Lionus Prints Up-date (Retraction?) !lionusFebruary 8 2007, 12:06:36 UTC
An article regarding the friendly fire incident appeared in last night's Boston Herald on page 13.
To put this in context, think of yourself in a very fast aircraft toddling along at a couple of hundred-miles-an-hour with the ground underneath you whipping past pretty fast -- you are not a tourist with a leisurely view of landscape.
You spot a line of vehicles in an area where the "bad guys" have been active lately and you spot what look like flashes of orange light. Flashes like what you see when rockets are being fired. You report this to your ground control, as you are supposed to. Ground Control comes back to you telling you that 'there are no friendlies in the area'. More flashes of orange. Apparently the bad guys are rocketing people on our side in a "drive-by" style. You and your wingman go in to stop them.
But after your attack Ground Control comes back at you to let you know that 'there could be friendlies in the area'. Opps! Was it that the folks who were supposed to send in that information didn't? Did that information get side-tracked in the flood of information that modern day combat generates and requires?
The "orange flashes"? It seems that coalition vehicles have an orange light on top of them to help distinguish them from the air from all the other thousands of vehicles in built-up urban areas. But on bumpy ground, passing by buildings, through trees those lights can appear to be alternately appearing and disappearing, giving the visual impression of firing.
As to the video of the attack, that refers to the pilot's cockpit video, something that may be engaged during an attack. There may be a deterioration of the film over time in the desert heat with a resultant practice of not loading any film when combat is not expected. Then with complaints about how expense the war is, simply avoiding the practice of loading film, throwing it away, loading film, throwing it away and so on.
Aircraft communications are recorded and the reaction by one of the A10 pilots after learning that they had in fact attacked a British truck convoy causing casualties says it all, "I think I'm going to be sick."
To put this in context, think of yourself in a very fast aircraft toddling along at a couple of hundred-miles-an-hour with the ground underneath you whipping past pretty fast -- you are not a tourist with a leisurely view of landscape.
You spot a line of vehicles in an area where the "bad guys" have been active lately and you spot what look like flashes of orange light. Flashes like what you see when rockets are being fired. You report this to your ground control, as you are supposed to. Ground Control comes back to you telling you that 'there are no friendlies in the area'. More flashes of orange. Apparently the bad guys are rocketing people on our side in a "drive-by" style. You and your wingman go in to stop them.
But after your attack Ground Control comes back at you to let you know that 'there could be friendlies in the area'. Opps! Was it that the folks who were supposed to send in that information didn't? Did that information get side-tracked in the flood of information that modern day combat generates and requires?
The "orange flashes"? It seems that coalition vehicles have an orange light on top of them to help distinguish them from the air from all the other thousands of vehicles in built-up urban areas. But on bumpy ground, passing by buildings, through trees those lights can appear to be alternately appearing and disappearing, giving the visual impression of firing.
As to the video of the attack, that refers to the pilot's cockpit video, something that may be engaged during an attack. There may be a deterioration of the film over time in the desert heat with a resultant practice of not loading any film when combat is not expected. Then with complaints about how expense the war is, simply avoiding the practice of loading film, throwing it away, loading film, throwing it away and so on.
Aircraft communications are recorded and the reaction by one of the A10 pilots after learning that they had in fact attacked a British truck convoy causing casualties says it all, "I think I'm going to be sick."
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