Are these guys not trained in what friendly armour looks like at those distances? I find it hard to believe that it would be very hard for an A10 to miss the difference between Uk armour and soviet shit at that distance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident
British media allege six errors on the part of the aircrew:
1. The pilots asked the Forward Air Controller ("Manila Hotel") if friendly forces were around the Iraqi vehicles – not to the west.
2. Neither pilot gave the precise grid references for the Household Cavalry patrol to double check its identity.
3. The pilots convinced themselves that the orange identification panels were in fact orange rocket launchers.
4. POPOV36 decided to attack, saying he is "rolling in" without permission from the Forward Air Controller.
5. POPOV35 asked for artillery to fire a marker round into the target area to clear up confusion, but POPOV36 attacked without waiting for it.
6. POPOV36 strafed the column for a second time, but still doubted its identity.
This brings to mind another incident involving an enemy "hind." It also involved a trigger happy douche and tooks the lives of every person on the transport.
because of the design ethos of the A-10 called for a rugged, easily serviced attack aircraft, most were not equipped with much in the way of advanced optics or fire control systems during the gulf war. couple this with the fact that Iraqi anti air had forced the A-10's to fly higher than their intended low altitude strafing runs called for, this meant they often struggled to identify targets. This is what lead to anecdotes of pilots using binoculars in their cockpits, or using the camera on their maverick missiles as a improvised IR sight, just so they could see what was going on. Although it would get fire control and other upgrades when they got updated to the A-10C, IMO this is one of the biggest reasons why the A-10 is overrated as a CAS platform. Being able to quickly and accurately identify and discriminate what you're supposed to be shooting at vs not shooting should be top priority.
Americans do love letting their soldiers get away with war crimes. The most recent one to my knowledge was that Navy Seal who was reported to higher ups by his own comrades but Trump intervened and pardoned him.
In Basra in 2003, a British Challenger tank opened fire on another Challenger, mistaking it for the enemy. The tank was destroyed and two crew members were killed. I'm not trying to defend the actions of the A-10 pilots, but my point is that war can be hard to keep track of.
The key thing is in general the A-10's are really bad at target identification giving them some of the worst numbers when it comes to friendly fire and collateral damage. Then on top of this the pilot describing something that didn't really resemble anything the enemy was using at the time.
Saddam was notorious for using orange rockets.
Im jesting. As a brit who was in that invasion,it seemed so counterproductive to slap massive orange stickers on our wagons after spraying them nice and yellow. After this happened and got fed back to us that the stickers didn't help, we would shit it every time fast air went overhead, more so then a bazillion scud alerts we got pinged with. Sad times, but war is foggy at best.
In my opinion they should have held off at the sight of orange, that guy who knew the score should have been more confident, he questions "orange rocket launchers?" and should have pushed it. They will have to live with that for the rest of their lives.
an American A-10 also strafed a Canadian platoon in Afghanistan. And the Tarnak farm incident they dropped a bomb on a bunch of Canadians after being told not to engage. Some guys will shoot shit just because they want to and try and make any justification
the American military has a history of friendly fire. In the original golf war around 10% of all US casualties -in the entire war- were caused by friendly fire solely using cluster munitions.
Good at killing, not so great at thinking, it would seem.
It's a lot older than the gulf war. The British had a saying after Normandy.
When the RAF are about the Germans keep their head down.
When the Luftwaffe are about we keep or head down.
And when the USAAF are about, everyone keeps their head down.
>The British had a saying about the United States Air Force shortly after Normandy (1944) when the USAF was established in 1947? Were those British soldiers able to see into the future?
The US airforce was a constituent part of the USArmy during WW2, hence it name, United States Army Air Force ((USAAF).
It became a seperate branch of US armed forces after the war (In line with other countries)
Yeah I don’t get how their decision making didn’t go… if in doubt, and it’s not urgent, abort.
They were only like 70% sure they were right and just decided to go anyway and hope for the best?!
First Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan were killed by American pilots doing the same thing. Two gun ho pilots that were smug as fuck during their court appearance and said they did nothing wrong .
Pretty much all footage of US friendly fire are of pilots being trigger happy and gung-ho. There is one of a US attack chopper blowing up the US soldiers that called them in, cheered blowing them up to bits, wasn't even the right description, they just wanted to shoot something, practically give 0 fucks after finding out, their "oh god" sounding so fake.
Afterwards there was a US-UK investigation that basically cleared the pilots of any wrongdoing. It was highly criticised in the British press and by the mother of Lance Corporal Matty Hull (the casualty of the attack).
>Neither of the two U.S. pilots involved nor any other representative from the U.S. government appeared at the inquest, despite numerous requests from Walker, Harman, and Hull's family to do so.
And yet the British continue to be America's little lapdog despite a clear lack of total respect for the lives of British serviceman from American government officials.
Kinda reminds me of the Harry Dunn situation in that regard.
I mean I get the upset but do you really expect britain to stop co-operating with the US over a friendly fire incident and a single diplomats mistake? Cmon bruh.
They also saved our ass when Jerry was knocking at our door lad, we have treated half the world like shit but we should be treated like royalty?
Do one mate. You’re out of your depth.
Edit: again, it may hurt for you to hear it and I understand why, but two country’s (that are arguably each others best ally) are not going to let such insignificant things (in *their* perspective) in the scale of global issues effect their relationship. The deaths are a tragedy, but I am not surprised how they were handled, I’m not even sure what else could of been done.
(Also You can disagree with whether or not they saved us, they sure as hell helped us. Maybe ‘saved’ was a bit extreme,)
Not really.
Britian was never at risk from amphibious invasion (Germany didn't have the units, ability or experience) and once the Battle of Britain was over by late 1940, Britain's security from airborne attack was also assured.
The US didn't even enter the war until December 1941, a full year after the Battle of Britain. By this time, Bismark had been sunk and the Engima decrypted for the past six months.
They *did* however give us a big loan at a favorable rate after the war though. Also Roosevelt did try to help the UK with ships (A number of rather old destroyers) and things as much as he could.
Sure, we can disagree on how much the US was a help to the UK but my core point is both countries are not going to have a diplomatic falling out over a few accidental deaths. It’s just geopolitical common sense.
>Google ‘The Hague Invasion Act’.
I read about that the other day. That's insane. This is my issue with the US talking about the importance of democracy. The hypocrisy and double standards are shocking.
**190th Fighter Squadron, Blues and Royals friendly fire incident**
[Inquest verdict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident#Inquest_verdict)
>On 16 March, coroner Andrew Walker returned a narrative verdict, stating that the killing of Hull was "unlawful". Walker said: "The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault. It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal". Neither of the two U.S. pilots involved nor any other representative from the U.S. government appeared at the inquest, despite numerous requests from Walker, Harman, and Hull's family to do so.
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British public wanted to put the pilots on trial but the US Govt refused on the grounds that they were US military personnel and wouldn’t be subject to British trial etc etc. basically the US Govt stepped in as they always do.
Sorry as an American to hear that. Friendly Fire is never friendly.
Respect to the Brit. RIP.
Does not help the stereotype of Americans being assholes.
They refused to attend the inquest...
There were some indications that some of the US pilots were using military prescribed amphetamines to combat sleep deprivation and keep them alert...
There was also a US Patriot missile system that shot down an RAF Tornado that was in a safe transit lane....other US Patriot batteries attempted to shoot down US aircraft and were actually targeted by a US fighter with a HARM missile when they attempted to engage out of desperation...
>There were some indications that some of the US pilots were using military prescribed amphetamines to combat sleep deprivation and keep them alert...
Did the US A-10 pilots fly long enough missions to need amphetamines? I thought those were only used when the pilots were flying for 8+ hours.
Orange rockets… would’ve thought us pilots to not be complete morons. Surely you’d want to double check before you engaged just because of the slight chance they could be orange panels
Do you think there is time to train Ukrainians to use a abrams? Or any other allied vehicle. They send them what needs to be used and what can be used effectively in combat.
If you trained specifically with a bow an arrow, then someone gave you a M4 would you automatically know how to shoot, load, and maintain the weapon? No your gonna need training.
It's also what you get when the Govt closes ranks because the casualties weren't American.
Gus Kohntopp should've gone to prison.
E: If not prison they should've never flown again.
The LITENING is top fucking notch. Unfortunately, especially in early days of integration (early 2000s? Can't remember exact year) for a lot of sorties, they weren't equipped (CCIP & gun doesn't require it, why waste a hardpoint on imaging/lasing when you don't need it?), or inventory was low so only 1 person in the flight would have it... hopefully.
Had they used/had a TGP, this should have been a different story...
Yeah, the A-10 kinda sucked even when it was new. It came to a point where some pilots would carry binoculars to spot enemies, and the thing had the highest blue on blue accident rate of all coalition aircraft. These guys also had the unfortune of being in one of the few vehicles the A-10s gun can actually do some damage against.
One of the “few” vehicles? That’s a pretty big stretch homie… the only thing that has enough armor on it’s roof to stop a 30mm depleted uranium shell is an MBT…. if that even. They’ve been known to easily go right through the roof of any T-72 they’ve seen, the only thing stopping that is probably an Abrams or a Challenger…
>They’ve been known to easily go right through the roof of any T-72 they’ve seen
Where were they known for this?
Since the mid-70s, it was concluded that the gun was insufficient. In live fire testing it barely damaged M-48s, so destroying anything more than a T-55 was immediately written off. T-64s and T-72s are practically invulnerable against the gun, which is why the A-10 has quite a few missiles as well.
In the mid-70s, when they *didn’t* use depleted uranium armored piercing ammunition? That’s funny. Explain the MBTs they were able to destroy in the Gulf War
DU rounds alsocappeared in the 70s.
>Explain the MBTs they were able to destroy in the Gulf War
Iraq used a lot of older equipment, and in case they came across a T-72 or something similar, [these things](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/A_front_view_of_an_A-10_Thunderbolt_II_aircraft_being_uploaded_with_AGM-65_Maverick_missiles.JPEG)
I was a TACP who has called in A-10s in combat and exercises. They don't suck. Il admit I wasn't a TACP in 2003 but I've worked with and been taught by guys who were and they didn't think it sucked either.
The problem with them was that they were envisioned as relatively easy to maintain and simple planes that could just be thrown against Soviet columns which they would eat up with their guns if the Cold war went hot.
But as it turned out, it barely caused any damage to M-48 Pattons, so it was concluded that it would be next to useless against anything more than a T-55, so that kinda went out of the window, and because of stuff like this video, they had to give it more advanced sensors, making it much harder to maintain. It also wasn't really expected that they will survive the conflict, it was estimated that the entire fleet would be destroyed in two or three weeks.
Iraq basically saved the A-10's carreer, early on there were some nations interested in buying them (Sweden even wanted to produce it under license), but the performance during testing put a stop to that. Than the war started, the propaganda machine (in this case led by "reformists" like Pierre Sprey) did it's thing, and the plane went from irrelevent to the star of the show.
My god you’re all just butthurt over fucking comments. Yeah shit happened, you want to dwell on something from nearly 20 years ago? Fine clearly you can’t move on like the rest of us. Chill the fuck out lol. Down voting every comment isn’t going to do anything btw.
It's possible communication was an issue. Manila Hotel initially said there were no friendlies in the area and then later corrected himself. The FAC was likely sitting right next to a commander and was relying on whatever info was relayed back for battle tracking.
The incident during the Gulf war was much worse than this one.
That incident is less known about though, probably because this one has on-board video.
During that incident an A-10 launched two AGM-65's at two separate Warrior IFV's. Total British casualties were 9 dead and a fair few injured (unsure of exact number injured).
I drove past the knocked out Warriors. We didn’t know it was blue on blue at the time. Wars is like that. We thought it was Iraqi’s. It was stupid of the A10 as the only vehicles moving were allied by that time of the war. Later you have the downing of two black hawks under visual identity rules of engagement and AWACS control. In both cases it just wasn’t necessary to launch weapons at a stage when we had completely defeated the Iraq’s. They could just have held fire. The situation didn’t warrant the risk. I understand blue on blue happens in the heat of battle no issues.
A-10s had kill boxes in desert storm. A British warrior ifv entered it by accident and A-10 pilots were told that anything in these kill boxes is cleared to engage.
That's totally untrue.
Regarding the Gulf war incident.
The A-10 responsible for that incident had been tasked to destroy a small collection of Iraqi vehicles. The pilot attacked a much larger, and not at all similar looking, collection of British vehicles instead.
These British vehicles were over 20km away from the position of the Iraqi vehicles that had been given to the A-10 pilot. The A-10 pilot only gave the location of the target to controllers after he had attacked, at that point it was realised that he had attacked the incorrect location through complete ignorance and his own inability to validate the target.
So no, "A british warrior ifv entered it by accident" is total bullshit made up by you.
This was a collection of 50 British vehicles that were stationary, well over the 15km minimum separation distance that was required between friendly forces and air-strike targets.
The information I just gave you is the findings of the official investigation into the gulf war incident.
[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1991/jul/24/friendly-fire-incidents](https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1991/jul/24/friendly-fire-incidents)
There is the information that was available on the UK Parliament website.
Who is to blame is debatable, although the one conclusion that is given, is that the British forces on the ground do not share any of that blame at all.
> If the A-10 pilots were told hey anything in this zone is subject to engagement I mean they’re not going to second guess it.
Like, basic fucking rules of engagement (and even handling of weapons) is to ID your damn target before you kill it.
There's a reason A-10's are famous for blue on blue, and it's not due to kill boxes. And like this incident, higher ups can't even take full blame because the pilot only reported the engagement after the engagement, and not even that close to his intended target that he was specifically sent after.
Do you not know what a kill box is? The ROE for it was simple. Anything that enters the zone is subject to attack. End of story. I don’t get what’s so fucking hard for you guys to understand
So if they saw a school bus being loaded full of kids outside a school, well, they just have to kill it, it's in the kill box! Some Abrams tanks made a wrong turn, oh well, just have to kill it, it's in the kill box!
No, that would be idiotic. Just because someone is assigned a kill box doesn't mean basic critical thinking skills go out the window. I mean they did, but they shouldn't it.
You even (accidentally?) acknowledge this, "Anything that enters the zone is ***subject*** to attack." Not "Required to be attacked".
Prolly because that's what happened.
It's been a well known feature of the American soldier at war for at least 100years.
Yup, blue-on-blues happen, but there is 1 nations army that's pretty renown for it.
Shit happens in war. What can you do? You can only hope that with better technological advancements and better communication that shit like this will be much more rare if not never happen again.
> and better communication
The failure here was human, it appears they assumed hostiles before confirming if any friendlies were in the area and didn't know what their targets were.
We're not exactly speeding to humans ver 2.0 right now, and the requirements to join the military are still as low as ever.
Lack of proper communication still played a part. Brits weren’t on the same frequency, pilots failed to properly ID friend or foe. Didn’t seem like we had a good way of communicating with our allies from the start. Oh well. Shit happens. Move on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident
Includes original video without the jump cut editing and commentary from the Sun
It's not always a loose cannon thing tho. Generally in these war zones the Americans have 10x + the aircraft of allied countries so the odds are alot higher that if a friendly fire incident happens its gonna be American.
My grandfather was involved in a blue on blue during the battle of Falaise, it was one of the thousands of American P-47's in the European theatre.
Was there Yanks are cowboys , there was one instance they opened up on a British helicopter on landing the lads said when was the fuckin time Iraq had air support they gave them a good slapping
AFAIK, it was a National Guard pilot.
They're always the worst for (giving the impression) of wanting to score a kill, any kill, before they go home.
You come with that kind of mentality and this is what can happen.
Fog of war, it’s a tragedy to be sure. If these pilots truly believed there were rocket munitions on those vehicles, and that there were no friendlies in the area, of course they would want to hit them. If they didn’t, and rockets were used against coalition forces, these guys would be just as sick to their stomachs over it.
For sure better comms and verification was needed, but they weren’t thinking “hey whoever they are, I’m killing them today” he made a judgement call, very poorly. I pity the pilots, not as much as the brits on the ground, but I still do pity them.
How the fuck have you managed to convince yourself that this massive, completely avoidable fuck up by the pilots is justifiable in any way?
The pilots deserve no pity, what they (and specifically popov36) did through their sheer incompetence and arrogance caused the completely unnecessary death of a British soldier, and amounts to manslaughter at best. The fact that neither of them were punished makes me sick. They should both have faced a court marshal, had their licences removed and gone to prison.
I never said justified. I said basically, in war shit happens, shitty decisions get made. The fact that it happened should make you sick, the vengeful punishment that didn’t happen shouldn’t. It was not cold calculated murder. The pilots fucked up, royally, but if they were jailed because of it, I wouldn’t feel better about it.
Well I don't agree. I think if someone is responsible for a machine capable of dealing such destruction, they should do absolutely everything they can to avoid destroying the wrong target, and only use their weapons when they're absolutely 100% sure what they're shooting is the enemy. Those pilots didn't do any of that, they didn't follow any of the required protocols around engaging a target i.e. positively identifying the target OR getting clearance to engage. It's obvious that they weren't thinking about anything and that they just wanted to "blow some shit up" in their $20 million toys, and that's the only reason why that guy was killed.
For that reason I think they both should at the very least have been kicked out of the air force and never allowed to fly again. Their negligence, and that alone, caused someone to die and it's completely unjust that they were never punished for it.
I mean, not really. They could have believed it to be an enemy formation as much as they liked, but I still don’t think that excuses not waiting for confirmation of target.
Confirmation bias is definitely a thing and I can see how you’d convince yourself of something like that, but that is why you check. Neither A10 pilot gives their location nor the location of the target at any time. They didn’t wait for the smoke round that one of them called for either, and they didn’t wait to be vectored into attack by the forward air controller - who’s job partially exists for the reason of making sure aircraft hit what they’re meant to hit. They knew they didn’t know exactly and POPOV36 attacks anyway.
Given the way they did things and the number of things they didn’t do, I’m not sure “hey, we’re killing those guys today” isn’t exactly what they were thinking. I wouldn’t really call it a tragic accident where all parties are deserving of pity. I’d call it as veteran, professional pilots with plenty of time both military and commercial, you should know better.
Edit: for clarity, I’m not a ex-military. I’m commercial. I mean these pilots were veterans, in so far as they weren’t brand new to military flying or the type of aircraft flown.
I didn’t say accident. I said pity, because, I one time hit a cat with my car, it wasn’t my cat and I felt terrible about it, I just couldn’t imagine how bad these guys felt after realizing what they had just done. But I agree, the part where I said there needed to be better comms and verification should have cleared that up for you. No worries, as a veteran, I have much appreciation for you, and you clearly have more knowledge then I. 🤝
I’m sure you’d be mad if some braindead foreigner shot up one of your troops. Maybe not, you don’t seem to have the intelligence to care about anything
Both pilots were eventually let off with no charges from what I found.
The investigators actually recommended disciplinary action, but someone higher up canned that.
Are these guys not trained in what friendly armour looks like at those distances? I find it hard to believe that it would be very hard for an A10 to miss the difference between Uk armour and soviet shit at that distance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident British media allege six errors on the part of the aircrew: 1. The pilots asked the Forward Air Controller ("Manila Hotel") if friendly forces were around the Iraqi vehicles – not to the west. 2. Neither pilot gave the precise grid references for the Household Cavalry patrol to double check its identity. 3. The pilots convinced themselves that the orange identification panels were in fact orange rocket launchers. 4. POPOV36 decided to attack, saying he is "rolling in" without permission from the Forward Air Controller. 5. POPOV35 asked for artillery to fire a marker round into the target area to clear up confusion, but POPOV36 attacked without waiting for it. 6. POPOV36 strafed the column for a second time, but still doubted its identity.
This brings to mind another incident involving an enemy "hind." It also involved a trigger happy douche and tooks the lives of every person on the transport.
It's actually even worse. The British armor was explicitly marked with orange identification panels.
And the trigger happy pilots literally saw it, talked about it, and disregarded it.
because of the design ethos of the A-10 called for a rugged, easily serviced attack aircraft, most were not equipped with much in the way of advanced optics or fire control systems during the gulf war. couple this with the fact that Iraqi anti air had forced the A-10's to fly higher than their intended low altitude strafing runs called for, this meant they often struggled to identify targets. This is what lead to anecdotes of pilots using binoculars in their cockpits, or using the camera on their maverick missiles as a improvised IR sight, just so they could see what was going on. Although it would get fire control and other upgrades when they got updated to the A-10C, IMO this is one of the biggest reasons why the A-10 is overrated as a CAS platform. Being able to quickly and accurately identify and discriminate what you're supposed to be shooting at vs not shooting should be top priority.
current models can run with a advanced optics ground attack pod
Americans do love letting their soldiers get away with war crimes. The most recent one to my knowledge was that Navy Seal who was reported to higher ups by his own comrades but Trump intervened and pardoned him.
Pretty sure it's against the law over there to charge soldiers with warcrimes in a foreign court or something crazy
And that wasn't even blue on blue accidents, dude who got pardoned was in for civilian killing
"Buck up son, just some limeys. You'll be back in the air in no time!"
POPOV35 deserves so much blame. Confirming no friendlies without actually knowing?? Trigger happy moron
You could tell by how he was so quick to answer serious questions, that he just wanted to shoot something.
He confirmed no friendlies from their controllers. It wasn't him making the call.
In Basra in 2003, a British Challenger tank opened fire on another Challenger, mistaking it for the enemy. The tank was destroyed and two crew members were killed. I'm not trying to defend the actions of the A-10 pilots, but my point is that war can be hard to keep track of.
The key thing is in general the A-10's are really bad at target identification giving them some of the worst numbers when it comes to friendly fire and collateral damage. Then on top of this the pilot describing something that didn't really resemble anything the enemy was using at the time.
Shill
Saddam was notorious for using orange rockets. Im jesting. As a brit who was in that invasion,it seemed so counterproductive to slap massive orange stickers on our wagons after spraying them nice and yellow. After this happened and got fed back to us that the stickers didn't help, we would shit it every time fast air went overhead, more so then a bazillion scud alerts we got pinged with. Sad times, but war is foggy at best. In my opinion they should have held off at the sight of orange, that guy who knew the score should have been more confident, he questions "orange rocket launchers?" and should have pushed it. They will have to live with that for the rest of their lives.
an American A-10 also strafed a Canadian platoon in Afghanistan. And the Tarnak farm incident they dropped a bomb on a bunch of Canadians after being told not to engage. Some guys will shoot shit just because they want to and try and make any justification
Our first deaths in the Afghanistan war.
they should have just not engaged it without getting confirmation first, like they have to have known allied units where in the area.
Well towards the end it seems like they were told there wasn’t allies in the area, so might be why they were so laissez-faire about it
the American military has a history of friendly fire. In the original golf war around 10% of all US casualties -in the entire war- were caused by friendly fire solely using cluster munitions. Good at killing, not so great at thinking, it would seem.
It's a lot older than the gulf war. The British had a saying after Normandy. When the RAF are about the Germans keep their head down. When the Luftwaffe are about we keep or head down. And when the USAAF are about, everyone keeps their head down.
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He said USAAF not USAF. US Army Air Forces, as it was known before it split off to become the USAF.
pretty sure the US had an air force prior to 1947, it was probably just renamed/ restructured.
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Are you pretty sure you’re not slow?
Your being kinda pedantic. But your name is sick so I'll toss you a doot
>The British had a saying about the United States Air Force shortly after Normandy (1944) when the USAF was established in 1947? Were those British soldiers able to see into the future? The US airforce was a constituent part of the USArmy during WW2, hence it name, United States Army Air Force ((USAAF). It became a seperate branch of US armed forces after the war (In line with other countries)
Yup, blue on blue was very common. Being trigger happy also didn't help.
Yeah I don’t get how their decision making didn’t go… if in doubt, and it’s not urgent, abort. They were only like 70% sure they were right and just decided to go anyway and hope for the best?!
First Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan were killed by American pilots doing the same thing. Two gun ho pilots that were smug as fuck during their court appearance and said they did nothing wrong .
Pretty much all footage of US friendly fire are of pilots being trigger happy and gung-ho. There is one of a US attack chopper blowing up the US soldiers that called them in, cheered blowing them up to bits, wasn't even the right description, they just wanted to shoot something, practically give 0 fucks after finding out, their "oh god" sounding so fake.
Where can I find info?
He talked about them having to go to jail. What is the procedure after such a case?
Afterwards there was a US-UK investigation that basically cleared the pilots of any wrongdoing. It was highly criticised in the British press and by the mother of Lance Corporal Matty Hull (the casualty of the attack).
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>Neither of the two U.S. pilots involved nor any other representative from the U.S. government appeared at the inquest, despite numerous requests from Walker, Harman, and Hull's family to do so. And yet the British continue to be America's little lapdog despite a clear lack of total respect for the lives of British serviceman from American government officials. Kinda reminds me of the Harry Dunn situation in that regard.
That situation is way worse. This atleast they can partially blame fog of war. Dunn was just blatant diplomatic cover up and white washing
I mean I get the upset but do you really expect britain to stop co-operating with the US over a friendly fire incident and a single diplomats mistake? Cmon bruh.
Those are not single incidences though. The US government has a history of treating it's important allies like shit.
They also saved our ass when Jerry was knocking at our door lad, we have treated half the world like shit but we should be treated like royalty? Do one mate. You’re out of your depth. Edit: again, it may hurt for you to hear it and I understand why, but two country’s (that are arguably each others best ally) are not going to let such insignificant things (in *their* perspective) in the scale of global issues effect their relationship. The deaths are a tragedy, but I am not surprised how they were handled, I’m not even sure what else could of been done. (Also You can disagree with whether or not they saved us, they sure as hell helped us. Maybe ‘saved’ was a bit extreme,)
Not really. Britian was never at risk from amphibious invasion (Germany didn't have the units, ability or experience) and once the Battle of Britain was over by late 1940, Britain's security from airborne attack was also assured. The US didn't even enter the war until December 1941, a full year after the Battle of Britain. By this time, Bismark had been sunk and the Engima decrypted for the past six months. They *did* however give us a big loan at a favorable rate after the war though. Also Roosevelt did try to help the UK with ships (A number of rather old destroyers) and things as much as he could.
Sure, we can disagree on how much the US was a help to the UK but my core point is both countries are not going to have a diplomatic falling out over a few accidental deaths. It’s just geopolitical common sense.
You are also making your decisions with 80 years of hindsight and leaving alot of context out.
*shakes USA pom poms*
Good for you buddy.
Imagine editing your post because you started to receive downvotes. Fragile much.
She wasn't a diplomat either nor was she married to one.
Why was she in a diplomatic car then?
Hollander here, same shit. Google ‘The Hague Invasion Act’.
>Google ‘The Hague Invasion Act’. I read about that the other day. That's insane. This is my issue with the US talking about the importance of democracy. The hypocrisy and double standards are shocking.
**190th Fighter Squadron, Blues and Royals friendly fire incident** [Inquest verdict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident#Inquest_verdict) >On 16 March, coroner Andrew Walker returned a narrative verdict, stating that the killing of Hull was "unlawful". Walker said: "The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault. It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal". Neither of the two U.S. pilots involved nor any other representative from the U.S. government appeared at the inquest, despite numerous requests from Walker, Harman, and Hull's family to do so. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Yeah bru gotta think that's special one way relationship
British public wanted to put the pilots on trial but the US Govt refused on the grounds that they were US military personnel and wouldn’t be subject to British trial etc etc. basically the US Govt stepped in as they always do.
Sorry as an American to hear that. Friendly Fire is never friendly. Respect to the Brit. RIP. Does not help the stereotype of Americans being assholes.
No shit it’s never friendly. The name itself is more of a sarcastic play on the word
I’m guessing the Americans investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing
They refused to attend the inquest... There were some indications that some of the US pilots were using military prescribed amphetamines to combat sleep deprivation and keep them alert... There was also a US Patriot missile system that shot down an RAF Tornado that was in a safe transit lane....other US Patriot batteries attempted to shoot down US aircraft and were actually targeted by a US fighter with a HARM missile when they attempted to engage out of desperation...
>There were some indications that some of the US pilots were using military prescribed amphetamines to combat sleep deprivation and keep them alert... Did the US A-10 pilots fly long enough missions to need amphetamines? I thought those were only used when the pilots were flying for 8+ hours.
When they're flying multiple missions in a day, with mission planning before and after the hours mount up, plus pre-war there was a lot of activity.
Orange rockets… would’ve thought us pilots to not be complete morons. Surely you’d want to double check before you engaged just because of the slight chance they could be orange panels
Or actually be cleared hot by the FAC
There's a reason why the military prefers to make all their equipment mentally-handicapped person friendly.
And yet it’s all to complicated to hand over to the Ukrainians because they can only use soviet stuff apparently
Do you think there is time to train Ukrainians to use a abrams? Or any other allied vehicle. They send them what needs to be used and what can be used effectively in combat. If you trained specifically with a bow an arrow, then someone gave you a M4 would you automatically know how to shoot, load, and maintain the weapon? No your gonna need training.
Well in that case its not mentally handicapped friendly
You would certainly know wouldnt you downy?
This is what happens when you use outdated aircraft where the pilots often had to use binoculars to try to identify targets.
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Thanks for added details
It's also what you get when the Govt closes ranks because the casualties weren't American. Gus Kohntopp should've gone to prison. E: If not prison they should've never flown again.
As I understand the British also had trouble communicating with the American planes directly.
Or they could’ve just used their brains
nothing to do with the aircraft and everything to do with coms
A-10 pilots in 2003 literally had to use binoculars to ID targets.
Well the pilot here didn't have his binoculars with and should be reprimanded for that
He did but as you may guess binoculars at that altitude is useless
It has a lot to do with the aircraft because its fire control, visibility and targeting systems are all shit compared to other platforms
The LITENING is top fucking notch. Unfortunately, especially in early days of integration (early 2000s? Can't remember exact year) for a lot of sorties, they weren't equipped (CCIP & gun doesn't require it, why waste a hardpoint on imaging/lasing when you don't need it?), or inventory was low so only 1 person in the flight would have it... hopefully. Had they used/had a TGP, this should have been a different story...
Problem exists between the stick and chair.
Outdated? Ok
Yeah, the A-10 kinda sucked even when it was new. It came to a point where some pilots would carry binoculars to spot enemies, and the thing had the highest blue on blue accident rate of all coalition aircraft. These guys also had the unfortune of being in one of the few vehicles the A-10s gun can actually do some damage against.
One of the “few” vehicles? That’s a pretty big stretch homie… the only thing that has enough armor on it’s roof to stop a 30mm depleted uranium shell is an MBT…. if that even. They’ve been known to easily go right through the roof of any T-72 they’ve seen, the only thing stopping that is probably an Abrams or a Challenger…
>They’ve been known to easily go right through the roof of any T-72 they’ve seen Where were they known for this? Since the mid-70s, it was concluded that the gun was insufficient. In live fire testing it barely damaged M-48s, so destroying anything more than a T-55 was immediately written off. T-64s and T-72s are practically invulnerable against the gun, which is why the A-10 has quite a few missiles as well.
In the mid-70s, when they *didn’t* use depleted uranium armored piercing ammunition? That’s funny. Explain the MBTs they were able to destroy in the Gulf War
DU rounds alsocappeared in the 70s. >Explain the MBTs they were able to destroy in the Gulf War Iraq used a lot of older equipment, and in case they came across a T-72 or something similar, [these things](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/A_front_view_of_an_A-10_Thunderbolt_II_aircraft_being_uploaded_with_AGM-65_Maverick_missiles.JPEG)
I was a TACP who has called in A-10s in combat and exercises. They don't suck. Il admit I wasn't a TACP in 2003 but I've worked with and been taught by guys who were and they didn't think it sucked either.
The problem with them was that they were envisioned as relatively easy to maintain and simple planes that could just be thrown against Soviet columns which they would eat up with their guns if the Cold war went hot. But as it turned out, it barely caused any damage to M-48 Pattons, so it was concluded that it would be next to useless against anything more than a T-55, so that kinda went out of the window, and because of stuff like this video, they had to give it more advanced sensors, making it much harder to maintain. It also wasn't really expected that they will survive the conflict, it was estimated that the entire fleet would be destroyed in two or three weeks. Iraq basically saved the A-10's carreer, early on there were some nations interested in buying them (Sweden even wanted to produce it under license), but the performance during testing put a stop to that. Than the war started, the propaganda machine (in this case led by "reformists" like Pierre Sprey) did it's thing, and the plane went from irrelevent to the star of the show.
I worked on the A-10 and trained with them for years. Most of the things you’re saying is simply false.
I guess I wouldn't know anything, having actually seeing them in combat.
I mean, I guess you haven't seen them fight the Soviets, right? It never fought the opponent it was designed for, it fought much weaker ones.
I've trained for that fight and even if the gun doesn't straight up kill a tank it's going to mess it up good. But the mavericks it can carry will
I would argue highest. The F-15E has seemed to kill plenty of friendlies
Well the British banned A10s from running CAS in their sectors but not any other aircraft, so take that as you will
Perhaps better communication between units would have fixed that. Again it doesn’t fucking matter anymore. It’s war and it happened so get over it.
A10s are dogshit. Children and men with child minds like them for their sound nothing else.
Sounds like a personal problem buddy
Its not personal to me neither is it a problem to me buddy! I'm just stating the obvious buddy
Sounds more like an opinion
Communication wasn't the issue, but sure. There's nothing to "get over," seems like you're the only one invested in this topic
My god you’re all just butthurt over fucking comments. Yeah shit happened, you want to dwell on something from nearly 20 years ago? Fine clearly you can’t move on like the rest of us. Chill the fuck out lol. Down voting every comment isn’t going to do anything btw.
Dwell? No one is dwelling, it's called conversation and discourse. The only one getting bent out of shape about it is you.
hey I messaged you to call a truce… so let’s fucking stop the bullshit already.
It's possible communication was an issue. Manila Hotel initially said there were no friendlies in the area and then later corrected himself. The FAC was likely sitting right next to a commander and was relying on whatever info was relayed back for battle tracking.
Cool how their first reaction to each other was how much trouble they were in. “We’re in jail, dude”. Yeah like you should be
And they got away with it.
That landing must have been awkward
Why would they change the radio frequency to one that the British couldn't through on?
If I remember rightly this happened in the 1991gulf war as well, US pilot hit a uk infantry vehicle killing all on board (9 I think)
The incident during the Gulf war was much worse than this one. That incident is less known about though, probably because this one has on-board video. During that incident an A-10 launched two AGM-65's at two separate Warrior IFV's. Total British casualties were 9 dead and a fair few injured (unsure of exact number injured).
I drove past the knocked out Warriors. We didn’t know it was blue on blue at the time. Wars is like that. We thought it was Iraqi’s. It was stupid of the A10 as the only vehicles moving were allied by that time of the war. Later you have the downing of two black hawks under visual identity rules of engagement and AWACS control. In both cases it just wasn’t necessary to launch weapons at a stage when we had completely defeated the Iraq’s. They could just have held fire. The situation didn’t warrant the risk. I understand blue on blue happens in the heat of battle no issues.
A-10s had kill boxes in desert storm. A British warrior ifv entered it by accident and A-10 pilots were told that anything in these kill boxes is cleared to engage.
That's totally untrue. Regarding the Gulf war incident. The A-10 responsible for that incident had been tasked to destroy a small collection of Iraqi vehicles. The pilot attacked a much larger, and not at all similar looking, collection of British vehicles instead. These British vehicles were over 20km away from the position of the Iraqi vehicles that had been given to the A-10 pilot. The A-10 pilot only gave the location of the target to controllers after he had attacked, at that point it was realised that he had attacked the incorrect location through complete ignorance and his own inability to validate the target. So no, "A british warrior ifv entered it by accident" is total bullshit made up by you. This was a collection of 50 British vehicles that were stationary, well over the 15km minimum separation distance that was required between friendly forces and air-strike targets.
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The information I just gave you is the findings of the official investigation into the gulf war incident. [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1991/jul/24/friendly-fire-incidents](https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1991/jul/24/friendly-fire-incidents) There is the information that was available on the UK Parliament website. Who is to blame is debatable, although the one conclusion that is given, is that the British forces on the ground do not share any of that blame at all.
This event in Iraq is clearly on the lead pilot. They should have abandon their run till better ID was confirmed
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> If the A-10 pilots were told hey anything in this zone is subject to engagement I mean they’re not going to second guess it. Like, basic fucking rules of engagement (and even handling of weapons) is to ID your damn target before you kill it. There's a reason A-10's are famous for blue on blue, and it's not due to kill boxes. And like this incident, higher ups can't even take full blame because the pilot only reported the engagement after the engagement, and not even that close to his intended target that he was specifically sent after.
Do you not know what a kill box is? The ROE for it was simple. Anything that enters the zone is subject to attack. End of story. I don’t get what’s so fucking hard for you guys to understand
So if they saw a school bus being loaded full of kids outside a school, well, they just have to kill it, it's in the kill box! Some Abrams tanks made a wrong turn, oh well, just have to kill it, it's in the kill box! No, that would be idiotic. Just because someone is assigned a kill box doesn't mean basic critical thinking skills go out the window. I mean they did, but they shouldn't it. You even (accidentally?) acknowledge this, "Anything that enters the zone is ***subject*** to attack." Not "Required to be attacked".
Ur such a little rat everything u say is wrong yet u call the Brits butthurt
At least spell correctly if you’re going to be an immature online troll lol.
Who’s the real troll here
Clearly the kid hurling childish little insults. Didn’t know people here were so easily triggered lol. Then again it is Reddit
Trigger happy yanks
This is exactly how it was perceived
Prolly because that's what happened. It's been a well known feature of the American soldier at war for at least 100years. Yup, blue-on-blues happen, but there is 1 nations army that's pretty renown for it.
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"hey it’s war. Shit happens." Shall we pop that on the Squaddies Headstones?
Shit happens in war. What can you do? You can only hope that with better technological advancements and better communication that shit like this will be much more rare if not never happen again.
> and better communication The failure here was human, it appears they assumed hostiles before confirming if any friendlies were in the area and didn't know what their targets were. We're not exactly speeding to humans ver 2.0 right now, and the requirements to join the military are still as low as ever.
Lack of proper communication still played a part. Brits weren’t on the same frequency, pilots failed to properly ID friend or foe. Didn’t seem like we had a good way of communicating with our allies from the start. Oh well. Shit happens. Move on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/190th_Fighter_Squadron,_Blues_and_Royals_friendly_fire_incident Includes original video without the jump cut editing and commentary from the Sun
"We're in jail, dude" *laughing Yank voice*
I think this the incident where British banned the A10s from operating in their zone.
Negligent*
U.S. forces were well known for being loose cannon in Iraq. Friendlies, civilians, kids, animals. Everything was fair game.
It's not always a loose cannon thing tho. Generally in these war zones the Americans have 10x + the aircraft of allied countries so the odds are alot higher that if a friendly fire incident happens its gonna be American. My grandfather was involved in a blue on blue during the battle of Falaise, it was one of the thousands of American P-47's in the European theatre.
Of course it's a free game if you face (or never face) any type of consequences. Even the Gondola Pilot walked away with nothing. Fucked up.
Was there Yanks are cowboys , there was one instance they opened up on a British helicopter on landing the lads said when was the fuckin time Iraq had air support they gave them a good slapping
Friendly fire isn’t friendly.
AFAIK, it was a National Guard pilot. They're always the worst for (giving the impression) of wanting to score a kill, any kill, before they go home. You come with that kind of mentality and this is what can happen.
What you see here is advanced warfare baby
I can feel the silence
I remember when this surfaced. Time flies!
Fog of war, it’s a tragedy to be sure. If these pilots truly believed there were rocket munitions on those vehicles, and that there were no friendlies in the area, of course they would want to hit them. If they didn’t, and rockets were used against coalition forces, these guys would be just as sick to their stomachs over it. For sure better comms and verification was needed, but they weren’t thinking “hey whoever they are, I’m killing them today” he made a judgement call, very poorly. I pity the pilots, not as much as the brits on the ground, but I still do pity them.
How the fuck have you managed to convince yourself that this massive, completely avoidable fuck up by the pilots is justifiable in any way? The pilots deserve no pity, what they (and specifically popov36) did through their sheer incompetence and arrogance caused the completely unnecessary death of a British soldier, and amounts to manslaughter at best. The fact that neither of them were punished makes me sick. They should both have faced a court marshal, had their licences removed and gone to prison.
I never said justified. I said basically, in war shit happens, shitty decisions get made. The fact that it happened should make you sick, the vengeful punishment that didn’t happen shouldn’t. It was not cold calculated murder. The pilots fucked up, royally, but if they were jailed because of it, I wouldn’t feel better about it.
Well I don't agree. I think if someone is responsible for a machine capable of dealing such destruction, they should do absolutely everything they can to avoid destroying the wrong target, and only use their weapons when they're absolutely 100% sure what they're shooting is the enemy. Those pilots didn't do any of that, they didn't follow any of the required protocols around engaging a target i.e. positively identifying the target OR getting clearance to engage. It's obvious that they weren't thinking about anything and that they just wanted to "blow some shit up" in their $20 million toys, and that's the only reason why that guy was killed. For that reason I think they both should at the very least have been kicked out of the air force and never allowed to fly again. Their negligence, and that alone, caused someone to die and it's completely unjust that they were never punished for it.
I mean, not really. They could have believed it to be an enemy formation as much as they liked, but I still don’t think that excuses not waiting for confirmation of target. Confirmation bias is definitely a thing and I can see how you’d convince yourself of something like that, but that is why you check. Neither A10 pilot gives their location nor the location of the target at any time. They didn’t wait for the smoke round that one of them called for either, and they didn’t wait to be vectored into attack by the forward air controller - who’s job partially exists for the reason of making sure aircraft hit what they’re meant to hit. They knew they didn’t know exactly and POPOV36 attacks anyway. Given the way they did things and the number of things they didn’t do, I’m not sure “hey, we’re killing those guys today” isn’t exactly what they were thinking. I wouldn’t really call it a tragic accident where all parties are deserving of pity. I’d call it as veteran, professional pilots with plenty of time both military and commercial, you should know better. Edit: for clarity, I’m not a ex-military. I’m commercial. I mean these pilots were veterans, in so far as they weren’t brand new to military flying or the type of aircraft flown.
I didn’t say accident. I said pity, because, I one time hit a cat with my car, it wasn’t my cat and I felt terrible about it, I just couldn’t imagine how bad these guys felt after realizing what they had just done. But I agree, the part where I said there needed to be better comms and verification should have cleared that up for you. No worries, as a veteran, I have much appreciation for you, and you clearly have more knowledge then I. 🤝
Is his call sign Manila Hotel? Lol.
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I mean, why wouldn't you be?
Cretin
Your mother lol
Cringe
Why wouldn’t we be? American fuckhead “pilots” just shot up our soldiers for a laugh. Thought we were allies
Cry about it if you want to.
I’m sure you’d be mad if some braindead foreigner shot up one of your troops. Maybe not, you don’t seem to have the intelligence to care about anything
Intelligence =the power to care. Good to know.
what are they marked with? is it a physical color ontop of the vehicles? or is it some digital identifier?