do the american armed forces have any plans not to kill british troops in any up and coming conflicts?

Question

not a war with each other... but every conflict they have fought in together the have killed british troops in so called friendly fire is it not about time they sorted themselfs out with all the technology at their dissposal

Answer 1

The americans never 'plan' to kill British troops, but they are so trigger happy, and ill-disciplined and have such incompetent commanders and they depend upon troops recruited from the bottom of the socio-economic scale,, (the very VERY stupid!) This leads to a very very well armed army of psychotic idiots. It's like giving massively powerful weaponry to spoiled children.

Even when the US high command was told repeatedly that a UN grain store was at a particular location, the USA bombed it. The UN re-built it and painted a HUGE UN sign on the roof. The USA bombed it again. IIn the end, the UN were going to paint it with the sign: "ILLEGAL WMD STORED HERE!", but they decided against it when it was postulated that the USA would probably miss it, and hit a school down the road. Better to bomb grain, than children. Not that there is any difference in the eyes of the US military, it is all equally designated collateral damage.

The US military are utterly incompetent and this is creating far more terrorism. I mean, I am British and an ally of theirs, yet even I want to protest peacefully against the bastards for all the Brits they have killed by so called "friendly fire"!

rant over.

I actually do love the USA. but it's the incompetent and corrupt leadership that pisses me off!

Answer 2

I very much doubt the US forces go into action anywhere in the world with the overt intention of killing troops of Allied nations. The fact is, instances of fratricide have ALWAYS been common in warfare, with recorded historical exmaples going back to antiquity. ALL nations' Armed Forces have experienced fratricide, and the US forces are no different. It's just that they're the biggest force the British Army operates with on a frequent basis, they have more technology and more people. It is axiomatic that, the more people, vehicles and weapons that are present in the battlespace, the more casualties will result, whether through combat, fratricide, accidents, disease, or any cause you care to name. It's statistics, and no amount of Force Protection measures can entirely eradicate casualties of some kind.

Its also necesary to view fratricide casualties in their proper context. The 24-hour media and information society in which we live will always play up any military casualties of any kind, because it creates news (see the soldier killed on an exercise in Wiltshire recently - front page news). Not that there's anything wrong in the media reporting casualties - that's their job. But the context is important. For instance, in the 1990-91 Gulf Conflict, two US A-10 aircraft mistakenly attacked vehicles of 3rd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (3 RRF), a UK infantry unit. 3 RRF lost 9 men killed and 11 wounded. That is an appalling thing to happen, whether from enemy fire or your own side. But the point is, the 3 RRF Battlegroup consisted of some 800 men, part of a UK land force of 33,000 troops. The loss of the vehicles and men did not significantly slow down either 3 RRF or 1 (UK) Armoured Division as a whole. It didn't prevent them doing their job, which was to defeat the enemy on the battlefield. The casualties sustained in that incident were terrible, but they seemed more so because UK forces only had a total of 47 fatalities in the whole Gulf Conflict. Of the Army's fatalities, only 3 were caused by Iraqi action (the proportion was higher for the RAF). Had the Iraqi Army in 1991 put up a greater fight and inflicted greater casualties, the significance of this and other 'friendly fire' incidents might perhaps have been seen differently.

In the Falklands in 1982, there were several instances of 'friendly fire' between UK units on the ground. These are not often dwelt on, because the UK forces in the Falklands sustained 255 killed and 777 wounded, the vast majority through Argentine action. Virtually every military campaign or operation you can name will contain instances of 'friendly fire', particularly since 1914, when the use of aircraft has added another dimension to the battlefield. However, the overall intensity of combat, and the numbers and causes of casualties, will directly affect how fratricide casualties are perceived.

Ultimately, the answer to the questuion is: the US might well hit their own or allied troops during future operations. Its unlikely fratricide will ever go away. But would you rather we got involved in operations where there are sufficiently few casualties for fratricide to be high-profile, or would you prefer heavy casualties across the board, in which fratricide is only a minor cause? It's not an easy subject to address.

Answer 3

I'm British and I think that question is a bit insensitive!

It's important lessons are learnt from tragic mistakes. Maybe the focus should be on will US forces review the errors resulting in the deaths of British personnel...or at least that how I might have put it, because after all, death by friendly fire was never planned.

Answer 4

British troops have this sorted now, they simply adopt the colours of the forces they are fighting against, that way the Americans never hit them.

Answer 5

Are you joking?
They don't have any real plans to avoid hitting their own troops/installations/vehicles.
They invented the term friendly fire!!

The only way they could avoid hurting "allies" would be to go home before they fired a shot (without even bring into the argument that they make most of the armaments in the world...)l

Answer 6

Friendly fire, as it is called, is just one of the hazards of war. The American Army do not shoot allied troops, [the Brits] intentionally. These things happen. No doubt the Brit Army has it's share of shooting at the wrong army too, even at themselves.

Answer 7

The U.S. and Britain are allies in this global war on terrorism. The British are our friends. Why would the U.S. want to kill British soldiers? They do talk funny, however.

Answer 8

USA and Britain are allies and have been ever since the war of 1812. They aren't fighting each other and never will be because they are both democratic countries that are too connected through trade and business to ever go to war with each other.

Answer 9

I think it is more of a statement that they are not planning on killing British soldiers then they have plans not to kill British soldiers. When you eat dinner do you make specific plans not to eat your fork? or do you just naturally stop eating after the food is removed from it?

Answer 10

In fairness, they do also kill many of heir fellow Americans. Supposedly its all down to the "conditioned response" training of the US military which trains soldiers not to hesitate about taking a life in case they get shot instead.