Blue-on-blue

steveS4SSL · Post by **steveS4SSL** » 06 Feb 2007, 18:51

Totally agree - the action of the US authorities has been rather misguided.

A very sad incident and thoughts are not only with the family of Matty Hull but also all of those involved. It is very clear from the tape that the pilots were very upset and I can only guess what they have to live with each day.

This incident seems to have bought no end of "armchair experts" out of the woodwork. Just check some of the aviation forums! It is very easy for someone who has never served in a conflict environment (which includes me) to make judgments with hindsight.... :k: Some of the comments I have seen have been truly shameful :sad:

jonesey2k · Post by **jonesey2k** » 06 Feb 2007, 19:19

Happened in the first GW too when they shot up a load of Warriors killing about 9 people iirc.

Couldnt the crew of the Scimitars used their tacbe's to try and call them off directly?

Jon.M · Post by **Jon.M** » 06 Feb 2007, 20:52

Changed my mind about this post, and edited it.

Jon

Post by **Garry Russell** » 06 Feb 2007, 20:57

I had an uncle who was a tail gunner in Sunderlands during WWII

He was killed when it was shot down off Scotland by Americans who claimed they mistook it for a German bomber..yeah right.

Garry

DispatchDragon · Post by **DispatchDragon** » 06 Feb 2007, 22:47

Its amazing how things resurface - I damn near got my self thrown out of the country when that first happened - by walking into a hotel bar full of aircrew who were busy showing their "patriotism" by singing "I love the USA" to which I sort of turn round and said something to the effect that I couldnt find much to love while they were killing MY countries soldiers....Boy was that a mistake - amazing more so that those who were there that night are now roundly critising the war and their countries leaders - Anyway the Sun for once got something semi correct - Like Jon Ive said enough I still have to live
here and I do believe in supporting troops

Leif

Post by **TSR2** » 06 Feb 2007, 23:27

Not condoning the behavior, but things happen in conflict. Lessons must be learned, and without pointing any fingers A10's have been involved in several blue on blues in recent conflicts, and it would apear to the untrained eye that lessons have not been learned.

Lets hope that if any good can come from such a sad event that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. :sad:

Post by **DaveB** » 07 Feb 2007, 00:41

I've been trying not to comment on this but am finding it difficult. True, blue on blue happens.. it happened in the Falklands and it will continue to happen. Points taken from the comments made above as read. My disappointment is that the news channels here are showing 'seconds' of the encounter.. edited at that. You can watch the full 15min track as linked by Tonks and get a better feel for what was happening.. what was going through the pilots heads at the time. The edits shown on the news do not give the same background giving Joe Public a slightly different impression of the pilots actions. OK.. there is no way any news programme can dedicate this amount of airtime to a single piece of footage but I seriously question the wisdom of what has been shown.

DaveB :tab:

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 07 Feb 2007, 01:03

The A-10 has suffered from only having 2 VHF radios and no HF radios aboard for years due to limited space. When using the HAVE-QUICK jamming, they effectively have only 1 radio. Because of this, the frequencies get very congested when A-10s are working. The US has learned its lesson since then and has severely restricted when A-10s can be used and have put a rush on the new A-10C conversion which adds a third VHF radio and an HF radio to hopefully solve the communication problems.

The biggest problem encountered here (and with previous A-10 blue-on-blue) is that every time the mistake of location has been primarily due to confusion between the FAC (Forward Air controller) on the ground and A-10 pilots. They still don't do enough training of the FAC and the aircraft and it shows every time this happens. It showed glaringly when a JDAM dropped by a B-52 landed on top of the guys who called in the bombs because they messed up and forgot to reset their GPS-equipped rangefinder after changing the batteries and thus read their own position instead of the position of the guys they wanted to kill.

Captain Pugwash · Post by **Captain Pugwash** » 07 Feb 2007, 01:37

i remember the comments from some american who said our lads were crap at flying low and doing bombing runs during the first bash. well at least we could get there and bomb the correct target and not kill friendly forces.
only a last year a pilot from a warthog shoot up a canadian unit. ops! i did not see them. it seems to me the pilots who fly this type of aircraft are blind or trigger happy. lets not forget the tape, they comment on the orange on the vehicles. ( friendly forces id's, after the first gulf war when the 14 lads were bombed by the so called professional pilots)

my thought's go out to the family left behind. when will some one step forward and do the right thing and own up to their mistake's and not hid behind the vail of national security.

DispatchDragon · Post by **DispatchDragon** » 07 Feb 2007, 03:53

Chris

Correct me if Im wrong but wasnt the A10 originally designed to operate as a FAC? and doesnt the USAF use F16s as FACs? Seems to me given this is an on going problem that it might be simpler to return to the days of the Cricket......least O1 pilots didnt call in friendly fire on the good guys.

Leif

The reason I ask this is my ex father in law flew for the 606 SOS in the great southeastern war games - and his admiration for cricket pilots and the excellent job they did was loud and clear - also the SOSdns that worked
the Hochominh trail were to have there B57s replaced with A10s had the war continued