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| Afghanistan | |
| British friendly fire kills Danes | |
| 2007-11-27 | |
British officials privately confirm the incident. It occurred on September 26 but the results of an official Danish investigation are only beginning to emerge. "We are doing all we can to find out what happened and avoid a repeat. We are still taking evidence from our personnel," a British defence source said. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said in a statement: "We are working closely with the Danish government to establish the details and the causes of this incident and there is a board of inquiry into it ongoing. It would not be appropriate to comment further before the board of inquiry is complete." However, Danish sources said the British troops fired between six and eight Javelin heat-detecting missiles at a 14-man Danish unit. The Danish television station said Danish troops did not realise they were being fired on by British forces until they identified the missile remains as belonging to the British after the attack. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 Re: Blue Force Tracker - The phrase is used loosely, but properly refers to a device that was a prototype element of FBCB2, a brigade-and-below comprehensive command and control capability. BFT was deployed in Afghan and during the invasion of Iraq and proved to have some utility on its own. The Danes were quite eager to get Blue Force Tracker, to avoid blue on blue casualties. IIRC an agreement was made to let them have the beacons but not the C2 system we use, which would expose other capabilities. Integrating coalitions without giving away technology or requiring costs that smaller countries can't afford is a challenge. One response is to establish data exchange mechanisms between varied systems. The JC3IEDM and the Battle Management Language standards (the latter still in development, including the Geospatial BML for terrain-oriented data exchange and reasoning) are designed to allow interoperability between command & control software in coalitions. The Brits were offered Blue Force Tracker units as well. Ironically, in some ways integrating with them is harder than with the Danes. For one thing, they already had C2 systems and doctrine in place that differs from ours in a number of ways. And secondly their military was deeply starved for funds when Gordon Brown ran the Exchequer that they couldn't even kit out their troops with their own equipment in many cases - body armor etc. We did give some Blue Force Tracker equipment to the Brits, but not enough for every unit they deployed. Systematic, a Danish company, has fielded a compliant C2 system being used by their troops in Afghan and under consideration by a lot of smaller countries. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-27 18:05 |
| #6 Didn't I hear something about the Brits having a critical need for a Blue Force Tracker? IIRC they are 15 - 20 years behind the US in that regard. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-11-27 11:23 |
| #5 Unfortunately, this is NATO at its predictable incompetency when you factor in the poor allocation of spending by the Danes, the UK and other members on defense. That includes technology and training. Plus it is very difficult to coordinate such diverse national defense programs into one war plan and RoE. That is why Gates has read the riot act to all the members of NATO. We just can't keep propping up this misnomer of defense cooperation. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-11-27 08:33 |
| #4 Tragic. The Javelin did not miss. Not 6-8 times. The Javelin uses an imaging infrared seeker that, once locked on, is very hard to spoof. The British squad lost the position of the Danish squad and misidentified them as taliban. I wonder if the engagement happened at night when the British were forced to rely on low resolution night/infrared vision devices. Was the Danish position properly marked with identifying symbols? |
| Posted by: ed 2007-11-27 08:03 |
| #3 I'm sure that someone will shortly blame this on the US in general or Bush in particular. RIP boys. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2007-11-27 07:35 |
| #2 I recall the Javelin goes up and then straight down on the target heat source. It's not a weapon that necesarily goes where you point it. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2007-11-27 06:57 |
| #1 friendly Fire :( have to wait till all the "facts" *shake* out but this may prove.. /wondering if the Brits will 'ave to step up and point that pointy thing back at themselves.. /Grampaw Angomolet9035 = RD |
| Posted by: Grampaw Angomolet9035 2007-11-27 03:13 |