Blue on Blue Friendly fire is still an inescapable part of armed conflict.
On D-Day at Normandy, naval gunfire was directed against the church steeple in Colleville on the assumption that enemy observers were using it. The town was already in American hands, 64 men were lost.
Friendly fire is seldom acknowledged. Hill 282 in Korea is an example. September 22nd, 1950, the British 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The Argylls were fighting back waves of North Koreans covered by a heavy barrage of artillery and mortar fire. But they were running low on ammunition, stripping their injured and dead of spare magazines as the officers exhorted them to make every shot count. The Argylls called for an American air strike. They put out their air recognition panels. According to the Court of Enquiry after the event, the North Koreans also put out air recognition panels of their own. However, the Argylls placed Red/Yellow or Crimson & Gold recognition panels, the correct colors of the day, were the white recognition panels the North Korean laid out. 150 men were killed or wounded. The British Government decreed the details of Hill 282 be kept a secret until 2025. The US government released documents on H-282 in 1974.
The friendly fire toll for personnel during the First Gulf War was about 20% of all combat casualties. Nearly 75% of all vehicle losses were also friendly fire as were 100% of destroyed M-1 tanks.
The first reported Blue on Blue incident during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) occurred on March 24, 2003 when a British Challenger II tank destroyed another near Basra.
Friendly fire has many causes and solutions are only temporary. By the time a truly adequate solution has been developed, a new weapon or new technique brings on some new problem, or the enemy is able to mimic and break the system.
