Friendly Fire

[Blofeld]

"Friendly fire" is pretty rudimentary in CMx1. It is basically limited to misguided air strikes and errant off board artillery. Will it be more of a factor in CMSF?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by First Sergeant:

"Friendly fire" is pretty rudimentary in CMx1. It is basically limited to misguided air strikes and errant off board artillery. Will it be more of a factor in CMSF?

It was also present in night battles in CM, to be fair, where infantry could shoot at other friendly infantry.

[Blofeld]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by First Sergeant:

"Friendly fire" is pretty rudimentary in CMx1. It is basically limited to misguided air strikes and errant off board artillery. Will it be more of a factor in CMSF?

It was also present in night battles in CM, to be fair, where infantry could shoot at other friendly infantry. </font>

[MikeyD]

I still remember seeing horrifying documentary footage of a 2000 lb laser bomb landing on top of friendly troops instead of the enemy in Afghanistan. Happened a couple time, if memory serves.Wounded (killed?) one of the top Afghan coalition leaders. I also remember reports of U.S. tanks shooting up Humvees during Gulf War I. I can well imagine Friendly Fire incidents in CMSF could be somewhat less likely than in CMx1 but considerably MORE lethal when they do happem.

[cassh]

Modern advances in sensor technologies have brought us detection at ever increasing ranges. Unfortunately the corresponding identification technologies and capabilities have not kept up - so we can spot a potential "threat" way before we can fully identify it.

As ff/blue-on-blue avoidance is becoming more and more of a serious consideration, programmes are in development to redress the current shortfall in military identification technology. The route of ever and ever trying to hone procedures and SOPs to prevent friendly fire, whilst worthy, fail to address the current dilemma, in that they fail to address either the cause, or a viable antidote. Only further technological developments can address this problem.

So for the foreseeable future (lets say five years for arguments sake) the area of human judgement call has and will increase - with inevitable consequences. As these mistakes are often made in the heat of battle it is difficult if not impossible to eradicate them without a change in battlefield ID tech.

Unfortunately modern fire power and weapons systems are more lethal than before and so the outcomes of these blue-on-blues can be grisly affairs.

I think in MOUT, night, heavy smoke or obscuration if units are in close proximity to enemy units and C4I is patchy they have to stand a chance of receiving friendly fire every now and then. It can be a very low probability if necessary, but it will force commanders to control and grip their sub-units and teams to prevent this phenomenon.

[John Kettler]

Friendly fire isn't! As someone who has been involved with CM since the CMBO Beta Demo days, I can assure you that it was in the game from the beginning. I know, having been own goaled. The earliest such instance was one in which I targeted a tripod mounted MG-42 on a small isolated stone house, to suppress the occupants (pinned or broke the lot), whom I planned to then storm with 251 delivered Panzer Grenadiers dropped right on their doorstep. Great indeed was my consternation and confusion when I took casualties not only among my debussed infantry but to the 251 crews as well in the face of a combat ineffective foe. What worked fine, though, was that HMG, into whose line of fire I had so "brilliantly" driven and parked! Units will indeed fire on their own in night, fog, etc., and tend to be very morale brittle as well.

While technical means of control are better now, not only do they still fail, along with humans as before, but because of much greater weapon lethality, delivery accuracy and often greater radius of effect, the consequences of friendly fire can be much worse. Imagine, for example, the havoc a string of SFWs could cause to a midIDed convoy. During OIF, an amtrac took a direct hit from a Maverick in the passenger compartment, killing everyone, and I've seen/read (can't remember which) the account of a man who survived being strafed by an A-10.

Much worse than these are possible, and all it would take would be a unit out of sector and someone's not passing the word. IFF's no panacea, either, as the crew of the carrier Kittyhawk learned years ago when a Soviet Tu-16 BADGER squawked the proper IFF code for the day, sailed unchallenged right through the CAP and flew straight down the flight deck centerline, weapon bay doors open to both drive home the point and show there were no weapons aboard, thus no actual shootdown justification. What if there had been been hostile intent and weapons aboard? We'd be out a carrier!

You'd think thermal sights would solve a lot of problems, but they've actually made things worse in some ways, seeing not being the same as accurately identifying, with the result that tanks have been shot at by people who thought they were targeting hostile IFVs and such. Sounds crazy, but my understanding is that Challenger IIs have been fired on for just this reason.

Regards,

John Kettler

[cassh]

UK lost more personnel to friendly fire from US Forces than enemy action in both Gulf wars. Hence it is quite a sensative subject. The MoD were meant to be looking into a ground base IFF system years ago - but said nothing was available and development cost too high to a parliamentary select committee - which was ironic as both Thales and Giat (French defence companies) had working systems available to buy at the time. Politicians really are the lowest form of life...

[Battlefront.com]

We will be able to expand on Blue on Blue fire in CM:SF, and CMx2 in general, thanks to Relative Spotting.

Note that the Stryker forces at the heart of CM:SF all have BFT (Blue Force Tracker), including dismounts. While not perfect, it is a major improvement.

BTW, an Abrams were knocked out by a Bradley during the fighting in Baghdad (IIRC) in 2003. The Brits had a similar problem, but lost two Challenger 2s IIRC in a similar incidient. Both were in broad daylight.

Friendly casualties from Air and Artillery will be largely in the hands of the player. If you screw around with the edges of the margin of safety, you've got more of a chance of something bad happening. For example, calling in 155s on an enemy position 30m away from your own... not a good idea. Clearing an A-10 to engage anything within a 400m wide dense terrain area where both you and the enemy have AFVs is also not a good idea. Stuff like that.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by First Sergeant:

"Friendly fire" is pretty rudimentary in CMx1. It is basically limited to misguided air strikes and errant off board artillery. Will it be more of a factor in CMSF?

It was also present in night battles in CM, to be fair, where infantry could shoot at other friendly infantry. </font>

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

BTW, an Abrams were knocked out by a Bradley during the fighting in Baghdad (IIRC) in 2003. The Brits had a similar problem, but lost two Challenger 2s IIRC in a similar incidient. Both were in broad daylight.

I don't recall anything about a second Challenger 2.

One was mis-ID'd through thermal sights at night and engaged with HESH, which struck the open commanders hatch, set off munitions stored in the fighting compartment and the resulting explosion put the turret on the back deck.

Possibly there was a second tank engaged but not severely damaged.

[C'Rogers]

The friendly fire issue actually worries me quite a bit. From a realism perspective there is too little FF, but from a game perspective it feels like there is to much at times.

One of the major things non-grogs seem to complain about when they show up on the forums is the "bug" where your own airplanes target your troops. While realistic it can ruin a game.

A player likes to feel that the game is under their control. If events are out of control it doesn't feel like you are playing a game, so much as it is playing itself.

The main worry about friendly fire (from squad to squad or squad to tank) is that it is completely determined by the computer and not by the player. If I am moving a squad down a street in a foggy battle and I move a machine gun to protect them, and instead the machine gun identifies them as enemies and fire on them, it is realistic, but may ruin the game. As a player I have made no mistake by the action and in a similar situation would do the same thing and likely get a radically different result.

With artillery or air (how it is now being described) it is a players fault to a large degree. Move troops to close to the arty zone and they get hit, don't go so close next time (or you knew you were taking a calculated risk that you lost).

The best example I can think of is a battle I played long ago. The quick battle generated a great random map where I was attacking a small village surrounded by hills. My friend and I play 25 turns where I slowly encroach on the town, exchange artillery and casualties. He weakens up my infantry but I drive him back into the few buildings he has. I was holding a large tank in reserve and knew he had a few anti-tank weapons as well. We both knew a charge was coming and it would be interesting to see who would win the final turns.

I had purchased a small plane at the beginning of the battle and carefully kept my tank back knowing the dangers of friendly air fire. It didn't show up and I knew I was low on time and had to move. Soon as I begin to move the tank the plane shows up and drops a bomb squarely on it. Without it I had nothing to give cover to my infantry advance and we both agreed that it was bad way for the game to end, all coming down to one misidentification.

Looking back there is nothing major I would of changed. If the plane had struck on the second turn I would of surrendered the battle having lost the necessary heavy assets to close on the town, if it had never we would have had an excellent last couple turns to find out who had better positioned their guys and got more effective casualties in the build up. It was realistic, but didn't feel like a good game (one of the few times I can say that about CM).

So things like that or what worry me about friendly fire. By its nature friendly fire is an accident, out of control. If I misdrop artillery on my guys, I screwed up and will (hopefully) learn from it. If I outflank my enemy and then take fire from one of my own machine guns, what is there to learn?

It isn't so much squad on squad fire that worries me, it is unlikely that any battle will be changed because one squad fired on another. However if an anti-tank shoots a friendly APC or tank down range the whole game might turn on that.

Conclusion: I would like to see a knew FF system. I wouldn't mind seeing more FF even. But for a newg ame engine that has freaked out many a poster on this forum this is the first issue that has really worried me.

[Michael Emrys]

I think realistic FF is essential to the game. It is one thing the player needs to be mindful of in planning and executing his attack/defense, just as real soldiers do. But the game should also reward careful play. It's okay for it to bonk you once in a while when you've done everything right, that's just life. But it shouldn't happen too often on just a random basis or the players will get frustrated and quit playing.

I gave up using airpower in games for that very reason. I was getting bombed and shot up by my own airforce more often than the enemy was. That may not be BFC's fault so much as the scale of the game. Thinking about how air support worked in the war, it would probably be over and done with before a typical CM fight began. Unless we want to start playing on larger maps with many more turns in the game, it's much easier to model the effects of an airstrike by setting map damage and casualty/morale levels in designing a scenario. I am speaking of games set in the 20th. century era for the most part of course. In more recent years, precision bombing has finally matured to a level to make true close support a viable addition to the grunts' arsenal.

Michael

[C'Rogers]

It is one thing the player needs to be mindful of in planning and executing his attack/defense, just as real soldiers do.

To me this is the key to the issue. The player needs to understand what caused friendly fire and that they could of planned to avoid it, or at least what risk they took that made it more likely to happen.

I have seen a few instances of squad on squad fire in CMx1. In all instances it was just kind of random at night occurrences. While perhaps somewhat realistic it seemed totally outside my control. When arty misdrops and hits my own guys I know why. The experience level of the dropper was low and I took a risk being as close as I was. With the few instances of friendly fire it was just kind of 'usually my guys at a 100m across an open field at night spot each other just fine, sometimes they shoot at each other'.

[MikeyD]

The smallest vehicle I know of with an IFF emitter is the M1114 armored Humvee. Or at least it did when they first started coming off the assembly line (that was 3,000 vehicles ago!). I believe (not sure) only the bigger ground vehicles like the Bradley and Abrams actually equipment to detect the IFF emitter's signals, so its not going to help against that distant .50 cal firing in you direction.

[Blofeld]

Originally posted by C'Rogers:

The friendly fire issue actually worries me quite a bit. From a realism perspective there is too little FF, but from a game perspective it feels like there is to much at times.

That is the eternal dilemna, how to make a simulation as realistic as possible and still keep it a fun, playable game. It will be interesting to see how BFC handles it.

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Note that the Stryker forces at the heart of CM:SF all have BFT (Blue Force Tracker), including dismounts. While not perfect, it is a major improvement.

Will the BFT appear somehow? or will it handled indirectly, as, for example, better command & control for the U.S. forces.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, that is the dilema. Friendly Fire is the sort of thing that from a sim standpoint needs to be covered, but from a game standpoint there must be ways for the player to be able to reasonably ensure it doesn't happen to him. Here's one example...

In the Artillery and Air Support code there is an automatic "Friendly Fire" routine that senses if its fire is hitting friendlies. Depending on the circumstances the Mission might auto-cancel itself. Meaning, if you are accidentally pounding the bejeezus out of your guys while you are distracted by something else (or are in WeGo mode and locked out from changing Commands), there is a decent chance that the Mission will cancel itself. This presumes that someone was able to get on the horn and call off the attack. Again, the chance of that happening is situationally dependent, so it could be that the damage is already done by the time it's cancelled.

Steve

[Ace Pilot]

"The reason you can't hear me is because you're firing your mortars at your end, and they're dropping here, on our end!"

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by C'Rogers:

I have seen a few instances of squad on squad fire in CMx1. In all instances it was just kind of random at night occurrences. While perhaps somewhat realistic it seemed totally outside my control. When arty misdrops and hits my own guys I know why. The experience level of the dropper was low and I took a risk being as close as I was. With the few instances of friendly fire it was just kind of 'usually my guys at a 100m across an open field at night spot each other just fine, sometimes they shoot at each other'.

Well, that too happened in the real war. After the US soldiers broke through the Omaha Beach defenses and pushed inland, they dug in for the night. During the night, the Germans trapped near the beaches exfiltrated through the rather porous American lines and there were some exchanges of fire with them. But the US troops, understandably made jumpy by all this, also spent the night shooting at each other some. I'd bet that a lot of cows that might have been stirring around in the dark got nailed too.

So what does a player do if the game allows that? Well, if you are defending, order your men to stay put and not move around. They are safer in foxholes. If you are attacking, hope that the medics came along and kept up.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

The other lesson is to keep straight and tight lines. The more convoluted the frontline, the greater the chance that someone is going to get confused about who is where. That's never a good thing, especially at night when guys are (naturally) jumpy.

Steve

[Cpl Steiner]

In "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden he made a special point of how the (comparatively) less experienced Rangers occasionally loosed off a few rounds in the direction of the more experienced Delta troops - much to their annoyance!

If you get the choice in CM:SF, I suppose you should take the best to avoid any unnecessary fratricide. Perhaps no more "gamey" green FOs just to make up the points in a QB!

[Homo ferricus]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

In "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden he made a special point of how the (comparatively) less experienced Rangers occasionally loosed off a few rounds in the direction of the more experienced Delta troops - much to their annoyance!

That's true, in the book the Delta Operatives that were clearing the target building reported being fired upon by the Ranger Chalks that were defending the corners of the building to prevent the perimeter from being comprimised. Many of the rangers were as young as 18 years old, very young and inexperienced recruits. In an adrenaline fueled panic the young rangers literally just turned around and fired at whatever they saw in the window of the target building, Delta Force and all.

edit: i also seem to recall that one of the rangers was spraying an M249 upon a Delta Operative in the target building.

[M1A1TC]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

I also remember reports of U.S. tanks shooting up Humvees during Gulf War I.

Humvees look a great deal like a BRDM in thermal sight from over 1000 m

[cassh]

"That's alright corporal you drive my Humvee - i'll walk!!" said the Captain.