Fear Of Fratricide Prevailed In Afghanistan, Troops Say

National Defense | July 2002 | Roxana Tiron

[Stand Watch Listen]

High-tech devices that can help prevent friendly fire and satellite-based systems to communicate over long distances are among the technologies that will receive more emphasis in the future, said soldiers and Marines who returned recently from Afghanistan.

"There are any number of things that you can do to mitigate those concerns," said Marine Corps Maj. Daniel Greenwood, the operations officer for the battalion landing team of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "We have got infrared markers that we put on vehicles, and it [the signal] can be picked up by jets and helicopters. If the GPS systems that we use are employed properly, I think that the threat is minimal."

Greenwood, along with other Marines and Army soldiers, was interviewed during the recent Joint Services air show and exhibition at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

The technology, Greenwood said, is "much better today than it was in Desert Storm, and it keeps getting better as we train our soldiers. When you do have problems a lot of times it is because of environmental reasons that impact some of the systems, or human error."

When forces are fighting in close proximity to each other, fratricide is a concern, Greenwood said.

"You are always concerned about friendly fire. ... Not just from other units, but also from within," said Army Sgt. Frank Grippe, from the 10th Mountain Division. "When you are in a high-intensity combat situation, one of your men can shoot another man."

In the lower Shah-e-kot Valley, in Afghanistan, "We had enemies within 200-300 meters, and we were dropping munitions dangerously close," said Grippe. "When you are the guy on the ground, of course, you are concerned."

Col. John Mulholland, commander of the 5th Special Forces Group, agreed. "You are always concerned about fratricide, and you work very hard to apply all the various control measures to avoid fratricide." He seemed skeptical about the effectiveness of new technologies to prevent fratricide. "Of course, with the new technologies that emerge, you always have new challenges associated with those technologies." The bottom line, he said, is that "all forces work very hard at de-conflicting the battle space to prevent [fratricide] from happening."

For the Marines of the 26th MEU, meanwhile, another big source of concern was the availability of long-range communications. The MEU was forward deployed in the North Arabian Sea before it was sent into Afghanistan after September 11.

Satellite communication systems provided the only means for Marines based in Kandahar, Afghanistan, to talk to other Marines on ships at sea, more than 400 miles away.

Unfortunately, said Greenwood, there were not enough Satcom systems to go around. "We are not used to operating over those distances," he explained. The MEU used both the ship-based Satcom system and the portable devices.

"The omni-directional antenna you can put on the vehicle and talk while you are driving," Greenwood said. "We did not have those systems in the quantities we needed to support extended operations. ... I think now that we have learned to operate in this environment, they are fixing those problems and getting more for us."

The Predator drone and the Navy’s P-3 surveillance aircraft "were both of huge help to us, because we would fly them over the objective and they would provide us real-time intelligence over what was going on," Greenwood said. Both aircraft were used in combat raids on some of the Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps.

Mulholland said that the primary communication systems for his Special Forces unit in Afghanistan were the MBITR (multiband inter/intra team) and the PSC-5 Satcom radios. He noted that the Special Forces are not as dependent on technology as some of the other services are.

Another hurdle in communications is the inability to talk with some of the allied troops. "The biggest challenge is just the language barrier," said Greenwood. "We worked out some translation issues with the Germans and the Turks. ... We have very common tactics and procedures."

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