Exactly my point, that is a good thing. It means you have a very low chance of being killed, period.Originally posted by MagicNakor@16 December 2003 - 08:53
I hadn't seen that post. Looking back on it though, it seems to me that he chose the Gulf War to illustrate the point of the American army having a higher percentage of friendly-fire incidents than other armies.
The number I have for the Gulf War is around 24% of casualities was due to "friendly-fire," and during the 100-hour Operation Desert Storm alone there were 27 seperate cases. The Pentagon's stance was (and may still be) "We're working on it."
From the Gulf War onwards, the American army has had a relatively low casualty toll (understandable, as "meat grinder" battles aren't terribly common anymore), so deaths from "friendly-fire" represent a significant proportion of the casualties.
It would be more relevant to examine "friendly fire" deaths/ per sortie or mission. This would indicate whether it is the total volume of missions that effects the chance of a mishap or whether there is an extremely high incidence, regardless the number of missions. The US controlled the sky, this is where the bulk of friendly fire deaths come from. Impersonal missles hitting targets never seen by the pilot.
A new way of engaging the enemy, leads to a new profile in how casualties will be incurred. If I were to tell you that more accidents occur on busy city highways in inclement weather than on isloated country roads, you would have no problem believing that.
Analogously, we now fight wars with wave after wave of simulataneous air attacks, occuring in a foreign land, often times in blinding dust stoms, so it is expected that some miscommunication/miscalculation is going to occur. Most targets are not ever seen by the person launching the weapon.
The point is that Lamsey wanted to blame all this on "gung ho" mentality. I pointed out that proportion of friendly fire deaths were higher due to the nature of engagement and the high degree of complexity in coordinating simulateous air attacks. When you run 100's of thousands of missions, some shit is going to happen.
So Magic, is friendly fire a "gung ho" phenomenon or perhaps it is more complex than that?
We are fighting a new type of war, with very low casualties on our side, it therefore makes the friendly fire death proportion stand out. As the Pentagon says "we are working on it". Compare 150 deaths in this war with 300,000 in world war 2, this is a good thing if you are a US soldier.
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