Talk:List of U.S. friendly-fire incidents since 1945 with British victims

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Expansion[edit]

Hi guys, I'd long forgotten about this article until recently and have been giving some thought about it meeting the MiliHist B-class criteria. The two left to go are;

B2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.

I would say that it does cover the topic reasonably, however the topic of this article has a very narrow spectrum. Perhaps we could expand the scope to incidents made by both sides? Ideally I'd like to have every friendly fire incident, ever, dating right back to WWI, but everything before 1945 was just such a mess we'd not get anywhere near the right number of incidents. Do you think we should set the date of the article back WWI and just record whatever few incidents were reported?

I agree that the scope should be expanded. However, I don't think the scope should be US and UK. The scope should be all US friendly fire incidents regardless of the nationality of the victim (see Friendly_fire#Iraq. You will see in that article that there are examples of British on British friendly fire incidents. The article could be a part of a series <nation> friendly fire incidents. This would have the minor advantage of simplifying the article title.
Yes I too thought of making a U.S. friendly fire article, but when I considered the size of U.S forces over all the deployments they've made dating back to WW2, I was a little daunted lol. I will admit when I started this article, there was a slight element of POV, but fortunately it seems to have had the opposite effect. In Britain the U.S. on U.K. friendly fire rate is generally just perceived as high, I think this list actually shows it is not as high as people think (granted just one friendly fire casualty, be it fatal or not, is too many). Might I propose a "Friendly fire incidents involving British Forces in the War on Terror" or some such named article, we could have the U.S. on U.K, the U.K. on U.K. and even the U.K. on Danish incidents you might not have heard about. Ryan4314 (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also thought that this article could descend into US bashing. However, the facts of friendly fire relating to nations are worthy of a good article. I rather like the idea that it is scalable into a series of one article for each nation. The focus could be <nationality of victim> or <nationality of fire>. Your proposal is based on the former. Perhaps there could be a table in an article called 'List of friendly fire incidents by nation' so that the issue could be looked at from either end. That might cope well with the fact that some nations have a very low rate (from either end). I don't like the term 'War on Terror' because it is difficult to define and means whatever a politician chooses it to mean. You can't make war on an emotion - if you could, we could have a 'War on Sadness'. I am not sure if 'War on Terror' in a title could include operations Iraq unless we had agreement that going to war in Iraq was due to terrorism. I note your point contrasting the statistics with the effect on national feeling.
Although I agree with you that the term "War on Terror" is ridiculous, it is the accepted term for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq (I know the invasion had nothing to do with terrorism, well they were listed on the State Sponsors of Terrorism) and other many other theatres.
Also what do you think of changing the title from; "List of U.S. friendly fire incidents since World War II that have British victims" too; "List of U.S. friendly fire incidents since World War II with British victims"? Just thought it might shorten it a little. Ryan4314 (talk) 14:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see that the Wikipedia article is called 'War on Terrorism' which is less bad. We don't need to come to a conclusion on that issue because the number of friendly fire incidents is sufficiently small to be included within one article either:
<nationality of fire> e.g. List of U.S. friendly fire incidents since World War II
<nationality of victim> e.g. List of friendly fire incidents since World War II involving British victims
If you want to change 'that have' to 'with' I don't mind. Although I have invited User:Tony1 to comment - he is very good with words. Lightmouse (talk) 17:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nice one. Yea I think I'll go with the "<nationality of victim> e.g. List of friendly fire incidents since World War II involving British victims". There might be a few problems e.g. clarifying that the article is about FF incidents during a conflict, plus I'd only really be comfortable having the article be from 1982 (i.e. The Falklands), for referencing reasons. Ryan4314 (talk) 22:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are not alone in thinking FF focusses on wartime. I note that the Wikipedia article doesn't contain a definition, perhaps it should:

Lightmouse (talk) 10:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

B5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams.

An infobox would be easy to add here, but what do you think about a picture? I think it should be one that symbolically covers the topic's effect on British Culture, i.e. a photo of newspaper headline, not just a picture of one of the victims. Ryan4314 (talk) 13:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures and diagrams do exist but I don't know whether they can be used e.g. BBC report on A10 incident. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just realised, this image is pretty iconic, and it's public domain! Ryan4314 (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That works for me. Lightmouse (talk) 17:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempt to improve article name[edit]

I have changed the name from:

  • List of British friendly fire incidents by the U.S. military since World War II

to

  • List of U.S. friendly fire incidents since World War II that have British victims

The original title was difficult to parse. At first I thought it was the British that caused the incidents, and it still seems to me that the phrase 'British friendly fire incidents' could be taken to mean they are the cause. I am not sure if the revised title scans nicely but I think it is less ambiguous. If anyone has any better ideas, feel free to try. Lightmouse (talk) 09:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one, yea I found my original title confusing too, so it's good to get some outside perspective. Don't suppose you've got any views on my recently posted questions above? Ryan4314 (talk) 18:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are they friendly incidents that involve fire? A hyphen is required, and make it as short and simple as possible:
  • "List of post-1945 U.S. friendly-fire incidents with British victims"?

Tony (talk) 00:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In British (and I gather other Commonwealth) English, not in American. Is the single use of armoured enough to make this a BE article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What? The hyphen disambiguates, it is just good practice.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anderson, American language editors will insist on a hyphen here; the nominal group contains 14 words on the highest rank, and on the second rank, "U.S._friendly_fire_incidents" is a four-word nominal group. It's ambiguous without the hyphen, not to menion harder to read. Go see Scientific American. Tony (talk) 07:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have. You will need to supply a citation; Scientific American appears to use "friendly fire" three times, never as part of a larger nominal group. The New York Times, however, uses both, but omits the hyphen far more often than it includes it. While hyphenation is rational, it is plainly not yet American usage, like many other Sturdy Indefensibles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm terrible with grammar, so I have no idea what you guys are talking about. But I just wanted to say, the only reason for British-English being used in the article is because I am British. It never even occurred to me at the time of writing, so I don't want anyone to think it was some subversive political statement. I presume BE will take precedence once we start to make the above discussed changes though. Ryan4314 (talk) 00:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A perfectly good reason for British English. The only real reasons to overrule you would be if you produced prose which would be wrong in BE (like the grocer's apostrophe) or this were an article, like Abraham Lincoln, where the overwhelming majority of readers would be of a different dialect and might be disconcerted. Neither is the case here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of british on british fire[edit]

I cannot understand why this page would exist? in reviewing the most recently friendly fire incidents. The British are not immune from such events and the most recent mistakes by the British are at close range with small arms, not 15,000 feet and moving at 400 miles an hour. I site no less then 5 incidents involving British forces killing there own solders by mistake or other allied soloders. If you think the US is the only country having this problem you are mistaken. By this page keeping score on these tragic and unfortunate circumstances, makes me wonder? what your actual intenion are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob805 (talk • contribs) 10:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

American "friendly fire" has recieved considerable amounts of news coverage, and therfore warrants an article. Flarkins (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, never saw your post, I believe it was because you didn't sign, so when the bot signed it, it didn't turn up on my watchlist (my watchlist hides "bot edits"). As Flarkin has just said; American friendly fire on British forces is a big part of the "War on Terror" culture in Britain. I think my above discussions cover "my intentions" pretty well, although to be brief; I do believe this article actually exonerates the American forces somewhat, as I think the British public believe the actual number of incidents to be higher. Also as seen in the discussions above, I do actually intend to expand this article to cover all friendly fire incidents involving British forces, for and against (in Iraq & Afghanistan). However my current to-do list is quite long (I'm working on an article about a British-on-British FF incident incidentally), so it might take a while. Ryan4314 (talk) 00:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the US military emerges from this article rather well. There is a general perception in Britain that US close air support personnel are undertrained, careless and trigger happy, that attacks on British forces are commonplace, and that any joint operation inevitably results in British casualties at the hands of the US. Only the March 28 2003 incident can be said to correspond to this stereotype. --80.176.142.11 (talk) 15:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
a recent disclosure that was covered up for years::: On August 27, 1944. A Royal Navy minesweeping flotilla off the Normandy coast came under fire. At about noon of the 27th, HMS Britomart, Salamander, Hussar and Jason came under rocket and cannon attacks by Hawker Typhoons of No. 263 Squadron RAF and No. 266 Squadron RAF. HMS Britomart and HMS Hussar took direct hits and were sunk. HMS Salamander had her stern blown off and sustained heavy damage HMS Jason was raked by machine gun fire, killing and wounding several of her crew. Two of the accompanying trawlers were also hit. The total loss of life was 117 sailors killed and 153 wounded. Despite the flying of more White Ensigns and Union Jacks by the ships and the doubts of the aircraft commander, the attack was completed. In the aftermath the surviving sailors were told to keep quite about the attack. The subsequent court of enquiry after the incident, identified the fault as laying with the Navy who had requested the attack on what they thought was enemy vessels entering or leaving Le Havre, and three RN officers were put before a court martial The commander of Jason and his crew were decorated for their part in rescuing their comrades[19][20][21] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.228.161 (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

British on US friendly fire incidents?[edit]

Is their any record of such an incident in the past 60 years? I can't think of one. FOARP (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To promote this article to B-class the criteria needs to be expanded to cover friendly fire incidents by both sides (B2). This is one of the jobs on my long to-do list, I will do it eventually.
However, to answer your question, to my current knowledge, I don't know of any British on US friendly fire incidents, post 1945. It is my belief that incidents are less reported/documented when there is not a fatality. Ryan4314 (talk) 09:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dude remove the where 3 Brits died by US jet plane[edit]

I don't think it belongs there anymore since the fact that the British Forward air Controller c was to blame for the incidents for giving the Bad Coordinates to the American pilot. so it's a Brit-on-Brit friendly fire. He's facing charges. I want it remove. that's why i trying to remove it many times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulioetc19 (talk • contribs) 02:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully we disagree, "I want it remove" is not a wikipedia policy. WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:V are. May I also add WP:3RR and WP:SOCK to your reading list. Wee Curry Monster talk 08:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whichever party was to fault for the incident it is still the case that it was "fire" from a US aircraft that caused the deaths. As written the entry has plenty of sourcing to the further information so it is not presented in isolation as a US fault though I don't see the final outcome of the inquest. I suspect from the BBC reports it was the Strike Eagle version rather than the single man F15 Eagle aircraft and perhaps that could be cleared up at the same time.GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He's quoting from an old reference, the FAC was cleared also, in fact everyone was cleared - flawed procedures were blamed. I added the latest references Ryan had dug up this morning, which makes that clear. I've opened an SPI case on the use of multiple accounts by the way. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the additions/corrections WCM. Also totally agree with what you're saying, a google search of "Mark Perren" manslaughter or charges returns only blog hits or states implicitly that he was not charged. For outside readers, see my talk page also. Ryan4314 (talk) 14:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rather ironically, Paulioetc19 has now added a reference to the Friendly fire page which reliably reports that at the inquest evidence was heard that the FAC gave the correct co-ordinates to the pilot, who then repeated them back with an error, which the FAC then mistakenly confirmed. That splits the "blame" fairly evenly, but even that would be being more critical than the actual inquest verdict. Nick Cooper (talk) 12:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Paulioetc Sadly he is still at it. I've lost count now. Wee Curry Monster talk 14:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this focus on one pair of nations justified?[edit]

I'm British, but the existence of this article makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I think there's something slightly non-neutral about having this list for only one pair of nations in all the world. Friendly fire incidents have happened many times throughout history, and there are plenty of examples of international ones: can we justify picking out the combination of US perpetrator + British victims for its own article, or is it systemic bias and undue weight? Perosnally, I think it would be more reasonable to expand this article to simply List of U.S. friendly fire incidents since 1945, which would be more clearly a legitimate topic. Robofish (talk) 00:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the article or just looked at the title? If you are to read the article, it is addressing this particular issue and one of the reasons for it is the common tabloid misconception about trigger happy Americans. Nationality is not the issue here. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments Robofish, I'd recommend you read the discussion at the top of the page (here). You're welcome to start making the changes that were proposed there, I believe they're inline with what you have requested, although check to see if consensus still stands. WP:SOFIXIT. Ryan4314 (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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