Yes, this sucks, mostly for the guys it fell on. I, as an ex grunt, can tell you exactly what happened.

When you call for fire (Close Air support, air strike, Artty) you have to give the guys on the other end of the radio 2 sets of numbers. The first set will be your location as a 6 or 8 digit map grid location. The second set is the location of the people you dont want to be on this planet anymore. Now, the only people that can call for fire are officers. Officers in the field are mostly Lieutenants that have 4 years of collage, some of them at west point, and have less time in the active millatary than the people they command.

What happens is when these little wet behind the ears pissants get shot at they freek. someone with a clear head says get some fire support. The LT pulls out the map grabs the radio and gives the map grids backwards.

I have yanked the radio out of the hands of one or two of these morons when they started to call for an airstrike on the ground that I knew i was standing on. Explained, calmly, that he was about to drop a bomber load of HE or worse on top of me and i was not happy about that.

Now, even if he did not give it backwards the person on the other end may copy them down correctly but pass them on to the Gun, plane, bomber, backwards. The person that punches them into the weapon may punch in the wrong set of numbers.

Point is this. Its war, its stressfull and mistakes happen. My regrets, prayrs and thanks, go out to the families of the men that died on the field of battle.

<no sig on this one>

But fer crissakes... a B52 called in for 'close air support'? Isn't that kind of a contradiction?

quote:

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Originally posted by WillyPete:

That's why the SAS won't tell you guys where they're operating.

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Yea well when youve got 4 guys running around its easy not to have any friendly fire.

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PETER YOU'VE LOST THE NEWS!!!

Methinks it they might want to give the enemy's location in Alpha coordinates, and our localtion in numbers or something. Give them in different ways so it's harder to screw up.
But it's not like they would ever ask the grunts--the people who see and know what's really going on, how the system could be improved....

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LET'S GET AWESOME

i see something very wrong with that.

quote:

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Originally posted by WillyPete:
Once again.
America + War = friendly fire.
That's why the SAS won't tell you guys where they're operating.

But fer crissakes... a B52 called in for 'close air support'? Isn't that kind of a contradiction?

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Any army + war = friendly fire. Its a simple fact of war that you will get some of your own. this mosly happens when you over-run the enemy so fast that you run into your own troops before you hit any resistance.

When you "call for fire" you never know what your going to get. What ever asset is closest to you will take care of it. B52s do airstrikes, not CAS. CAS is handled by Attack Helos and fighters.

When you call for fire you give your position first. This will be used as a point of reference if you need to correct where the bombs were dropped the first time. it is also used so your not in the path of the bombing run. some bombs drop short and others dont go off and bounce quite some distance. The drop will uasualy be made at a 45 to 90 degree angle to your position.

Now, consider this. Find out exactly how many bombs have been dropped on the bad guys that were called in by a grunt on the ground. devide that number into the number of friendly fire incidents there have been. You will get an extreamly low number.

It gets blown up by the media to make ratings. Just like the anthrax scare. Yes, it was bad but how many people got infected? how many exposed? Devide that number by the total population and you wont even reach 1\%.

This is what i ment when i said "Shit, it happens, get over it."

As for changing the way fire is called for they are testing a system right now. Im sure its being field tested over there. Its a laser range finder/target painter with a gps. The gps figures out where you are. you paint the target with the laser and the computer figures out where that is. The information is then sent by radio link to the fire control center. The computer there will then present the officer in charge with a list of assets that can hit that target and with what. A message can then be sent back to the unit telling them what is coming and how long its going to take. easy as using a point and shoot camera.

This lets the grunts get back to the real business of putting small high speed hunks of lead into the heads of sand rats.