour if someone identified enemy targets in a no fly zone and you flew past them all you would see where two helos so maybe just maybe it was combat stress and i highly doubt trigger happy im sure more conversation happened between the 15s and the awacs then was published in that story so before you say trigger happy and lack of training know that these guys put there butts on the line day in and day out and have the best training possible.

nice lack of training or maybe a all helos looks the same at 800 miles an hour if someone identified enemy targets in a no fly zone and you flew past them all you would see where two helos so maybe just maybe it was combat stress and i highly doubt trigger happy im sure more conversation happened between the 15s and the awacs then was published in that story so before you say trigger happy and lack of training know that these guys put there butts on the line day in and day out and have the best training possible.

So who is doing an ID-run at 800 miles an hour ?

Normally, speed is adjusted to that of the bogeys to be identified, plus a little overtake speed. One goes in for ID, means he passes the bogeys on parallel course from behind, identifying type and if possible, nationality by markings, and if armed or not. The second stays behind the bogeys, finger on his trigger just in case and supporting the one who is doing the ID.

It was during bright daylight, and the bogeys didn't make any evasives or showing any hostile intend by manouvering into an attack position, they didn't even open fire themselves on the F15s.

Let me point this out: The reason why an visual ID was tasked in that specific situation was exactly to avoid an blue-on-blue, and just to make sure that it were enemy helos flying in a No-Fly zone.

The leading F15 pilot visually identified the friendly Helos as another type (Hind instead of Blackhawk), but he might have been unsure, so he asked the second for an confirmation. Then the second pilot identified the helo type wrong as well (maybe biased by what his Lead said before).

Then they engaged...

It is obvious that if two guys can't identify a pair of Helicopter in bright daylight, they are trained badly in aircraft type recognition.

You are right about my "trigger happy" accusation, we don't actually know who gave that engagement order and what the ROEs were in force then. Maybe, the pilots just obeyed orders.

But I stick to my assessment that if aircrews do an visual ID - two times - and both failed to recognize in broad daylight what they have in front of them, then it's an obvious lack of training !

So who is doing an ID-run at 800 miles an hour ?

Normally, speed is adjusted to that of the bogeys to be identified, plus a little overtake speed. One goes in for ID, means he passes the bogeys on parallel course from behind, identifying type and if possible, nationality by markings, and if armed or not. The second stays behind the bogeys, finger on his trigger just in case and supporting the one who is doing the ID.

It was during bright daylight, and the bogeys didn't make any evasives or showing any hostile intend by manouvering into an attack position, they didn't even open fire themselves on the F15s.

So, tell us again how an F-15 "adjusts its speed to that of the bogeys". UH-60s and/or Mi-24s don't usually fly much over 100 knots, quite a bit below the stall speed of an F-15. Now...if you were in an Iraqi Mi-24, flying in a known no-fly zone, would you take any action against the F-15s that could be interpreted as hostile? (to include evasive maneuvers or engaging them in any way) Probably not...if you were smart

Let me point this out: The reason why an visual ID was tasked in that specific situation was exactly to avoid an blue-on-blue, and just to make sure that it were enemy helos flying in a No-Fly zone.

The leading F15 pilot visually identified the friendly Helos as another type (Hind instead of Blackhawk), but he might have been unsure, so he asked the second for an confirmation. Then the second pilot identified the helo type wrong as well (maybe biased by what his Lead said before).

Then they engaged...

 

It is obvious that if two guys can't identify a pair of Helicopter in bright daylight, they are trained badly in aircraft type recognition.

So, GS2, have you ever tried to identify aircraft while in flight yourself in a real aircraft, or are you basing your inane comments on your flight sim veteran status? I am going to speculate, through your posts here, that you have no real-world experience in doing this, otherwise you would know that its not as easy as you may think it is.

You are right about my "trigger happy" accusation, we don't actually know who gave that engagement order and what the ROEs were in force then. Maybe, the pilots just obeyed orders.

 

But I stick to my assessment that if aircrews do an visual ID - two times - and both failed to recognize in broad daylight what they have in front of them, then it's an obvious lack of training !

The F-15 flight lead was court martialed and convicted in this incident. Did he make a bad decision that resulted in fratricide? Yes. Was it due to poor training? No. When you say "poor training", you are lumping all USAF pilots into the same category, which is a less than intelligent thing to do. Poor judgment on the part of the Captain of a KLM 747 taking off from Tenirife resulted in the deaths of hundreds of airline passengers before either aircraft involved in the accident ever really left the ground. Would it be fair for me to say that KLM has a lousy training program and that all Dutch pilots are poorly trained? Of course it wouldn't be fair.

Like I said before. Try actually doing ANY of this in real life before passing judgment on the entire pilot corps of the USAF. If all you've ever done is take a discovery flight or two, seen a few airshows, and/or played LOMAC every night, then perhaps you should keep your silly, judgmental posts to yourself.

Not to mention that your info seems to be wrong. According to certain documentation obtained under FOIA, the lead identified the helos and the wingman DID NOT, because the lead wavered but later decided he was certain of his ID.

The ID process was not properly followed and resulted in blue-on-blue.

It isn't poor training, it's oversight/negligence, as found by the court martial IIRC.

Secondly, fighters also have ROE's to obey, and they likely had a minimum flight altitude imposed by their ROEs and likely their flight plan also. It may be quite difficult to ID helos properly from relatively high altitude from a fast-moving fighter.

The lead was IIRC uncertain of the ID of the helos at first, but decided to attack anyway without re-checking, and this is negligent behavior on the part of two pilots which does not really reflect on their training.

I probably don't need to point out that such incidents occur in almost every military.

The BlackFive link shows that Tiger 2 gave a "Tally 2" call, indicating that he saw two helicopters, but it did not indicate what type. Tiger 1 definitely f****d up, and he has been convicted, but this incident is not an indication of poor training. Poor judgment...but not poor training. And...just like GG said...this same thing happens in ALL militaries, even those in...oh wait, wouldn't want to mention any country names because I would immediately be accused of being political and nationalist. :D

...on the History channel about the disaster at Nasariah (spelling it right?) during Iraqi Freedom. The part that stood out was the friendly fire incident involving a pair of A-10s. So Bravo company and Charlie company lost track of where each other were (and no radio connection) and both were pinned down and under enemy fire. Bravo company was able to contact an A-10 and his wingman and authorized fire on the northern bridge area where Charlie company was. Bravo company figured that Charlie company hadn't reached the objective yet. So what gets me is that one of the A-10 pilots contacted the foward observer of Bravo, and told him that he spotted enemy units at the northern bridge area. That was b4 Bravo authorized the attack. Umm... since when did the Iraqis have armored vehicles that look like American APCs? How could the A-10 pilot have thought that it spotted enemy units? I mean, did the Iraqis at the time have any armored carriers at all? I'm just curious; I don't know anythng about military procedure at all, but what was the A-10 pilot thinking??

They told him that Charlie was all over the place…

BTW in Belgium we have about 1500 kills a year in traffic involved in car accidents.

So, tell us again how an F-15 "adjusts its speed to that of the bogeys". UH-60s and/or Mi-24s don't usually fly much over 100 knots, quite a bit below the stall speed of an F-15. Now...if you were in an Iraqi Mi-24, flying in a known no-fly zone, would you take any action against the F-15s that could be interpreted as hostile? (to include evasive maneuvers or engaging them in any way) Probably not...if you were smart

Of course a jet aircraft is not a suitable platform for identifying slow-mover like helos, however if the task VID is given (as it appears to have happened here), it's up to the Flight Lead to decide wether he is capable to do it (e.g. fly-by with flaps/gear down, working hard with AOA and throttle - not easy !) or if he at all decides to take the risk of being engaged by a hostile combat helo. while almost stalling.

In this case, the Lead decided to go in for a VID, and he failed.

So, GS2, have you ever tried to identify aircraft while in flight yourself in a real aircraft, or are you basing your inane comments on your flight sim veteran status? I am going to speculate, through your posts here, that you have no real-world experience in doing this, otherwise you would know that its not as easy as you may think it is.

I think that only very few people here on this forum can say that they have live expertise in flying real aircraft. I'm no pilot. But I know how a VID is done due to my professional background which is 15 years GCI.

And I think, my posts are not insane at all - please return to a less offending discussion, would you mind ?

The F-15 flight lead was court martialed and convicted in this incident. Did he make a bad decision that resulted in fratricide? Yes. Was it due to poor training? No. When you say "poor training", you are lumping all USAF pilots into the same category, which is a less than intelligent thing to do.

No, I didn't. I was referring to this one event, never said that ALL US air crws are trained poor. You can't say that.

Poor judgment on the part of the Captain of a KLM 747 taking off from Tenirife resulted in the deaths of hundreds of airline passengers before either aircraft involved in the accident ever really left the ground. Would it be fair for me to say that KLM has a lousy training program and that all Dutch pilots are poorly trained? Of course it wouldn't be fair.

As said before, I didn't made a common statement, I referred to a single event. Invalid statement.

Like I said before. Try actually doing ANY of this in real life before passing judgment on the entire pilot corps of the USAF. If all you've ever done is take a discovery flight or two, seen a few airshows, and/or played LOMAC every night, then perhaps you should keep your silly, judgmental posts to yourself.

I think, you have a personal problem with criticism on the US Air Force, right ?

This flight lead was trained poorly on ID procedures - he might have been excellent on BVR, but he made the wrong decissions in this particular event - and was court martialed for that.

He decided to go in for a visual ID instead of admitting, that under the given circumstances (which could have been far more worse) a VID was not possible and then leave the decission of what to do - engage or not - to the next higher level of command.

When he executed this VID, he failed to recognize the correct type of Helo, and I'm not talking about trying to see nationality markings here - you can't do that with 200 Kts overtake - which indicates that he misjudged his own skills. Training on VID on slow-movers whould have been a good idea in order to prepare air crews for problems that might arise in a No-Fly zone - It's not only "what flies, dies", it depends on the ROE, as you yourself wrote.

If he had had sufficient training on VID before, he would have experienced such problems before and would have done a better assessment of his skills and the situation. Don't you think so ?

You wish for me to return to a less offending discussion? Then don't start here by offending me and my brethren. In your GCI experience...are you visually identifying aircraft? Are you even attempting to visually identify aircraft? As I said, before my comments got lost in all of your anti-Americanism, VID in real life isn't all that easy to do if you are in the air. Besides, why did you not see that I said Tiger 1 f****d up, and he was court martialed and convicted.

I have flown EVERY DAY, for the last 13 years and I can tell you with all certainty that visual ID of aircraft and vehicles is not as easy as you seem to believe it is. The simple act of visually acquiring an aircraft at a lower altitude than yourself isn't easy to do either. Well...since you have never been in the situation you are passing judgment on, which was actually pretty obvious in your posts, I'll just forgive you for your ignorance. BTW...before I left the ground, I thought I knew it all too.

You wish for me to return to a less offending discussion? Then don't start here by offending me and my brethren. In your GCI experience...are you visually identifying aircraft? Are you even attempting to visually identify aircraft? As I said, before my comments got lost in all of your anti-Americanism, VID in real life isn't all that easy to do if you are in the air. Besides, why did you not see that I said Tiger 1 f****d up, and he was court martialed and convicted.

 

I have flown EVERY DAY, for the last 13 years and I can tell you with all certainty that visual ID of aircraft and vehicles is not as easy as you seem to believe it is. The simple act of visually acquiring an aircraft at a lower altitude than yourself isn't easy to do either. Well...since you have never been in the situation you are passing judgment on, which was actually pretty obvious in your posts, I'll just forgive you for your ignorance. BTW...before I left the ground, I thought I knew it all too.

Excuse me SIR !

Mixing up criticism on a single event with Anti-Americanism is what I expected after reading your comments. It seems impossible to discuss this subject with you without been attacked personally.

I quit.

You said the pilot was poorly trained, by poor training you are referring to a fault in the training program, thus referring to ALL USAF pilots. I gave you a specific example of a well-trained KLM pilot making a poor individual decision which cost hundreds of lives, and you dismissed that example as invalid to the discussion? I didn't blame KLM or their training either. How was I supposed to take that? Would you have rabidly attacked that pilot for his "poor training" if he were American too? I happen to believe you would have. Its pretty obvious in this thread who has a political/nationalist view on things, and it seems to be you. Lots of other nationalities commented here, many of them I know to be credible sources of info, and NONE of them slagged the USAF as a whole the way you did. Now...go off in your corner and cry. :icon_cry:

^^ amen brother

Thank you, Beast. How's life up there at MO?

Not to mention that your info seems to be wrong. According to certain documentation obtained under FOIA, the lead identified the helos and the wingman DID NOT, because the lead wavered but later decided he was certain of his ID.

I haven't seen the FOIA material, all I knew from this event was from the website provided. I have no doubt, that the FOIA documents that you've seen are more correct. So, we take as a fact away that only the Lead made an VID.

The ID process was not properly followed and resulted in blue-on-blue.

It isn't poor training, it's oversight/negligence, as found by the court martial IIRC.

I disagree here. Blue-on-Blue's don't just happen because of bad luck. It is an exceptional event, which is based upon certain circumstances / reasons and often a chain reaction of wrong decisions. The question not only is what did the Lead doing wrong, but also why did he do it wrong.

I repeat myself here: The pilot is the last one in the chain of decisions / responsibility. He is the one right there in place, and all others don't have the impression and the oversight that he has right there on the spot. Now,

if the task for an VID was given, he had to make up his mind wether it was possible to do that or not.

Secondly, fighters also have ROE's to obey, and they likely had a minimum flight altitude imposed by their ROEs and likely their flight plan also. It may be quite difficult to ID helos properly from relatively high altitude from a fast-moving fighter.

OK, taking exactly that into account:

He made the first mistake by saying "Roger wilco" or sort of acknowledgement, despite - as you wrote - his altitude was way above the bogeys and he was going fast while the bogeys were going very slow.

As said before, he should have reported "unable" to the AWACS and then wait for their decisison.

The lead was IIRC uncertain of the ID of the helos at first, but decided to attack anyway without re-checking, and this is negligent behavior on the part of two pilots which does not really reflect on their training.

Mistake #2: He misjudged his skills in VID the type of Helos. You wrote that he first wavered, but then decided that he was sure about his ID result. What make him decide that way ? What was he thinking then ? "It must be enemies because AWACS didn't know abour friendlies here?" Did he have any additional information that make him decide "those Helos are enemies", after he tried a visual ID and didnt get any better information from it ?

We know, that his result was wrong and that raises the questions about why

1. he was not able to identify the type of helo correct and

2. if he was unsure, why didn't he try again or call in his wingman for a second opinion and

3. experiencing severe problems with this task, why didn' he call then the AWACS, reporting "unable for ID" ??

Now, doesn't that imply that his one pilot was overcommited by this task ? And if yes, why was he overcommitted? Why couldn't he make a break and say "this is leading nowhere, unable..." ?

Has he been trained enough to cope with situations like that ? I don't think so - that is why I think that this pilot was lacking training - as before, he might have been a champ in BVR, but this specific thing ?

I probably don't need to point out that such incidents occur in almost every military.

Absolutely right, and always there has to be asked "what led to this situation ?" and " what can we do to prevent this ?"

Disclaimer: This posting in no way is meant Anti-American.

Well, without getting into an argument about what may have been, what WAS decided, by the counrtmartial, IIRC (and I may not have my details right here, it was a while ago):

The lead did not ID the helos correctly, but for whatever reason, even though he was originally unsure, pressed the attack WITHOUT attempting a second ID pass.

There were circumstances which made this VERY CLEARLY negligent - there were no 'mitigating circumstances' ... the lead was at fault, black-and-white, and so was the wingman (who was higher ranking!) for not enforcing the process of identification.

That's the was decided, anyway. For the rest of the analysis, I'd have to find those documents again.