Picture of the day

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Falcorn said:
There is a quote from U.S. Air Force Verdict (given to pilot), by Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, 8th Air Force Commander:

You acted shamefully on 17 April 2002 over Tarnak Farms, Afghanistan, exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline. When your flight lead warned you to "make sure it's not friendlies" and the Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft controller directed you to "stand by" and later to "hold fire," you should have marked the location with your targeting pod. Thereafter, if you believed, as you stated, you and your leader were threatened, you should have taken a series of evasive actions and remained at a safe distance to await further instructions from AWACS. Instead, you closed on the target and blatantly disobeyed the direction to "hold fire." Your failure to follow that order is inexcusable. I do not believe you acted in defense of Major Umbach or yourself. Your actions indicate that you used your self-defense declaration as a pretext to strike a target, which you rashly decided was an enemy firing position, and about which you had exhausted your patience in waiting for clearance from the Combined Air Operations Center to engage. You used the inherent right of self-defense as an excuse to wage your own war.


https://web.archive.org/web/2004080....ca/news/background/friendlyfire/verdict.html
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I note the comment re: "You used the inherent right of self-defence as an excuse to wage your own war."

Even soldiers have this right, denied to civilians.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
American ground attack aircraft, huh? How about the A-36 Apache?

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The Collins Foundation operates one.

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Dive brakes are a nice touch.

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Mean looking machine! Best of the breed for the purpose.

Just finished a book written by a pilot who flew P-47s in the Pacific War. When they were converted to P-51s, they were not happy, referring to them as "Spam cans". They much preferred the massive "Jug" which was almost impervious to ground fire.
 
I've read the main bone of contention was the cooling system, which for the Jug was the atmosphere of the planet, and for the P-51 was several gallons of glycol in a vulnerable belly-mounted rad.

I didn't used to appreciate the significance of that until I spent $800 on a used BMW, to which I have sacrificed plenty more blood and treasure, and discovered the joys of the cooling system of the E46 cars. Somewhere I'm losing 250 ml of coolant per 100 km and I have no idea where. Nothing is leaking. It's not burning it. Perhaps it's mailing itself in small installments back to Germany?

Fine engineering, that. :)
 
Also just finished a book on the Desert Airforce by a pilot who flew "Kitty Bombers" - P-40s used in the ground attack role. Very rugged and successful in that role. Less so against the 109g.
 
Falcorn said:
I read a long time ago that from 148 US combat deaths, during 1991 campaign, 35 was due to friendly fire. Which is almost 24%. Which is staggering.
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I don't know if we can ever rule out the possibility of blue on blue casualties from air and artillery, even in the era of GPS, precision guided munitions and laser designation of targets. It just gets too scrambled on the ground when seen from the air and ground/air comms aren't always reliable. Air and artillery have been a tremendous force multiplier and you need to offset friendly fire casualties against what might have happened of air/arty wasn't used.

Air was a huge advantage in Korea and Vietnam where it killed a lot of enemy and saved many lives in spite of friendly fire losses. Adversaries also are quick to adopt the tactic of "hugging the enemy" to minimize separation and confuse ID of forces, and thus avoid damage from air/arty strikes.
 
purple said:
I don't know if we can ever rule out the possibility of blue on blue casualties from air and artillery, even in the era of GPS, precision guided munitions and laser designation of targets. It just gets too scrambled on the ground when seen from the air and ground/air comms aren't always reliable. Air and artillery have been a tremendous force multiplier and you need to offset friendly fire casualties against what might have happened of air/arty wasn't used.

Air was a huge advantage in Korea and Vietnam where it killed a lot of enemy and saved many lives in spite of friendly fire losses. Adversaries also are quick to adopt the tactic of "hugging the enemy" to minimize separation and confuse ID of forces, and thus avoid damage from air/arty strikes.
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If you look closely at Desert Storm pictures, you'll see the vehicles had big square panels on them. Those are a simple form of Infra Red Friend or Foe marker. When seen through an IR view but not a night vision image intensifier, the panels are cooler than the rest of the vehicle and show up like the balls on a bulldog. With Image Intensifiers it is a bit more complicated, but if you can see a shape, the brighter parts will show up, mostly in shades of green. If it is too dark to pick up ambient light, you can't see to shoot anyways.
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
If you look closely at Desert Storm pictures, you'll see the vehicles had big square panels on them. Those are a simple form of Infra Red Friend or Foe marker. When seen through an IR view but not a night vision image intensifier, the panels are cooler than the rest of the vehicle and show up like the balls on a bulldog. With Image Intensifiers it is a bit more complicated, but if you can see a shape, the brighter parts will show up, mostly in shades of green. If it is too dark to pick up ambient light, you can't see to shoot anyways.
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There are numerous situations where you may not be able to visually observe .... but targets can/will still be engaged. MMG used in protective fire roles as well as indirect speculative fire are just two of them
 
AP said:
There are numerous situations where you may not be able to visually observe .... but targets can/will still be engaged. MMG used in protective fire roles as well as indirect speculative fire are just two of them
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Gotta remember, under these circumstances, every one is stressed, that can affect people adversely . Lots of friendlies shot by jumpy sentries in war time.

Grizz
 
Donny Fenn1 said:
Made for the Chinese in 8mm Mauser?
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8mm and other cartridges, as well as the 303Brit were chambered in Bren Guns. The 303 Brit actually came along later. Fine MG but it's very heavy IMHO, which helped make it a stable firing platform.

But you're likely right that those guns were being built for the Chinese.

Bren Guns are still being used today, usually chambered in 7.62 Nato. I don't think any are being issued to first line troops, but police and second line units still use them in countries like India, but they aren't alone.
 
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