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2003-09-09 International

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Posted by Super Hose 2003-09-09 1:04:42 PM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 one of the facets in the friendly fire issue is the lethality, accuracy, and autonomy of the weapon systems. The time from identification to engagement of a target has shrunk considerably since ww2 and even DS1. Because of this it is far easier for friendly forces to be designated a threat and attacked. There is less time to pull the plug on the engagement. More often than not the attack will be deadly, no more near misses on the scale of past conflicts.

however, murphy's law indicates that these things will happen. The Patriot system can be rectified, and from my navy FC friends who were in the gulf, I learned that there were some close calls out there with some cowboy allied aircraft. Or even some Iranian craft that decided to do a flyby without notifying everyone.

A lot of times the key to Fratricide is communications. Everyone looks to other ways to fix the problems, such as fail safes, or blaming the commanders. What it comes down to a lot of time is lack of communication between various elements in what is now an increasingly complex, and coordinated war.

-DS
"the horns hold up the halo."

Posted by DeviantSaint 2003-9-9 1:19:54 PM|| [www.livejournal.com/~deviantsaint] 2003-9-9 1:19:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Another factor too take into account is the possibility of identify a enemy missle or aircraft as friendly. It's true we have had FFA's sometimes, but it's also key to remember that if we hesitate too long we might have let a enemy get away. Or even worse, given the enemy missle/aircraft a free pass at our ground-bases.

Too my knowledge, all of the Patriot FFA incidents were with aircraft coming TOWARDS our forces, and the system acted like it was supposed to. Human error is unavoidable in war.

My sympathies go out to the families who lost loved ones in FFA's, but they didn't die in vain. Not only are we correcting problems because of their tragic deaths, but also learning how to avoid the situations altogether.

In the long run, it was better to have those FFA's then to let a enemy escape or get through our front-line to attack us.

Posted by Charles 2003-9-9 1:44:59 PM|| 2003-9-9 1:44:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Fratricide with respect to an anti-air weapons system is pretty understandable as because of the high speed of the target there is not much time to make choices and the systems should be in automatic anyway. I had thought the Saratoga/Muavenet incident was an anti-aircraft foulup. The link I incuded to emory/law showed that not to be the case. It looks perfectly assinine in hindsight. I imagine that several folks paid a heavy price and that case deserved it.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-9-9 1:49:04 PM|| 2003-9-9 1:49:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 The big blue-on-blue problem is between coalition partners because the equipment tends to be slightly different. One of the ways the recent Iraqi war lowered the number of incidents was to give the UK their own sector. The US still provided some air support but in an increasing number of cases the UK provided their own close air support.

Posted by Yank 2003-9-9 2:23:01 PM|| 2003-9-9 2:23:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Would hope that the in a safe condition that Patriots are tested for target differentiation of the planes of our allies as soon as possible. That would be a priority for me if I were deploying and selling them throughout the world. Bad results could be quite discouraging for US allies. I also hope that work is being done for a conutermeasure for the Silkworm or other low flying cruise missiles. I'm sure I'm not teh only person who noticed that a cruise missile got through. Don't want to encourage buyers of the cruise missiles that the one Aussie is building in his garage.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-9-9 2:56:10 PM|| 2003-9-9 2:56:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Also this is my first post and I dumped it under the wrong topic. If some one could move it to a more appropriate place that would be appreciated. Don't want to mess up anyone looking for an update on Nude Volleyball.

Posted by Super Hose 2003-9-9 2:57:56 PM|| 2003-9-9 2:57:56 PM|| Front Page Top

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