# So far the war isn't going smoothly **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596 "2003-03-23T19:58:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RandySpears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@RandySpears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandySpears)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/41 "2003-03-23T22:57:37Z")
No, **monstro** , you are (supposedly) in war because the Iraqis are hiding weapons of massdestruction, which are rather un-effective against helicopters! 🙂 But this is a well known (and quite reasonable) media tactic of the US military. Take the example of the plane shot down over bagdad: That was at first denied by the US, although witnesses among the foreign reporters saw it being shot down. ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/42 "2003-03-23T22:59:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yosemitebabe \* > \*\*cainxinth: I don’t know how you _know_ that this is “clearly” more than a normal amount of accidents and mistakes. I don’t know, that’s for sure. Things change all the time—war technology changes. With these changes comes different accident rates, I suppose. > > Do you have a few reputable cites indicating that there are an abnormally high amount of accidents (all things considered) or are you just thinking that there are too many accidents? \*\* Nothing like a cite check to get us back to the facts. Here’s what I found: This Christian Science Monitor piece explains that accident and friendly fire deaths are on the rise [link](http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030114-fire01.htm) > [@](#): > > There’s a confluence of reasons behind the trend, which became obvious during the Gulf War (in which friendly fire accounted for 24 percent of US combat deaths - much higher than in previous wars), continued in Afghanistan, and may plague any war in Iraq. \* The United States is dealing with enemies and situations where casualties due to hostile fire are diminishing. American forces are in a position of overwhelming superiority, giving enemies less opportunity to do damage. So friendly fire incidents and other war-zone accidents - which can be much harder to deal with psychologically and politically - are becoming a greater fraction of the whole. > > …This record contrasts sharply with the friendly-fire record from World War II through Vietnam, when such casualties amounted to less than 3 percent of the total. In the Gulf War, more than 17 percent of American casualties were due to friendly fire. This was particularly true in the brief ground war - and especially in the intense tank battles, where more than three-quarters of all damage to US armored vehicles was the result of fratricide. It still doesn’t explain four helicopters going down without clear cause in four days though. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/43 "2003-03-23T23:05:12Z")
What do you mean, without clear cause? The two British helicopters collided. That’s a pretty clear cause. The CH-47 that crashed probably hit the ground while flying a terrain-following profile. That’s a very dangerous thing to do in the desert, because the angle of the dunes can cause the pilots to become disoriented and literally fly into the ground. By the way, if 3% of Americans in WWII were killed by friendly fire, that would be about Seventy Five Hundred friendly fire casualties. The reason it’s even higher than that now, is because the weapons themselves are much more lethal. Drop a bomb on a friendly position in WWII, and there’s still a good chance that you’ll miss entirely anyway. Drop one now, and people die. So just as attacks on the enemy are much more lethal, attacks on your own people by accident are also much more lethal. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/44 "2003-03-23T23:07:55Z")
I did a helicopter crash search the other day. There are so many military helicopter crashes it makes you want to not travel by military helicopter. Then, we go fly all of them under combat condtions, nap-of-the-earth, in the desert, over hundreds of thouands of flight hours and are surprised when they crash in numbers? I’m upset, but not surprised. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/45 "2003-03-23T23:12:47Z")
Plus, the environment is decidedly unfriendly to precision-tolerance equipment. Its a toss up as whether sea water or sand has a worse effect on the kind of high tech weaponry that is our mainstay. ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/46 "2003-03-23T23:16:44Z")
That’s not what I meant by clear cause Sam. I meant we’re only four days in a we’ve had a series of major mishaps without clear cause. You seem to think its perfectly normal. I think either we’re fucking up somewhere, somehow, or we are just really unlucky. But, this many problems so soon doesn’t reflect well on us. Hopefully, these tragedies will motivate the military to redouble their attention to safety. ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/47 "2003-03-23T23:26:05Z")
Choppers are unsafe, but this unsafe? Four in the first four days?Any experts know if that truly is an unexceptional statistic? ---
**Author:** ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/48 "2003-03-23T23:42:05Z")
My take on this is that there are good days in war, and there are bad days. Casualties and friendly fire have always been apart of war, cant get around that. Now we are just more aware of it because we have more media coverage than ever before. It’s still early, dont discount things yet. On and I agree, there seems to be an unusal amount of problems with copters crashing (without being fired upon). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/49 "2003-03-23T23:46:55Z")
Remember the aborted attempt to rescue Iranian hostages? It failed when the choppers carrying the commandos crashed in the desert. elucidator’s point is especially valid here - Helicopters and blowing sand don’t mix well. Helicopters are a mass of high-precision moving parts. They fly low to the ground, where they can hit sandstorms. The pilots can be disoriented by the shifting sands. It’s a very dangerous thing to do. By the way, Canada sents its two helicopter ships to the Gulf with only one helicopter, because our other Sea King crashed a couple of weeks ago and there was no time to bring in a replacement. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/50 "2003-03-24T00:43:29Z")
—The reason it’s even higher than that now, is because the weapons themselves are much more lethal.— Well, The other reason is that our non-friendly fire deaths are so low compared to other wars (certainly compared to the number of enemy losses). ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/51 "2003-03-24T01:34:34Z")
> [@](#): > > _cainxinth:_ > I meant we’re only four days in a we’ve had a series of major mishaps without clear cause. You seem to think its perfectly normal. I think either we’re fucking up somewhere, somehow, or we are just really unlucky. But, this many problems so soon doesn’t reflect well on us. Hopefully, these tragedies will motivate the military to redouble their attention to safety. I, for one, agree that the problem is obviously the military’s attention (or lack thereof) to safety. The military brass should immediately implement a 55 mph speed limit, require helicopters to fly at least 200 feet from the ground and 300 feet from other helicopters, and maybe we can see about installing one of those beeping mechanisms for when helicopters are backing up. The article you linked talks about increases in friendly fire incidents, but it says nothing about increases in accidents. I think our record has been pretty good so far. We’ve flown literally _thousands_ of sorties every day, many of which have encountered hostile enemy fire, and we’ve only had 4 accidents to speak of. That wouldn’t be a great record for driving on the freeway in San Diego, but it’s not bad for combat, and it might get better as our soldiers adapt to the conditions. It’s also not really fair to lump the accidents together as “helicopter accidents.” They seem to have involved different kinds of helicopters, and had different causes. If we start seeing a rash of helicopter accidents with a common cause, that may be a sign that we should start worrying. As for the progress of the war, I’m disappointed. I hadn’t expected Iraq would just roll over, but I had _hoped_ they would. Having said that, I think we’re slightly ahead of schedule. Plus, there are preliminary reports that coalition forces have taken a [chemical weapons plant](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81935,00.html). I certainly hadn’t expected to find one of those until the war was nearly completed, but the fact that we’ve taken it now will hopefully make our forces safer in the weeks to come. ---
**Author:** ![RandySpears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@RandySpears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandySpears)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/52 "2003-03-24T01:56:03Z")
Hm if it keeps up this pace, there’ll be 365 helicopter accidents in 365 days… ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/53 "2003-03-24T02:18:37Z")
> [@](#): > > _RandySpears:_ > Hm if it keeps up this pace, there’ll be 365 helicopter accidents in 365 days… . . . and 0 personnel lost due to automobile accidents, 0 tanks lost for any reason, 0 infantry battles lost, 0 planes lost due to pilot error (although patriot missiles will strike 90 British planes), we’ll take roughly 300,000 Iraqi prisoners of war, and we’ll possibly discover 90 chemical weapons plants. Of course, if it keeps up this pace, we’ll reach the other end of Iraq in less than 2 weeks, so maybe we’re stretching this thing a bit thin. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/54 "2003-03-24T02:26:26Z")
Now that you mention it, just how the hell does a super-dooper Patriot missile mistake a helicopter for a Scud? Who authorized the launch? Somebody _does_ have to authorize a launch, right? ---
**Author:** ![RandySpears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@RandySpears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandySpears)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/55 "2003-03-24T02:30:47Z")
**Age:** Hehe, yeah i was taking a cheap shot! I retract. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/56 "2003-03-24T02:34:42Z")
**e** : You are referring to the Patriot that shot down the [Tornado](http://www.msnbc.com/news/889594.asp?0cv=CB10), I reckon. Still, the Iraqis have not launched a single plane, AFAIK. Wating before firing - given US history of friendly fire incidents - you’d think would be the order of the day. The US has been hell on allies. From Afghanis, to Canadians, to the poor UK pilots, we need to stop killing our allies so much. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/57 "2003-03-24T04:15:54Z")
I would also be interested on the fire decision on the Patriots. I know they have very little time to react to an “incoming” before they must launch. I’ve kinda assumed that perhaps the pilots had certain flight corridors that wouldn’t trigger the Patriots. Could it have been pilot error? I genuinely don’t know how these systems are triggered. Any expertise on this topic out there? ---
**Author:** ![\_etalhea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/779978/32.png) [@\_etalhea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_etalhea)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/58 "2003-03-24T05:15:27Z")
Here’s the part that’s confusing to me: OK, we’ve been attacked recently by Islamic terrorists, and we are currently waging our SECOND war/armed invasion (whatever) of a predominantly Islamic country in a row. We’ve got a seargent in the army named **Asan Akbar**. We post him to guard the grenades at night. I mean no disrespect to Islamic people (the normal ones) and I realize that racial profiling is generally bad. BUT COME ON!!! Can’t we fucking screen the army a little better than this??? WTF??? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/59 "2003-03-24T06:06:36Z")
So you think that any Muslim in the US Armed Services should be removed from a combat role? Are you sure you want to stick by that statement? You’re right, racial profiling is generally bad, and specifically bad in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596/60 "2003-03-24T06:16:36Z")
Remember, the Patriot is designed to fire against missiles. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriot was set to go off automatically if it identified an ‘unfriendly’. The most likely way for this to happen would be for the Tornado to have had a broken IFF (Identify Friend or Foe - a type of transponder that lets your forces know you’re a friendly), or perhaps didn’t even have one. More than one friendly fire accident has been the result of an inop or nonexistant IFF. The other possibility I can think of is that the Patriots were designed to look for a specific flight profile to identify a missile - say, anything moving in a certain direction, at a speed higher than x, and not manoevering side to side. Maybe there’s a standing order to maintain speed below a certain level or fly certain headings to avoid being targeted, and these guys didn’t know about it or missed a briefing or something. It can be hard to coordinate all these details between allies. Speaking of Patriots - this accident aside, they seem to be working flawlessly. I believe they’ve hit almost every missile they’ve shot at so far. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-far-the-war-isnt-going-smoothly/163596.md?page=4)