Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
'Friendly Fire'
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Β
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
What is your nomination for the worst case of an army, navy or airforce attacking its own side? -
Message 2
Posted by Mani (U1821129) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Operation Cobra - Just shy of 900 Casualties when the US forces were engaged by their own bombers...
If considering fatalities then maybe the attacks on the Cap Arcona -
Message 3
Posted by MB (U177470) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Perhaps we will never hear of the worst cases, all records destroyed and everyone sworn to secrecy or perhaps even very few knowing what happened.
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Message 4
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
The Confederate Army's ability to shoot it's own Generals in the American Civil War springs to mind in terms of friendly fire incidents with long-term implications. Shooting Stonewall Jackson cost the Confederacy one of it's finest military minds.
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Message 5
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Recent research suggests that the competing Soviet Armies closing on the centre of Berlin shelled each other, possibly on purpose, in order to slow down their rivals advance.
They may, in fact, have killed more of their comrades in the final stages than the Germans did. -
Message 6
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Recent research suggests that the competing Soviet Armies closing on the centre of Berlin shelled each other (LW)Β
Yes, that rang a bell. Page 227, Anthony Beevor's "Berlin; the Downfall". (2002)
In the attack on the Seelow Heights, the forward Russian rifle divisions were heavily shelled by their own artillery. This seems to have gone on for two days (16 and 17 April 1945). Beevor makes no mention of casualties or whether this FF was 'intentional'.
In the same battle Russian aircraft bombed and strafed their own troops but Beevor says this was due to forward Russian units on the ground having insufficient supplies of the relevant yellow and white marker flares which should have been used to indicate their new forward positions.
Thus pilots assumed that the absence of yellow markers meant the troops seen below were Germans.
As an earlier poster mentioned, we may never know the numbers lost, but given the sheer density of that particualr conflict, they are likely to have been considerable. -
Message 7
Posted by Mani (U1821129) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
MattJ18
Albert Sidney Johnston as well as 'Stonewall' Jackson was shot by his own side... -
Message 8
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
That's true Mani, but I don't think he died. Besides, it allowed Lee to take over the Army of North Virginia and he did rather well...
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Message 9
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Mattj18,
Your getting Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Shiloh, April 6th 1862, mixed up with Joseph Eggleston Johnston, wounded at the battle of Seven Pines, June 1st 1862.
It was Joe Johnstons' wounding that led to R.E. Lee taking command of the ANV. -
Message 10
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Thursday, 5th March 2009
Steelers - I stand corrected. Guess the Confederates were even worse at shooting their own officers than I realised!
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Message 11
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Thursday, 5th March 2009
Almost the first Spitfires off the production line were shot out of the skies by overzealous ack ack gunners near Tilbury.
6 planes, and their delivery pilots, all gone.
That must have been something of a crusher to the people who built them. Imagine the conversation - 'you know those 6 Spitfires we sent off yesterday? They want another 6'.
'Why's that then?'
'Err, let me explain...' -
Message 12
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Thursday, 5th March 2009
Yes, that would have put a damper on morale.
Again, very early in the war...
6 September, in what was dubbed the Battle of Barking Creek, an RAF Spitfire squadron shot down two reserve Hurricane aircraft. One of the Hurricane pilots was killed. (Wiki)Β
About a month ago I read an obit (Telegraph, I believe) about an 8th Army tank commander who came to a useful looking desert ridge and lined his tanks up close to the crest for a good view.
They had not been there long before the RAF flew over, and confusing them with a line of German armour assembling on a nearby ridge opposite, bombed the British tanks, setting several ablaze.
The scores were balanced a little later when German air support came in, and having seen the RAF aircraft flying back to base, assumed that the RAF had attacked German tanks.
Seeing tanks ablaze, the Germans took 'revenge' for what they imagined was the loss of their own comrades, by bombing the as yet undamaged tanks on the opposite ridge.
Within a period of twenty minutes both British and German tanks had been hit by their own aircover.
To those on the ground these events must have seemed utterly insane.
If anyone else read the same obit and kept it, (rather than using it to light the fire) I'd be grateful for the name of the man involved. -
Message 13
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Thursday, 5th March 2009
In January 1941, Amy Johnson was shot down by in fog the Thames Esturary AA Guns then caught in the propellers of the boat sent to rescue her.
The morale-raising biopic starring Anna Neagle was then able to reinvent her as a national saint, removing much of her 'colourful' private life especially her first serious boyfriend, Twenty years her senior and German. -
Message 14
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Thursday, 5th March 2009
The first submarine the Royal Navy sank in WW2 was HMS Oxley. Torpedoed by HMS Triton on 10th September.
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Message 15
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Friday, 6th March 2009
One of the planes of the Luftwaffe "X air corps" managed to sink the "Leberect Maas" and "Max Shultz" killing 578 with 5 bombs,which was no mean feat when you consider it was undertaken at night.Unfortunately it cost the lives of 578 german sailors.
vf -
Message 16
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Friday, 6th March 2009
read somewhere the precautions taken to avoid friendly fire in the Normandy battles when the allied heavy bombers where carpet bombing
the frontline troops all held a cylinder with a candle/light in it - lit up when the attack came in - so there was a line of lights that showed the furthest point forward
am i imagining it ??
st -
Message 17
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Friday, 6th March 2009
the frontline troops all held a cylinder with a candle/light in it - lit up when the attack came in Β
Was the light only visible from above? Otherwise it would have been a German sniper's dream....
In the battle for Fallujah (2004) Sgt. David Bellavia's 'Alpha company' got into a sustained fire-fight with a group of USMC about half a mile away. Both American units knew each other's identity and position as they were in radio contact. But each refused to stop firing until the other had apologised.
The incident started when a few 'bushmaster' cannon rounds, from one of the Army Bradleys, went through and beyond its intended Iraqi target, into the Marines who were advancing on the same bearing. -
Message 18
Posted by petaluma (U10056951) on Friday, 6th March 2009
A US Marine will not bow down to anyone, (ask any US Marine) They are the premier USA Forces, their aircraft pilots have to qualify to the position of a Platoon Commander before they ever see an aircraft, every Marine has to qualify in Infantry training regardless of their intended final career, they are start to finish Infantrymen and excellent specimens of that noble art. On kiting up for flight the last piece of apparel is an Infantry camouflage cloth cover, worn over their flying helmet.
Note the last effort by the US Marines believe attacking Fallujah they asked for a British Army Infantry Battalion to watch their backs for a month. Was granted if US Forces would protect them getting there as the British at that time had more Troops killed by American gunfire than enemy. Same in Desert Storm, more British Troops killed in that conflict by American Gunfire than enemy, (with friends like that who needs Enemies ?)
Watching on TV of British Tanks getting ready attack the enemy at the start of Desert Storm it showed and noted that US Marines rode in on the Tanks. Never read of any accounts though. -
Message 19
Posted by FormerlyOldHermit (U3291242) on Saturday, 7th March 2009
I think in the case of firing at one's own troops, it might have been best to suck up that pride and just apologise really....
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Message 20
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 7th March 2009
hi u3280211
apparently thats why they were held in tubes - so they could only be seen from the air - i am sure this is true - cant remember where tho -
Message 21
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Monday, 9th March 2009
Stalt.
Is there any evidence that these 'lights in tubes' prevented FF casualties?
As Mani pointed out in M2, US bombers were often prone, then as now, to accidentally hit their own troops in situations calling for close air support. -
Message 22
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Monday, 9th March 2009
"US bombers were often prone, then as now, to accidentally hit their own troops in situations calling for close air support."
The old joke:
"When the RAF fly over, the Germans take cover.
When the Luftwaffe fly over, the British take cover.
When the US Airforce fly over, everyone takes cover!" -
Message 23
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Monday, 9th March 2009
During the 1991 Gulf War, an RAF Nimrod Squadron deployed to Oman to monitor shipping, and was regularly illuminated by the targetting radar of USN destroyers ordering them to turn back or they would open fire. Only a NATO code and callsign would save them.
The Squadron's aircraft were known as the Magic Roundabout and each had the name of a character from the show. Trouble was, none of the USN radio operators could understand long words like Ermintrude or A-Rab sounding ones like Zeberdee, and there were some close shaves whilst names had to be spelt out Zulu Victor Charlie style with just seconds to missile launch.
Only one aircraft seemed to satisfy the Americans first time, and so all the Magic Roundabout were hastily re-designated as Dylan, which seemed to solve the problem. -
Message 24
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Monday, 9th March 2009
When the US Airforce fly over, everyone takes cover!Β
Or, as the anonymous author of the excellent memoir "A Woman in Berlin", recalls about 1945 in that city:-
"Better a Ruskie on top than a Yank overhead" -
Message 25
Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 9th March 2009
Naming Nimrods after Magic Roundabout characters of course just follows along with the tradition from its predecessor.
MB -
Message 26
Posted by Sixtus Beckmesser (U9635927) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Not "Fire" exactly, but the French mounted knights charging over their own Genoese crossbowmen at the Battle of Crecy (1346) must surely be high on the list!
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Message 27
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Saturday, 28th March 2009
Two instances where the blame was with mechanical rather than human failure,runaway torpedoes circled back and hit the ships which had fired them.This happened to the light cruiser HMS Trinidad and the submarine USS Tang.
Trike -
Message 28
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Sunday, 29th March 2009
Could you please confirm these details as I was not aware that Johnson's death was atributed to anything other than extremely bad weather. However on the subject, I find it quite startling that something like 15 (if my memory serves me correctly) Short Sunderlands were shot down by Allied naval forces, I presume after being mistaken for German aircraft.
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Message 29
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 29th March 2009
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Message 30
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Wednesday, 1st April 2009
hi 328011
< Is there any evidence that these 'lights in tubes' prevented FF casualties? />
really not sure - i just remember reading it and thinking what a good idea it was
i think it was in alexander mckees book Caen
just hope the allied pilots didnt think it was german infantry having a late night pipe smoke
st
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