wrx_yank

they are reservists... do you expect them to use joint brevity?

they were probably farmers or shop owners in america b4 they were "activated".

marky1

One of my friends was a Captain in the Household Cavalry and was a few miles away in charge of another troop when this happened...... he is no longer in the Army now, sums it up I think - very traumatic I would imagine.

DCI Gene Hunt

Actually, YES we FECKIN do!

Doesn't matter what they 'were' they are now in charge of a weapon capable of death and destruction..... so YES.... use the correct FECKIN brevity

///\oo/\\\

I would expect the American military to exercise better judgement than to place farmers or shop owners in the cockpits of fighting aircraft when the "war" was on the other side of the planet and Saddam was hardly knocking on Bush's door...

Sbradley

No you won't. But as I said, that tactical information is only secret when it relates to real-time operations. As you should also know

SB

wrx_yank

hey bro... i agree with you.... its just a fact that reservists dont get the same training as active duty military do....dont use this thread as a chance to bash Bush... you guys do that plenty in your own time, plus its not what this thread is about..... i agree that they did not do everything acording to the SOP(standard op. procedures) but they made a mistake.... they are obviously devistated and im more than sure they are sorry... i think they would come out and say it if the airforce would LET them do so.... but chances are they will not allow that.......


all i ask, is that before you bash the pilots.... try to imagine how they feel to this day.... Do they deserve it? maybe, well probably but i truly believe they are sorry.

DCI Gene Hunt

YES I WILL...

And you are wrong, any tactical information that duplicates/displays either the airspace performance and/or active weapon payloads and tactical capability, lets not forget attack angles, target closing speed and weapon range/selection for most military fast jet weapon systems is secret.

I am a genius

Nido

link straight to vid on The Sun website

DCI Gene Hunt

Still alive

wrx_yank

glad to see your adding somthing usefull to this thread... you would make more use of your keyboard if you chewed on the letter "R" .

Apparition

Excuse me for being (not seeming to be ) ignorant. But who's responsibility was it to identify the targets in this case? The Brits or the US?
Yve

DCI Gene Hunt

Do you mean the "key R" (clues in the name.... keyboard)........ septics........ tally-ho

DCI Gene Hunt

The septics fault (again), the convoy was cleared for passage, had the orange blobs painted on...... etc...

///\oo/\\\

Hey dude, I'm sure they are devistated.

But prhaps not as devistated as the family who's lives have also been destroyed because they broke the rules and screwed up.

Let's not forget that the "target" was slow moving, and not firing back. Lets not forget that the "target" was posing no direct threat to anyone, least of all the pilots.

And lets not forget that this was a zero pressure situation, and yet they still screwed up.

Heaven help us all if there had been any "pressure" involved.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Churchill being the bloke that wanted to gas the Marsh Arabs in the 1920's when Mesopotamia (Iraq) was under UK rule

wrx_yank

the role of an "ATTACK" fighter platform is to strike first.... the "target" would not have been posing a threat to them.... the A-10 is a CAS(close air support) platform.... not defensive.


<---- stirs the pot again

wrx_yank

good point...

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

James Blunt

DCI Gene Hunt

"Air to Ground" is the expression you're seeking and its other function is a spotter for co-ordinating ground artillery against approaching armour...... as in defensive

X30NGO

not really. They checked and checked and fired only after several verbal clearences that friendlies where clear.

Orange rooves are very visable and are used also by 'baddies' to attempt to be identified as troops and avoid being shot by air.

The clearence is the reason they fired. In my view, it's impossible to be pissed at these pilots. I feel a lot of sadness for them. It's impossible to imagine how they must feel.


Bongo

marky1

haha, no wasn't him, although yeah, correct regiment!

andythejock01wrx

Kosovo Pete ?

Sbradley

All of that information is also in the public domain - all you need is a copy of Jane's and you'll get shedloads more information that is on the HUD. Acquisition and engagement ranges, deployment envelopes, OBS criteria are all routinely published. If this engagement had been an extreme range highly dynamic scenario where perhaps the published figures were shown to be conservative then you might have a point. But as it is, I see no reason at all why this footage should have remained classified after the pilot's debrief and internal enquiry.

But that's beside the point, really.

The real point here is "Who cocked it up?"

In my view, as a former pilot, the crews questioned the target ID, obtained repeated clearances to engage and were categorically assured that there were no friendlies in the area. I flew helicopters, where the opportunity to confirm a target ident is far better, but the time I have flown in jets has shown me that target identification is not easy. That said, of course, I'm not an experienced CAS (that is the right term, by the way) jet pilot - if I were I'm sure that I would be better at it.

Though the pilots did the right thing - absolutely the right thing - in getting clearance before engaging, there must still have been an element of doubt. So if they were told there were no friendlies in the area then this unit couldn't have been about to pose an immediate threat to anyone. The appropriate action, I would have said, would have been to send the position back to J-STARS to put the suspect vehicles on the plot and to break off. If they transpired to be a threat later then go back and deal with them...

But hey, that's easy for me to say sat here with the benefit of hindsight and no pressure. Is it so easy on the spot? Clearly not in this case.

SB

Nimbus

Thanks, but The Sun website is blocked from work..

Sbradley

Hi Yve,

Responsibility for identifying targets of opportunity lies initially with the pilot, though authority to engage rests with their FAC (Forward Air Controller) who may actually be hundreds of miles away in a flying command and observation post called J-STARS (Joint Surveillance and Tactical Air Reconnaissance System (I think)) which has an electronic display of everything moving within about 200 miles.

The FAC should also know exactly where any friendly forces are and has access to various electronic systems which will help him to confirm the identity of a bogey before declaring it hostile and giving permission to engage.

If there is any doubt whatsoever the FAC should withold authority to engage.

There is no onus, other than the use of common sense, for the ground vehicle to do anything. After all, as far as they are concerned it's a friendly aircraft and they have nothing to fear. They've got no way of knowing that the pilot has failed to recognise them as friendly until he starts his attack run. When it's a little late...

SB

Apparition

Thankyou SBradley.
Just as I thought.
Yve

DCI Gene Hunt

Yer right!

BlkKnight

any links to this not via the sun - my browser won't play it for some reason

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

On a serious note before anyone gets too critical of the US pilots.

Imagine simply trying to type out your critique of their conduct at a couple of thousand feet away from the monitor doing 300mph pulling significant G forces, with a dodgy spell-checker and under fire!

Unless you've been in that situation, I really don't think you're in a position to criticise.

War is an awful thing; sometimes FF happens- soldiers/aircrew are only humans operating under the most difficult circumstances; it's for the military to find out what happened, liase with the families and try to ensure that it doesn't recoccur. All that leaking this video to the GP has done is made future co-operation between the US military and its allies less likely in the event of this happenening again, thus compounding an already awful situation for the people involved and families and friends of the deceased.

That's all I'm saying on the matter.

Ns04

kbsub

The pilots were told - "No Friendlies in the Area" then just after the attack informed of "Blue on Blue " > translates to - we are in the ****.