Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

Fratricide by IAF fighters : this is correct, the IAF did 'shoot down' some 'friendlies' and that was assessed and attributed to the IAF not being networked. However, what the Colonel did not bring out were the two essential reasons for this. Firstly, this occurred mainly when the AWACS was not available (unserviceable) and controlling was done by GCI. More significantly it happened during extremely poor controlling by their operators, this fact being acknowledged during debriefs and the controllers being admonished accordingly. 'Accents' were perhaps the main culprit here, which very often led to American controllers not being able to understand Indian calls.
Ø Now hear this : the F-15C and other USAF fighters had the same number of fratricides as the IAF ! Considering they are well networked, yet their pilots shot down the same number of 'friendlies'. This was not only a major concern but also turned out to be a major source of embarrassment as the USAF had everything -- Link 16, IFF Mode 4 etc and the IAF had nothing. Under the Rules of Engagement, they did not even permit the IAF to use data link within themselves. All cases of USAF fratricide were covered in the next day's mass briefing as lessons learnt by concerned aircrew. In the IAF, the incidents were covered by concerned controllers, and attributed to lack of adequate integration, excessive R/T congestion and poor controlling.