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A US CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter piloted by US troops and carrying eight British Royal Marines has crashed in an "accident". There were no survivors.
This is a tragedy.
This is a tragedy.
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Does it really matter? Troops are going to die on both sides for one reason or another. Friendly fire and plain old fashioned incompetence have been a feature of warfare since Nebuchadenezzar's troops inadvertantly butchered their own side mid-battle. To try and say "And their team is MUCH worse at it that ours!" seems rather petty when one bears in mind the reality of the situation.
Hmm. Seems we can add a Tornado to that list.
Maybe incompetence wasn't the wrong term after all.
Maybe we should side with the Iraqi's. They may be shooting at us, but at least they aren't hitting us.
Sometimes I wonder who's more at risk - America's allies, or her enemies.
Maybe incompetence wasn't the wrong term after all.
Maybe we should side with the Iraqi's. They may be shooting at us, but at least they aren't hitting us.
Sometimes I wonder who's more at risk - America's allies, or her enemies.
More helicopters??
Man, they've lost more through accident that Iraqi weapons.
I bet their families are real glad we're making the world a safer place.
Man, they've lost more through accident that Iraqi weapons.
I bet their families are real glad we're making the world a safer place.
Miserableman wrote:
> The language you have used all throughout this thread is inflammatory
> and ignorant.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I have said that it happens to everyone, but moreso to the US forces than anyone else. To me that's not inflammatory or ignorant, it is fact.
> if you check out the news you'll see that two of our helicopters have
> collided in mid air, killing all crew on both.
I have seen the news - it happened just after I made my last post. We don't know yet what caused it, just like we didn't know initially what caused the US helicopter to go down. And yes, it makes me equally angry - apart from obviously feeling sorry for the loss of those involved - because these things should not happen.
But I still stand by my statement that it happens to the US far more than any other nation. I've never claimed that it's exclusive to the US, only that it is more common.
> To even suggest that there's some kind of incompetence
> epidemic running throught the USAF is astonishing tbh. And
> astonishingly wrong
Okay, you may not think so, but I do. And I didn't single out the USAF. It may not be "epidemic" proportions (your term, not mine), and maybe 'incompetence' was the wrong term, but they certainly get trigger-happy, and I know I am not alone in thinking this way.
Search for "friendly fire" on the net, and you'll see US forces are the cause in a very high percentage of the occurences.
Some examples (I've quoted parts, but it's worth reading the whole of the articles at the links provided):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news /main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/06/nirq06.xml
"British troops should not be sent to fight in Iraq unless a system is in place to prevent accidental attacks by American aircraft, says a retired senior officer whose unit was bombed in a friendly fire incident during the 1991 Gulf war."
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews /v02/n1449/a01.html?1637
"When you look at the original story of the Canadian friendly-fire incident it seems that the pilot was being inexplicably aggressive. It goes beyond fatigue or lack of experience or being a cowboy or trigger happy or any of the standard prosaic explanations. The simplest explanation is that the guy had eaten too much speed and was paranoid."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world /iraq/2003-03-19-friendly-fire-usat_x.htm
"The worst friendly fire incident of the Gulf War came when two U.S. A-10 pilots, thinking they were over an Iraqi armored column, fired Maverick missiles at what turned out to be thirty-seven British Warrior armored vehicles parked in the Iraqi desert. The daylight attack killed nine British soldiers and wounded eleven."
http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces /news/jdw/jdw030122_1_n.shtml
"According to US government figures, 'friendly fire' incidents accounted for 24% of US military fatalities during Operation 'Desert Storm': the 1991 campaign to liberate Kuwait. The only combat casualties for UK forces during the campaign occurred when a USAF A-10 ground attack aircraft mistakenly attacked two Warrior infantry fighting vehicles.
In 1994 two US Air Force F-15 fighters mistakenly shot down two US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters over northern Iraq. All 26 personnel on board died."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth /cdn_casualties/friendlyfire.html
(There's too much relevant info in this article to quote here.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /world/americas/1937217.stm
"For example, last November a US warplane wounded a number of US and allied soldiers when it targeted a prison compound west of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The satellite-guided bomb steered exactly to the coordinates it had been given by a forward air controller on the ground.
Tragically, this soldier had just changed the batteries of his GPS receiver and, in the heat of battle, he had forgotten that when batteries are changed the machine reverts to displaying its current position.
It was this target location - his own - that he sent to the aircraft."
http://military.com
"Of the eight Bradley tanks and tank crews that were lost in the Gulf War, friendly fire destroyed seven. -- Statistics from US Army War College Journal"
http://www.counterpunch.org/vest03192003.html
"By Pentagon estimates, the proportion of friendly fire casualties in 1991 was higher than in any previous war -- 10 times as high as in any other modern war, said the Washington Post at the time.
More than one-in-five Americans killed in action were butchered not by Saddam's forces but by their fellow Americans."
These are just a handful of incidents, but enough to amply demonstrate my point. There are more reports, many from Gulf War 1 but also from the recent action in Afghanistan. And I must stress that I'm not strongly against this war, nor am I anti-American - I am simply saying that in recent military history, most times when incidents like this happen, US forces are the cause.
Now you can say that it's because they have more forces in action, or because they see more of the action. But I would say if either is the case, they also need to take more care.
I don't think anyone will deny that the US forces often give off a very gung-ho and devil-may-care attitude to conflict, almost as if it is an extension of a Hollywood movie; you only have to look at the difference in pre-combat speeches from the US and UK commanders to see that - "Hammer time" versus "We go to liberate, not to conquer". Maybe they've become so convinced that they are untouchable that they've also become complacent. Who knows?
For me (and I'm sure I'm not alone), something is very wrong when - in consecutive conflicts - your own forces consistently kill more of their own and/or their allies than the enemy troops. Maybe if they came across as a little less careFREE, they may not be viewed by many as careLESS when these incidents occur.
> The language you have used all throughout this thread is inflammatory
> and ignorant.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I have said that it happens to everyone, but moreso to the US forces than anyone else. To me that's not inflammatory or ignorant, it is fact.
> if you check out the news you'll see that two of our helicopters have
> collided in mid air, killing all crew on both.
I have seen the news - it happened just after I made my last post. We don't know yet what caused it, just like we didn't know initially what caused the US helicopter to go down. And yes, it makes me equally angry - apart from obviously feeling sorry for the loss of those involved - because these things should not happen.
But I still stand by my statement that it happens to the US far more than any other nation. I've never claimed that it's exclusive to the US, only that it is more common.
> To even suggest that there's some kind of incompetence
> epidemic running throught the USAF is astonishing tbh. And
> astonishingly wrong
Okay, you may not think so, but I do. And I didn't single out the USAF. It may not be "epidemic" proportions (your term, not mine), and maybe 'incompetence' was the wrong term, but they certainly get trigger-happy, and I know I am not alone in thinking this way.
Search for "friendly fire" on the net, and you'll see US forces are the cause in a very high percentage of the occurences.
Some examples (I've quoted parts, but it's worth reading the whole of the articles at the links provided):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news /main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/06/nirq06.xml
"British troops should not be sent to fight in Iraq unless a system is in place to prevent accidental attacks by American aircraft, says a retired senior officer whose unit was bombed in a friendly fire incident during the 1991 Gulf war."
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews /v02/n1449/a01.html?1637
"When you look at the original story of the Canadian friendly-fire incident it seems that the pilot was being inexplicably aggressive. It goes beyond fatigue or lack of experience or being a cowboy or trigger happy or any of the standard prosaic explanations. The simplest explanation is that the guy had eaten too much speed and was paranoid."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world /iraq/2003-03-19-friendly-fire-usat_x.htm
"The worst friendly fire incident of the Gulf War came when two U.S. A-10 pilots, thinking they were over an Iraqi armored column, fired Maverick missiles at what turned out to be thirty-seven British Warrior armored vehicles parked in the Iraqi desert. The daylight attack killed nine British soldiers and wounded eleven."
http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces /news/jdw/jdw030122_1_n.shtml
"According to US government figures, 'friendly fire' incidents accounted for 24% of US military fatalities during Operation 'Desert Storm': the 1991 campaign to liberate Kuwait. The only combat casualties for UK forces during the campaign occurred when a USAF A-10 ground attack aircraft mistakenly attacked two Warrior infantry fighting vehicles.
In 1994 two US Air Force F-15 fighters mistakenly shot down two US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters over northern Iraq. All 26 personnel on board died."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth /cdn_casualties/friendlyfire.html
(There's too much relevant info in this article to quote here.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /world/americas/1937217.stm
"For example, last November a US warplane wounded a number of US and allied soldiers when it targeted a prison compound west of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The satellite-guided bomb steered exactly to the coordinates it had been given by a forward air controller on the ground.
Tragically, this soldier had just changed the batteries of his GPS receiver and, in the heat of battle, he had forgotten that when batteries are changed the machine reverts to displaying its current position.
It was this target location - his own - that he sent to the aircraft."
http://military.com
"Of the eight Bradley tanks and tank crews that were lost in the Gulf War, friendly fire destroyed seven. -- Statistics from US Army War College Journal"
http://www.counterpunch.org/vest03192003.html
"By Pentagon estimates, the proportion of friendly fire casualties in 1991 was higher than in any previous war -- 10 times as high as in any other modern war, said the Washington Post at the time.
More than one-in-five Americans killed in action were butchered not by Saddam's forces but by their fellow Americans."
These are just a handful of incidents, but enough to amply demonstrate my point. There are more reports, many from Gulf War 1 but also from the recent action in Afghanistan. And I must stress that I'm not strongly against this war, nor am I anti-American - I am simply saying that in recent military history, most times when incidents like this happen, US forces are the cause.
Now you can say that it's because they have more forces in action, or because they see more of the action. But I would say if either is the case, they also need to take more care.
I don't think anyone will deny that the US forces often give off a very gung-ho and devil-may-care attitude to conflict, almost as if it is an extension of a Hollywood movie; you only have to look at the difference in pre-combat speeches from the US and UK commanders to see that - "Hammer time" versus "We go to liberate, not to conquer". Maybe they've become so convinced that they are untouchable that they've also become complacent. Who knows?
For me (and I'm sure I'm not alone), something is very wrong when - in consecutive conflicts - your own forces consistently kill more of their own and/or their allies than the enemy troops. Maybe if they came across as a little less careFREE, they may not be viewed by many as careLESS when these incidents occur.
WòókieeMøn§†€® wrote:
> If you read my post again, you'll see that I said initial anger - i.e.
> before all facts were known - would be caused by the US military's
> track record for killing their allies (and themselves) through
> friendly fire or other forms of incompetence.
The language you have used all throughout this thread is inflammatory and ignorant. To even suggest that there's some kind of incompetence epidemic running throught the USAF is astonishing tbh. And astonishingly wrong - if you check out the news, you'll see that two of our helicopters have collided in mid air, killing all crew on both.
Now was that British incompetence, or just an accident that's bound to happen?
> If you read my post again, you'll see that I said initial anger - i.e.
> before all facts were known - would be caused by the US military's
> track record for killing their allies (and themselves) through
> friendly fire or other forms of incompetence.
The language you have used all throughout this thread is inflammatory and ignorant. To even suggest that there's some kind of incompetence epidemic running throught the USAF is astonishing tbh. And astonishingly wrong - if you check out the news, you'll see that two of our helicopters have collided in mid air, killing all crew on both.
Now was that British incompetence, or just an accident that's bound to happen?
Two British helicopters from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal have collided in mid-air in the Gulf, killing all six British servicemen and a US officer on board.
More at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
More at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
WòókieeMøn§†€® wrote:
> During the day following the accident, it was reported that all US
> troop transport helicopters had withdrawn from the missions. That
> certainly gives the impression that something is or could be wrong
> with their entire fleet.
It certainly gives that impressions, but at a time of war, I wouldn't rule it out as being just a precaution. Its better to call back the fleet for extra checks, rather than take the chance that it was an isolated fault in one helicopter. I believe things would have been checked as normal, as it should be. But as its been said, faults do appear for unknown reasons at times, on single units, so calling back a whole fleet doesn't automatically mean they believe this 'fault' is on every helicopter ... but its always better to check.
I hope they are able to find the cause of the crash quickly (or have they done so already) and eliminate the fault from the fleet, if that is the case.
> During the day following the accident, it was reported that all US
> troop transport helicopters had withdrawn from the missions. That
> certainly gives the impression that something is or could be wrong
> with their entire fleet.
It certainly gives that impressions, but at a time of war, I wouldn't rule it out as being just a precaution. Its better to call back the fleet for extra checks, rather than take the chance that it was an isolated fault in one helicopter. I believe things would have been checked as normal, as it should be. But as its been said, faults do appear for unknown reasons at times, on single units, so calling back a whole fleet doesn't automatically mean they believe this 'fault' is on every helicopter ... but its always better to check.
I hope they are able to find the cause of the crash quickly (or have they done so already) and eliminate the fault from the fleet, if that is the case.
Miserableman wrote:
> You are still underestimating the difficulties in carrying out even
> 'basic' military operations.
I'm doing no such thing.
If you read my post again, you'll see that I said initial anger - i.e. before all facts were known - would be caused by the US military's track record for killing their allies (and themselves) through friendly fire or other forms of incompetence.
Once the facts were known, and it appeared that the helicopter nosedived into the desert - this would seem to indicate mechanical failure.
During the day following the accident, it was reported that all US troop transport helicopters had withdrawn from the missions, and it then fell to British helicopters to transport troops - and as I write this, still apparently no-one knows why. That certainly gives the impression that something is or could be wrong with their entire fleet - and surely they were, or should have been, checked before the assault began.
> If the US have the majority of the forces in the region, then they are
> going to suffer the majority of the technical failures
Granted. But the fact that it was an accident was not known initially, and due to their track record, it was not entirely irrational for people to assume that incompetence had again played a part.
> You are still underestimating the difficulties in carrying out even
> 'basic' military operations.
I'm doing no such thing.
If you read my post again, you'll see that I said initial anger - i.e. before all facts were known - would be caused by the US military's track record for killing their allies (and themselves) through friendly fire or other forms of incompetence.
Once the facts were known, and it appeared that the helicopter nosedived into the desert - this would seem to indicate mechanical failure.
During the day following the accident, it was reported that all US troop transport helicopters had withdrawn from the missions, and it then fell to British helicopters to transport troops - and as I write this, still apparently no-one knows why. That certainly gives the impression that something is or could be wrong with their entire fleet - and surely they were, or should have been, checked before the assault began.
> If the US have the majority of the forces in the region, then they are
> going to suffer the majority of the technical failures
Granted. But the fact that it was an accident was not known initially, and due to their track record, it was not entirely irrational for people to assume that incompetence had again played a part.
Having foamed off royally about all that, I immediately switched to irc and nearly cracked a rib laughing at this. Name has been changed to protect the wicked:
while I was walking in the fakeplace shopping mall today with the gf
I came up with a genius idea of funding the war
Kill an iraqi sponsorship
You'd sponsor a us marine to kill an iraqi
when he makes the kill you get a video of it and a copy of the death certificate
and if the us marine fails to get one before they surrender
he'll kill an allied force member instead for you
Turn it on it's head - pretend it was a British helicopter, and predominently US personnel were killed. Now image a thread full of ignorant Yankee civilians claiming the loss of life was due to British incompetence. Re-read this thread whilst your at it, taking the time to digest such carefully thought-out phrases as "finest troops on the planet...are killed by their Allies".
How angry would you be if a group of American insinuated that about British troops, particularly when said group of Americans have absolutely no concept or idea about what they're talking about, or the details regarding the particular incident in question? I can easily picture some of the people who've moaned about US troops on this thread to be out there like a shot, waving their Daily Mirrors in defense of "our boys".
How angry would you be if a group of American insinuated that about British troops, particularly when said group of Americans have absolutely no concept or idea about what they're talking about, or the details regarding the particular incident in question? I can easily picture some of the people who've moaned about US troops on this thread to be out there like a shot, waving their Daily Mirrors in defense of "our boys".
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