Talk:Friendly fire
From Academic Kids
Can you provide a reference for those Pentagon figures? - Khendon 13:32 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the word 'supporting' from the intro because in cases where friendly forces are attacked thinking they are enemy the fire is not really 'supporting'. DJ Clayworth 15:12, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Do the percentage figures refer to percent of friendly fire casualties among all casualties in that conflict?
"fratricide"
The quote "but more properly refers to deliberate attacks upon one's own forces" doesn't jibe well with my own recollections of the phrase, which are in the realm of strategic nuclear targeting. In this context, fratricide is the destruction of later-arriving warheads by the detonation of earlier-arriving ones, caused by high target density in a target area and poor mission planning. As such, it was always considered accidental and to be avoided greatly (as a waste of weapons and a significant risk of inadequate target coverage--if, for instance, you launch two warheads at a target area, it's because you actually need two warheads to adequately destroy the targets in the area. A shortfall of one weapon in a laydown could necessitate a restrike or allow targets to survive.)
But, of course, in the article we're talking about friendly fire which kills troops, not friendly fire which destroys weapons, so the domain is a tiny bit different. I guess I'm just pointing out that "intent to kill friendly forces" isn't automatic in all contexts of the word fratricide. I'm going to be a tiny bit bold in editing and remove the bit about intent if I don't see mildly pursuasive counterarguments in the next day or so. Gnoitall 16:30, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Error-prone US armed forces?
- "Rightly so, the armed forces of the US are widely believed to be more prone to friendly fire incidents than the military of other nations." [emph added]
Is there a source for the accuracy of this belief? What are the rates for other nations? —wwoods 01:13, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The edit which introduced this little bit of unsubstantiated NPOV was from User:152.78.254.243 at 17:53 29 Apr 2005. It was only automatically summarized; no actual user comments. I don't know; seems gratuitous to me. Actually the entire opening parenthetical "Rightly so" and its previous incarnation "Rightly or wrongly" are both unnecessary to the meaning of the sentence. It is pretty true that the US military has a highly-publicized fratricide problem; it seems to my shallow reasoning to be because it's more active than other militaries, larger than most, and most accessible to the press. So it's fair to say the U.S. military is perceived to be prone to friendly fire. I'm inclined to strike the opening parenthetical and let the statement about public perception stand without further editorializing. Gnoitall 19:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
