Solutions to 'friendly fire' problem still elusive

By Sharon L. Crenson and Martha Mendoza
Associated Press

In the dark chaos of battle on Feb. 27, 1991, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division pushed eastward through southern Iraq, clashing with Iraqi Republican Guard armor and infantry.

At a memorial in Edmonton, Alberta, soldiers carry helmets and rifles representing four Canadian soldiers killed by a bomb dropped from a U.S. F-16 in Afghanistan in April 2002. Associated Press

"It was confusing, it was dark, it was scary," said Col. David S. Weisman, commander of the 3rd Brigade.

Six of the brigade's 4,400 soldiers were killed, all by friendly fire.

Thirty-five of the 148 U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf War resulted from what the military now calls "fratricide." A further 78 U.S. soldiers were wounded, making friendly fire responsible for 17 percent of U.S. casualties.

Troops that may be heading into a second Gulf conflict have some new tools to help, but a high-tech system that was the Pentagon's best hope for sharply reducing friendly-fire casualties has been scrapped as ineffective and too costly.

"I don't think the Army is significantly better off this time around," said John Pike, director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank GlobalSecurity.org of Alexandria, Va., which studies military policy. "They have clearly laid the groundwork for an 'Army drops the ball on fratricide' story."

The Defense Department spent 10 years and $175 million on the Battlefield Combat Identification System, a strategy favored by seasoned officers such as retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Commander who played a key role in the Gulf War.

BCIS was envisioned as a sophisticated signal-and-answer system to be carried by military vehicles and troops. A tank equipped with it would send an electronic signal toward its target before firing. If the target was "friendly," it would detect the signal and reply, preventing the tank from firing. Enemy targets, and any vehicle not equipped with BCIS, would be unable to detect or respond to the signal.

The U.S. General Accounting Office had warned from the start that the system might never work if it was not compatible with technology used by our NATO allies.

Furthermore, to be effective in battle, the electronic communication would have to occur in a split second — something BCIS engineers could not perfect. Coming at a cost as high as $50,000 per vehicle, the military abandoned the system in 2001.

Allied approach

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark favors the Battlefield Combat Identification System. Associated Press

Pete Glikerdas, a civilian engineer who heads combat identification projects at Fort Monmouth, N.J., said the system is designed to cost about $20,000 per unit and be about 98 percent accurate. It is the result of long negotiations between NATO allies who needed to develop standards in common.

For now, the more than 200,000 U.S. troops assembling in the Gulf are relying heavily on global positioning technology as their best defense against friendly fire. GPS technology allows combatants to map their battlefield locations and those of friendly and enemy forces. The more soldiers know about their relative positions, the less likely they are to make mistakes.

Global positioning systems make mapping much faster and more accurate than it was during the first Gulf War. But Glikerdas said the electronics are still too slow. "When the conflict breaks and you're on the ground, who has time to look at the displays?" he said.

With that in mind, the military is also relying on some surprisingly simple-sounding improvements.

For example, all military ground vehicles in the Gulf are supposed to be equipped with reflective panels that have unique, highly confidential markings that can be seen only through night-vision goggles or certain thermal sensors.

One of the most important protections against friendly fire remains much the same as it was 12 years ago: basic military tactics and training. Aerial spotters still travel with armored battalions to identify targets and relay their locations. Troop commanders still divide the battlefield into a grid, with various squares of territory opened or closed to air and artillery attacks depending on U.S. troop movements. Videos help teach servicemen and women what enemy vehicles and equipment look like, and to distinguish between explosive flashes.

And soldiers are spending more time training with thermal sights and night-vision goggles, though Clark said it's not clear how much difference those preparations will make.

Historic dilemma

A U.S. Marine deployed for a possible war with Iraq struggles to walk during a sandstorm in the Kuwaiti desert. Advertiser library photo

In World War II, for example, friendly fire accounted for 2 percent of casualties up to 21 percent, depending on whether you trust an official military estimate or an analysis by The American War Library, run by veterans. For the Korean War, estimates range from 2 percent to 18 percent; and for Vietnam, from 2 percent to 39 percent.

Desert Storm focused attention on the issue because American casualties from enemy fire were so few. The military investigated every friendly-fire incident in detail, and the findings prompted a renewed commitment of money and research.

Overwhelmingly, Gulf War friendly-fire casualties were Army, which supplied the most combatants and is vulnerable to artillery, armor, infantry, and airborne assault.

Military experts say the sheer number of combatants makes mistakes almost inevitable. U.S. officials estimated that the 1991 American-led forces began the Persian Gulf War with 443,000 troops in the combat zone, compared with Iraq's 623,000. About 200,000 of the coalition forces were American.

Mistakes by Air Force and Navy pilots flying bombing sorties also can devastate ground forces. Army Lt. Gen. J. Lesley McNair was accidentally killed by U.S. bombs while observing an operation during World War II. In Vietnam, helicopter gunships killed U.S. troops on Hamburger Hill.

Even now, air traffic control systems are not foolproof when it comes to coordinating with ground troops.

In April 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed by an American bomber in a friendly-fire accident in Afghanistan when a U.S. F-16 dropped a bomb on Canadians taking part in a live-fire training exercise.

The deaths highlighted two of the most difficult problems about friendly fire: coordinating coalition forces that use different weapons and equipment, and coordinating air-to-ground strikes.

The biggest advance the Air Force has made in air-to-ground accuracy since 1991 is the introduction of GPS-guided ammunition. Ground troops radio target coordinates to a pilot, who enters them into a computer that directs the bombs, said Steve Scott, a retired lieutenant colonel now working on research for the Air Force Special Tactics Group at Hurlburt Field, Fla. In essence, the technology converts free-falling bombs into "smart" bombs that are more accurate, particularly in bad weather.

Its primary weakness, Scott said, is the possibility of someone making a mistake in the voice relay. The Air Force is now working on a machine-to-machine communication solution to reduce human error.

Timothy Rider, spokesman for the Army's Communications and Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J., said it is too easy to criticize the military for not doing enough to reduce friendly-fire casualties.

"There's never a satisfactory answer to a soldier being killed by fratricide," he said. "But a lot of people think you can just snap your fingers and there's a technological solution to fratricide. But it doesn't work that way."

Technology, he said, doesn't eliminate the possibility of human error. "If you're careless with the best technology, you're going to kill your buddies."