It seems that over the course of the thread that some of the vitriol directed against the pilots has dissipated. It seems to me that there must be a fine balance between investigation, appropriate action and support of your airmen (as alluded to by Blokeonabike). If, as Mister Angry says, we want to have air support in the future, whether from the US or the UK, we must ensure that airmen are not encouraged, through fear of reprisals, to be U3. The balance is that they must also be encouraged(hopefully through a sense of professionalism. ie carrot, not stick) to ensure that such mistakes do not occur. Of course, some always will, and they are always, particularly for the families of those involved, a tragedy.

The level of remorse that has been commented on appeared to be much greater than that of the US pilots, and in that case definitely National Guard (for Ancient Mariner), who engaged and killed 3 members of 3 PPCLI in Afghanistan in 2001. In that case, even during his court martial, one of the pilots insisted that he had done nothing wrong and never apologised or expressed any sorrow.

I seem to remember a number of Canadian soldiers being killed in Afghanistan a few years ago. Similar circumstances - A10s flown by USAF reservists attacked them.

Does anybody know what sort of training USAF reserve pilots receive? Are they commercial pilots who train at weekends like the TA or are they more like the full time reservists who take a career break to serve with the regulars for an extended period?

I am sure that anyone who has worked alongside american forces will not be suprised by the Attitude of these pilots. It is the gung-ho american way. Throughout history US forces have had a total disregard for civilian life, The ROE followed by them are, in reality non existant. I have Zero respect for our so called allies.

Nothing we can do will prevent this happening again, as pointed out earlier this was not a heat of battle decision, He had plenty of time to ID the C/S's, 5 times he questioned the orange panel yet he still made not one but 2 attacks. The minute he was told that there was friendlies in the area he knew what he had done. If, in his mind he was confident that he had attacked Iraqi's would the harse reality of what he had just done be so obvious.

Our youngest troops are continuously taught about ROE, geneva convention and the consequences of their actions. This is something that is severely lacking in the US forces. They believe that they are above any laws and the only way is the american way.

Hanging the pilots up to dry will not change anything, I am sure they have suffered enough. I would hope that that video is shown to ALL american troops, not just pilots. Perhaps in a decades time a new breed of american soldier will be born. My thoughts today are not just with the Hull family but also the relatives of the RRF & QOH's killed in 91, how must their families feel, knowing that 16 years later nothing has changed?


We must also blame our own MoD, We all know what the americans are like. yet they have failed to provide us with a suitable IFF system. In this Hi-tech world that we live in i am sure there must be a more effective alternative to an Orange marker.

Gosh well thats all right then, however judging by the blue on blue attack on Canadian SF in Afghanistan not so long ago prehaps these 'lessons' are not really being absorbed.

The poor, poor pilots have a big group hug after fessing up to having killed some non American allies and are told to avoid EVER going to the Country of the Service people they killed ie Canada, Italy ( the cable car) and maybe even the UK.

That was the chap with the call sign 'psycho', still flying I believe.

In this instance the language used in the transcript is more of personal anguish at what they have got themselves into not remorse as to the bloke they have just murdered through wilful negligence. Read their reactions carefully, they seem to believe that they cannot deny what they have done.

Given that this tape didn't exist until this morning, its highly likely that no action was taken against the Pilots.

Perhaps the way to stop Americans from killing Brits would be to prevent US aircraft from flying CAS for UK units. Let UK jets handle CAS for UK units and US jets handle CAS for US units this way you prevent these types of situation. I think it is fair to say from this thread that US CAS capability in support of British troops is not what UK troops want. I think British troops would be far more comfortable with UK air assets flying CAS for them.

L/Cpl Hull RIP.

Threads merged.

Not so - not enough aircraft don't you know old boy......

The CAS given by Marine Corps Pilots is second to none, I think the issue is using badly trained reservists who think they are in a video game, in this case 'reservists with no combat experience at the time - are identified only as POPOV36, a lieutenant colonel, and POPOV35, a major'.

and then the cover up, always the cover up.

Last edited by armchair_jihad on Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

LCoH (Cpl) Hull - pedantic maybe, but accuracy is a theme here....

Reply lost as threads merged! Start again:

In the Canadian incident the pilots were US Air National Guard, flying fast jets, F18s I think. I remember being surprised at the time that ANG flew fast jets at all. They were returning from a combat patrol over an area that should have been known to be in friendly hands and where they should have expected friendly troops to be exercising as 3 PPCLI were. They mistook a live firing exercise for incoming and mounted an attack.

In this case, the USAF released the name of both pilots and this information was in the public domain throughout the inquiry which was understandably followed very closely in Canada. One appeared to be deeply remorseful and was captured on the cockpit recorder saying "God, I hope we did the right thing" immediately after the attack. The other stuck to his line that he believed he was under attack and that he had done nothing wrong.

Last edited by Big_Duke_Six on Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

A couple of questions on the digital battlefield:

Do all US callsigns (eg vehicles etc) appear on a digital map of the battlefield?

Would it be correct to assume that all callsigns in the transcript would have access to that information?

Do British callsigns (especially vehicles) integrate into the US system?

There are some comments above concerning the Air National Guard versus USMC providing CAS. There are also some quotes from US press which seem to be drawn from this but with "Air National Guard " removed:

"The U.S. Air Force conducted its own investigation into the incident in 2003, but the results of that investigation were not publicly released, said 1st Lt. Tony Vincelli, spokesman for the Idaho Air National Guard’s 190th Fighter Squadron, where the A-10 jets were home based.

The investigation did not result in a court-martial. Vincelli did not identify the pilots involved."

www.airforcetimes.com/...ire070205/

So ANG again

Red -Shrek said
"Perhaps the way to stop Americans from killing Brits would be to prevent US aircraft from flying CAS for UK units. Let UK jets handle CAS for UK units and US jets handle CAS for US units this way you prevent these types of situation. I think it is fair to say from this thread that US CAS capability in support of British troops is not what UK troops want. I think British troops would be far more comfortable with UK air assets flying CAS for them"

I think that you will find that the Tom on the ground will take any CAS that is available and certainly the experience in Afg is that A-10's are the aircraft of choice (Maj Jamie Loden 3 Para e-mail refers).

Afg Blue on Blue was ANG F-16s.

SF

After seeing the video and reading the transcripts it really does appear that they talked themselves into it. The initial spotting of the recognition panels should have triggered an immediate hands off but it did not.
They slowly made sure that in their minds that things were all right to press on with an attack. This shows (I wish my wife was here, she's the psychologist) in my mind that they were eager for a kill and would do anything to get one. Freindly recognition panels then become a threat in the form of missiles and therefore ok to attack. The reliance on the FAC who would have been miles away does in now way forgive the total lack of skills, procedures and AFV recognition displayed by the two pilots, and after finding that the two in question were reletively senior begs me to ask the question that if two pilots of such experiance and seniority could make such basic errors then what about their subordinates?
A painfully shocking demonstration of poor training and personal dicipline. I wonder what verdict the coroner will give in March off the back of this evidance?

Where it does not breach OPSEC, can someone who knows tell us if our ground tps have means to talk to coalition aircraft? Sort of "Hello hovering shitehawk. See us, we're friendlies. Waggle your wings or speak"
Would our guys on the ground even have known about hovering shitehawks - in vision or info'd by others. We doubtless thought that orange panels were sufficient; now we know better. Is there no sort of beacon that gives out a signal that can be interpreted as foe or friend by aircraft?

Group think? Self Justification? I don't know. From casual inspection of the tape, I'd suggest that in this case the IFF system fitted to the UK vehicles (Orange Panels) WORKED - you can hear them discusss seeing it. It just so happened that the two pilots chose to ignore the indication. Orange Missiles?? On a battlefield system??

There are many studies in Human Factors about highly trained operators ignoring indications that challenge their preconcieved mental model (think pilots ignoring instruments, train drivers running through red lights, nuclear power plant incidents)

I doubt that any current or future $100 million, all singing, all dancing, NEC IFF would have stopped this particular incident, once they had made their minds up.

On Sept. 11 the Air Force charged Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umback, both F- 16 pilots of the Illinois Air Guard's 183rd Fighter Wing, with four involuntary manslaughter counts and eight counts of assault for bombing a Canadian live-fire exercise outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April.

In addition to the assault and involuntary manslaughter charges, the Air Force charged Schmidt with "failing to exercise appropriate flight discipline and not complying with the rules of engagement," according to a Pentagon news release. The Air force also said Umback "negligently failed to exercise appropriate flight command and control and to ensure compliance with the rules of engagement.

findarticles.com/p/art...i_n9122383

So i presume there is a NEC IFF system in place for US forces, but our ground forces can't integrate with the US system right?

If we could then surely the FAC, AWACS and pilots would have that information upfront?

I cant comment on Aircraft but do believe that all Abrahms Tanks have a display panel which shows the position of all American armour in the area. This is a great bit of kit but the Yanks tend to have the opinion of "if its not on my screen it is enemy"
This system was an option for Challanger 2 but was rejected at the last minute although i think there is an option to retro fit this at a later mid life improvement. Now if we had any sense we would be ensuring that both US and UK systems are compatible.

Any of you that has been to batus will know how effective the gps tracking system is. This was old equipment that was designed to track railway stock. I am sure this can be adapted for use on ops. Although as previously stated this may not have helped because the pilots "talked" themselves into it. It may however have given the FAC an real time position for the friendly C/S

So bombing canadians is manslaughter, but straffing brits after ID'ing orange panels is fair game?
Seems both Popov36 (the LT Col) and Popov35 (Major) each at some point doubt what they are doing but ultimately 36 just cant resist. Almost feel sorry for them after they show remorse (they still wouldnt know if it was friendly Brits or Yanks at this point though).... but then as they start talking about it once they have settled down they know they are sunk and going to jail self protection sink in and 'magically' he runs out of tape....
However as above this leads me to think that they knew if it was US on US they would have been jailed. That it turns out it was Brits and no action was taken. Well, that just sucks, dude.