‘Blue on Blue’: The Awful Reality

 by Miles Davidson

‘Blue on Blue’, more commonly known as friendly fire, is a military term to describe incidents in which friendly forces fire upon other friendly forces, mistaking them for enemy forces. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while engaging an enemy, long range ranging errors or inaccuracy. Numerous prominent examples across the 20th century have occurred, spanning any number of conflicts. Friendly fire became a principal issue in the latter stages of the Second World War, with the advent of precise bombing technology paired with a will to end the war quickly bringing about numerous casualties from friendly fire incidents. This trend, particularly amongst members of the US military, has continued amongst wars occurring later in the 20th century and early in the 21st century alike, with technology still failing to curb the number of incidents of ‘blue on blue’ situations. Conflicts such as the Iraq War would prove to military powers around the world the need to implement proper training around the issue of friendly fire, and have proved countless times the awful impact on the morale of forces affected by ‘blue on blue’ actions.

Some scholars dismiss the material impact of friendly fire, by concluding friendly-fire casualties are usually too few to affect the outcome of a battle. The effects of friendly fire, however, are not just material. Troops expect to be targeted by the enemy, but being hit by their own forces has a huge negative impact on morale. Whilst technology such as IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) have enabled troops to decipher between enemy and friendly, this technology is still unreliable enough to occasionally not be able to identify certain forces and vehicles. This sort of malfunction has led to high profile ‘blue on blue’ cases such as the downing of two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters by the US Air Force in 1994 during the Iraqi no-fly zones. Tactics utilised by military powers can also increase the chance of friendly fire, such as the bombing of objectives just before they are captured by ‘friendlies’ in order to stop counterattacks from the opposition. This clearly increases the risk of friendly fire, but the risk is deemed necessary to capture vital enemy positions such as machine gun outposts. All of these factors play into the increasing likelihood of friendly fire on the battlefield.

Militaries across the globe are now implementing certain policies to address and hopefully reduce the casualties from ‘blue on blue’ events. Improved technology to assist in identifying friendly forces is also an ongoing response to friendly fire problems. There is also some development of remote sensors to detect enemy vehicles – the Remotely Monitored Battlefield Sensor System (REMBASS) uses a combination of acoustic, seismic vibration, and infrared to not just detect, but identify vehicles. This helps to identify friendly and enemy forces and therefore allow those utilising this equipment to respond to the situation correctly, reducing friendly fire greatly. Visible methods of stopping friendly fire include the usage of markings, such as during the Invasion of Ukraine the Z to show Russian military vehicles. Ukrainian forces have responded by using visible Ukrainian flags on their vehicles, and so both nations have implemented policies to help to curb the friendly fire incidents.

Overall, friendly fire events are terrible situations for any military, reflecting badly on all troops involved as well as those leading the militaries themselves. The loss of morale can be so severe that it may turn the tide of conflicts, and causes second-guessing that can be so dangerous when faced with dangerous enemy forces. In order to stop these incidents from occurring at such a high rate, forces across the globe have implemented successful strategies to avoid said situations and have therefore greatly reduced the risk of friendly fire incidents’ occurring at a rate similar to the likes of the US military in Iraq and Vietnam alike. Technological advances may well solve this issue entirely at one point in time, however the risk of malfunction or misuse of said equipment may well still contribute to rare instances of ‘blue on blue’ contact, therefore showing that the issue may well be one that recurs across history.