What the Pentagon didn't want us to hear...

[Barrel of Fun]

Personally, with SAMs knocking around, taking a "flyby" is not something that I would be considering! Pre-war estimates were about 210 Surface to Air Missile launchers and some 150 Early Warning Radars. No one had an accurate count on the number of anti-aircraft guns, but there were thought to be more than 2,500 of them.

I would have hoped that information from the Air Controller and his Intel desk would have been more forthcoming. In conflict, you simply cannot err on the side of safety, no matter what the human rights lawyers would have you believe!

I don't know enough about this subject to engage in a debate and I think I am getting out of my depth here, but there seemed to be ample time in the dialogue to realise that there wasn't any threat of attack and presumably the small convoy carried on it's course. There didn't seem to be any reference that they had stopped and 'looked suspicious'.

 

[H block]

The Sun - cracking paper, and the Defence journo is a fool known in military circles as "Tom Neutron Dung". They talk rubbish, sell papers to the gullible, and then do retractions on page 43, under the adverts for "phone Mandy for light relief".....

The USAF do not have reservists, they use National Guard pilots. If you want to see the respect that the Sun is held, have a wander across to arrse.com or pprune.com where the professionals who do this for a living share information.....

I must correct you in the strongest possible terms. You are very very wrong. The womans name is Candy.

 

[Brixtaan]

How soon after the invasion was it? Any time longer than about a week and there wouldn't have been any Iraqis driving around in convoys anyway.They bolted remember?

 

[algie]

2001 - American FA-18 dropped 3 Mk-82 bombs on a friendly observation post killing six and wounding 11 at Al Udairi Range, Kuwait.
2002 - American F-16 pilot Harry Schmidt killed four Canadian soldiers in the Tarnak Farm incident.
2003 - American aircraft attacked a friendly Kurdish & US special forces convoy killing 15. BBC translator Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed was killed and BBC reporter Tom Giles and World Affairs Editor John Simpson were injured. The incident was filmed. [11]
2003 - American Patriot missile shot down in error F/A-18C Block 46 Hornet 164974 of VFA-195 50 mi from Karbala, Iraq, killing the pilot.
2003 - American Patriot missile shot down a British Panavia Tornado GR.4A ZG710 'D' of 13 Squadron killing the pilot and navigator, Flight Lieutenant David Rhys Williams and Flight Lieutenant Kevin Barry Main, both from 9 Squadron
2003 British Challenger 2 tank came under fire from another British tank in a nighttime firefight, blowing off the turret and killing two crew members, Corporal Stephen John Allbutt and Trooper David Jeffrey Clarke
2003 - Two British Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles of the Blues and Royals attacked by a pair of American A-10s, killing Lance-Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, during the invasion of Iraq. Trooper Christopher Finney was awarded the George Cross for bravery under fire during the attack, rather than the Victoria Cross, which can only be awarded for valour under "enemy fire."
2004 - Pat Tillman, famous American football player and friendly fire victim in Afghanistan
2005 - American soldier Mario Lozano is suspected of killing Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari and wounding Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena in Baghdad. Sgrena had been kidnapped and subsequently rescued by Calipari. However it is claimed that the car they were escaping in failed to stop at an American checkpoint, and US soldiers opened fire.
2005 - American troops opened fire on a Bulgarian convoy. Junior Sergeant Gardi Gardev was killed.
2006 - Two U.S. A-10 Thunderbolts accidentally strafed their own NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, killing Canadian Private Mark Anthony Graham, and seriously wounding five others when soldiers were trying to seize a Taliban stronghold along the Arghandab River. Graham was a former Canadian Olympic athlete who competed on the Canadian 4x400 Men's Relay Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic

 

[Easy 10]

Perhaps our soldiers should take a few of these with them.

 

[Beach Hut]

As much as we get a long list of USA friendly fire murders isn't the bigger issue the more wars you engage in the more likelihood these accidents will happen.

Moral of the story - no wars ?

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

Seems an unfortunate accident to me - yes, it could have been avoided...but mistakes happen...War is one of them!

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

I don't know enough about this subject to engage in a debate and I think I am getting out of my depth here, but there seemed to be ample time in the dialogue to realise that there wasn't any threat of attack and presumably the small convoy carried on it's course. There didn't seem to be any reference that they had stopped and 'looked suspicious'.

It was three days in, and the usual Iraqi trick was to put their missile launchers in towns/villages and then release pictures of the ensuing devastation as "civilian casualties". This British convoy was heading towards a village.

Ample time, when you are flying an A-10 in an area where there may have been SAM batteries, can be measured in lock-and-launch time. If we had been true allies, with IFF fitted in all units, it would not have happened. There are lots of "ifs" involved, but the criminal culpability of the pilot and observer are not really an issue - you should be looking at the way the Ministry of Deception chose to flout a court order to produce the video, with apparent impunity, and the way in which their culture of blame now appears to have morphed into a culture of lies - lies that seem to come almost as a matter of course and policy.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

How soon after the invasion was it? Any time longer than about a week and there wouldn't have been any Iraqis driving around in convoys anyway.They bolted remember?

Er - no they didn't. Right up until the entry to Baghdad they were still appearing, and were used in that defence. Granted, their idea of tactics were "drive quickly, somewhere, fire and hope", but they were still around. During the Um-Qasr landings, the tanks were actually dug in and camouflaged (not too well), and after the conflict had, to quote GEB "ended", vehicles were still appearing and being taken out.

This was invasion plus 3, the ground (and theoretically the air) were still hot zones. I seem to recall the Iraqis lobbing missiles that "they didn't have" into Kuwait - no-one was sure what they really did and didn't have, the briefings were still focussing on NBC elements, and I seem to recall chasing these bloody WMDs as well - we can't possibly know what the pilot and observer were thinking. When we are reduced to a pot of paint and some cardboard for recognition, it is not beyond the wit of the enemy to copy us, is it?