Do American troops still think they are fighting the American revolution?

Question

On Friday 3 more British troops were killed in Afghanistan by the Americans. This happens on a regular basis, do the American troops still think the year is 1776 or are there not enough Arabs to satisfy their lust for blood?

Answer 1

They only won in 1776 because the French helped them.

This is another example of just how incompetent the US forces really are. No wonder nobody want to fight side by side with them

Answer 2

Im sorry for what happened, but I am starting to get tired of dry British quips that show they have little understanding on how things work in Iraq. Keep it up, and you will lose what sympathy you have.

Dont forget about the other victim in this. That pilot has to live with this now. As much as your lack of understanding of things shows in your quip, that pilot did not WANT to kill the UK soldiers on the ground. He went in trying to save them, but somethig went wrong. This is war, that means things have already gone wrong to begin with. He was called in by those Brits on the ground in an emergency that was danger close, so that means that something else was already wrong. Now that pilot has to live with it, as do the surviving Brits.

I bet if the pilot had not shown up at all, and those 3 died bacuse they couldn't get support, you would on here ranting too. "Where was the US air support, I guess they dont support Tories," or some line like that. So the whole things is lose/lose for the US, expecially when people are close-minded.

Nemisis-----> then whats your excuse for The War of 1812? Also, dont forget why the French helped us, because the UK pissed them off.

Answer 3

Limits on the weapons of the time period. Most armies at the time used smooth bore muskets, which were only accurate to about 50 yards or so. Because of this, the tactic was to line up in rows and fire en masse, which is why you see the front rank fire, then kneel down and reload, while the second rank fired and it would switch off between them. In other words, 100 guys in 2 lines had a better chance of hitting something than one guy with a single musket.

Answer 4

The American people consider the British to be our greatest ally. Any deaths to the British military by American soldiers is guaranteed to be accidental.

I for one work in US military intelligence, and sadly, there is a huge gap between US and other countries' intelligence on operations in certain areas. When such a gap exists, these things can happen. I think I speak for the American people when I apologize for such instances.

Answer 5

your info is wrong

if you read the article they state that it is very possible that the error came from the ground spotter or a faulty bomb.

Improper ground spotting is the most common cause of friendly fire incidents from air to ground freindly fire.

It happens on both sides. Its just plain stupidity to think they targeted the british soldiers. As the articles state it is unfortunate but happens in the heat of war.

The reason the US is having it happen more is becuase they supply 90% of the air support and heavy weapons in these battles. the more you do the more chance for mistakes.

To say that it is becuase of inablility to discern flags shows ignorance beyond belief. The guy is not flying at 10 feet and 10 MPH they are at hundreds of feet and 600mph there are stystems aboard the veh. that designate friendly these things sometimes fail.

Piolots take direction from the ground spotters as to where to drop their payload.

Answer 6

lust for blood? Like The Brits in Colonial Africa, India WWI, Crusades, Boer War, The several wars with Scotland and Ireland? I think the Brits have had a lust for blood that beats The US for let's say... THOUSANDS of years?

Answer 7

This has happened a number of times. Last time they fired on British troops who were equipped with tanks.

Insurgents and terrorists with tanks is just crazy. They do believe that they are fighting for a cause. Personally I think that cause is a hallucination.

Answer 8

If that were the case, we'd have killed alot more than 3 of their soldiers. We didn't beat them the first time by only killing 3 a day.

Answer 9

I am so completely sick of coming on to YA and seeing people from the UK try to blame this on the US.

I have been in the field with troops from the UK. You want to know why they get involved with blue on blue when they call in air support?

Here you go..
The UK will not rely on its own air assets for support, instead they use US air power. They also make mistakes in regards to command and control of those assets. So they become dependent on US air support and then do not familiarize themselves with US command and control. My conclusion would have to be that if anyone is to blame it would be the troops from the UK. They routinely misidentify targets, do not communicate their location, or get too close to the intended target.

I do not think troops from the UK are inept, however I do think that their command and control in relation to communication with allied command is inept.

Incidents such as this happen when troops fail to properly communicate their location. This exact same thing happened in 1991, and 2003. In both those incidents the UK troops involved were in an area that they were not reported to be in. They in effect failed to communicate their locations properly. As in most cases involving fratricide between the UK and the US, the UK is quick to jump to the conclusion that it is not their fault. Upon scrutiny we find out that it was a lack of communication on behalf of the UK troops. What is sad is that the British will blame the US and then fail to do anything to correct their inability to report their locations to allied command.

I think an investigation will show exactly what I am talking about, in that the UK troops failed to properly communicate their location.

The British are notorious for not knowing where their troops are in the field. They don’t properly communicate with their troops, and then call in US air power for support. Then when it goes South they blame the US without addressing the fact that their command and control in relation to air support sucks.

Whenever I interact with people from the UK I get a sense of general arrogance on their part. From my interaction with them, and their military forces in particular I would say that the arrogance they portray is completely unjustified.

If anyone has a "dumb" military its you guys, you cannot keep track of your people, you dont know where they are, you call in air support in areas that they have moved into, and they get killed.

This is a direct result of your own military's inability to command and control their forces in combat, get your own house in order before you blame other people for your own incompetence.

Answer 10

There is always a risk of mistaken identity. This has happened, all countries, units etc. in every war in history.