friendly fire
n.
Discharge of a military weapon that injures or kills a member of one's own armed forces or an ally.
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Discharge of a military weapon that injures or kills a member of one's own armed forces or an ally.
Kindling intentionally set in a fireplace, stove, furnace, or other containment that has not spread beyond it. Property insurance does not protect against damage from a friendly fire. For example, smoke damage to the inside of a fireplace is not covered because the fire is in its normal habitat; to insure it would be insuring against a certainty. Insurance is designed to provide coverage against the fortuitous loss. See also Hostile Fire.
Modern circumlocution for attacks on soldiers by their own side, a decidedly unfriendly act but a well-established reality of war. It even occurred in hand-to-hand combat because men were not recognized as being friendly or because, in the press of battle, a weapon drawn back to strike a foe might hit a friend instead. The sharp bronze butt of the hoplite spear often caused casualties in the rear ranks when it was drawn back to strike: Plutarch (see Greek historians) describes how in a battle in the streets of Argos in 272 ‘many died from the accidental blows which they inflicted among each other’.
The adoption of gunpowder weapons complicated matters. The smoke they produced so liberally made IFF difficult. At Rezonville/Gravelotte in 1870 a French regiment was gently reproved by a strange brigadier who arrived to announce: ‘Mes enfants, you probably do not know it, but you are firing on my brigade.’ Accidents were frequent when weapons were handled in closely packed ranks, and their avoidance was one aim of drill. Front-rank soldiers who knelt to fire and bobbed up to load were often shot by their rear-rank comrades: Marshal Saint-Cyr attributed one-quarter of French infantry casualties in the Napoleonic era to this cause.
Carelessness and misunderstandings kill men even off the battlefield. A corporal of the British 43rd Regiment survived the storming of Badajoz in 1812, only to be killed when a soldier fired his musket while cleaning it. During the British civil wars Lt Col Arthur Swayne ‘was slain by his boy, teaching him to use his arms. He bid the boy aim at him (thinking the gun had not been charged) which he did only too well.’ Lt Col Thomas Gonne of the 17th Lancers was supervising pistol practice the very day his regiment received orders to leave for the Zulu war, and accidentally shot himself. Any army in the field will produce a steady trickle of casualties as friendly patrols are engaged: WW I poet Siegfried Sassoon was shot by one of his NCOs when coming back from patrol. Weapon handling is worsened by tiredness, fear, and poor training. During the Vietnam war the US army recorded 846 cases of ‘accidental self-destruction’ and 939 ‘accidental homicides’, in all over 4 per cent of the total ground-action fatalities.
As engagement ranges increased so too did the propensity for friendly fire to cause casualties. Once artillery was used primarily in indirect fire, engaging a target invisible to the gun's detachment, all sorts of errors were possible. The position of gun or target might be inaccurately located on the map; barrels might be worn or charges faulty; and the members of the detachment might load the wrong charge or set an incorrect bearing or elevation on the sight. The tactical situation might have not been grasped by the gunners: the gallant French defence of the village of Samogneux, outside Verdun, collapsed when a newly arrived battery of French 155 mm guns engaged it. Commanders and their staff sometimes made lethal errors and engaged positions their own men held. Gen Charles Percin reckoned that 75, 000 French soldiers were killed by their own artillery in WW I.
Aircraft made their own lethal contribution. Guderian's panzer corps was struck by its own supporting Stukas the day after it crossed the Meuse in 1940, and a brigade commander was among the killed. The German practice of placing the national flag on the engine-deck of tanks (and painting it on the decks of warships) arose not from patriotism but a desire to make IFF clear. Allied ground forces in Normandy used a white star for the same reason, and in the Gulf war in 1990-1 Allied vehicles bore a distinguishing chevron. Yet despite this there were still casualties from friendly air power. American troops preparing for COBRA in 1944 were struck twice by strategic bombers. In one incident 111 men were killed (including Lt Gen Leslie J. McNair, the highest-ranking US army fatality of the war) and another 490 were wounded. Accidental American air attack on a British unit in the Gulf war caused both casualties and resentment.
The fact remains that casualties from friendly fire are, as John Horsfall says, ‘a hazard inseparable from war’. Good training and slick procedures will help reduce them. When they occur they will be likely to generate disproportionate impact, especially if the friend producing the fire is an ally or coalition partner.
Bibliography
— Richard Holmes
So‐called friendly fire, sometimes termed fratricide or amicicide, is officially defined by the U.S. Army as “the employment of friendly weapons … which results in unforeseen and unintentional death or injury to friendly personnel.” Intentional firing on friendly troops and true accidents are properly excluded from the definition.
The difficulties posed by terrain, poor visibility, and the type and size of operations all contribute to friendly fire. The immediate causes include mechanical defects, simple carelessness, poor spatial orientation, misidentification of the target, and miscalculation of firing data. Poor coordination of the movement of forces on the battlefield, lack of training, and poor discipline also play a role; but the fear, uncertainty, and excitement of the combat environment are perhaps the most important factors.
The statistical dimensions of the friendly fire problem have yet to be defined; reliable data are simply not available in most cases. Operational and medical reports suggest, however, that the relationship of friendly fire casualties to overall friendly casualties is between 2 percent and 25 percent. In the Persian Gulf War of 1991, there were 615 American casualties; 23 percent of the personnel (35 killed and 72 wounded) and 77 percent of the combat vehicle losses were attributable to friendly fire.
Whatever the statistical reality, friendly fire is known to have occurred in all of America's wars, and the victims have ranged from the rawest recruits to very senior officers. The Confederate general “Stonewall” Jackson died after being mistakenly shot by one of his own soldiers at Chancellorsville in 1863. In World War II, Lieut. Gen. Lesley J. McNair and 813 other Americans were killed or wounded near St. Lô in Normandy in one of the most costly incidents of friendly fire ever to occur. The use of American medium and heavy bombers to provide close support for ground troops in Operation Cobra, the breakout of Allied forces from Normandy, resulted in mistaken bombing of American positions on two successive days, 24–25 July 1944. The planned ground attack was delayed but ultimately succeeded despite the frightful toll.
Earlier, in July 1943, nervous American naval and ground troops Gela, Sicily, fired on aircraft carrying paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division and caused 319 casualties (88 dead, 162 wounded, and 69 missing) plus 80 aircraft destroyed or badly damaged. In the Pacific, a month later, 15–16 August, 28 Americans and Canadians were killed and 55 wounded during the invasion of Kiska in the Aleutian Islands. There were no enemy troops on the island; all of the casualties were from friendly fire.
As weapons have become more complicated and more deadly, the ability of human beings to control them has been stretched to its limits, and both the number and the severity of friendly fire incidents have increased. Modern armies search earnestly for ways to reduce or eliminate friendly fire. Improved training and sophisticated electronic devices are sure to have a positive effect, yet it is equally certain that the problem cannot be eradicated altogether. As long as men make war, friendly fire will continue to occur.
[See also Casualties.]
Bibliography
Weapon fire coming from one's own side, especially fire that causes accidental injury or death to one's own forces.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
Fire burning in a place where it was intended to burn, although damages may result. In a military conflict, the discharge of weapons against one's own troops.
A fire burning in a fireplace is regarded as a friendly fire, in spite of the fact that extensive smoke damage might result therefrom. Ordinarily, when an individual purchases fire insurance, the coverage does not extend to damages resulting from a friendly fire but only to loss resulting from an uncontrollable hostile fire.
(DOD) In casualty reporting, a casualty circumstance applicable to persons killed in action or wounded in action mistakenly or accidentally by friendly forces actively engaged with the enemy, who are directing fire at a hostile force or what is thought to be a hostile force. See also casualty.
Friendly fire or non-hostile fire, a term originally adopted by the United States military, is fire from allied or friendly forces, as opposed to fire coming from enemy forces or enemy fire. A friendly fire incident (fratricide), is when friendly forces or materiel are attacked and damaged by friendly fire [1] which may be deliberate (e.g. incorrectly identifying the target as the enemy), or accidental (e.g. missing the enemy and hitting "friendlies"). Friendly fire is one kind of collateral damage. The term friendly fire is also a classic oxymoron and a military euphemism.
The British military refer to these incidents as blue on blue,[2] which derives from military exercises where NATO forces were identified by blue pennants, hence "blue", and Warsaw Pact forces were identified by orange pennants.
Some prefer the term fratricide over friendly fire, because they deem the latter to be an unfitting
euphemism exemplified by the
The term amicicide (killing of a friend) has also been used in the same manner as fratricide (Shrader 1982).
Friendly fire incidents fall roughly into two categories. The first classification is fog of war which generically describes friendly fire incidents in unintentional circumstances due to the confusion inherent in warfare. The second classification is murder where friendly fire incidents are premeditated. During the Vietnam War, this was known as “fragging.”[1]
Fog of war incidents fall roughly into two classes:[1]
Two French regiments accidentally attacking each other during the Battle of Fleurus led to the habit of attaching a white scarf to the flags of the regiments from 1690 - white being the colour of the kings of France.[citation needed]
Pentagon estimates of U.S. friendly fire deaths, as a percentage of total U.S. deaths:
Due to the number of UK personnel killed by U.S. forces, in Britain the term 'friendly fire' is used in a semi-ironic way to imply U.S. Military incompetence [3] [4] [5][6] It is a frequent source of satirical humour. Examples include
In Iraq, many friendly Iraqis have also been killed and injured in a similar manner, but the US military has stated that it collects no statistics on these outcomes.
Friendly fire is fire that was intended to do harm to the enemy: a death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered "friendly fire".
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