US Pilot achieve a whole new level of fail

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Unless you are experienced in the world of combat aviation and the things that go along with it I think we shouldnt really be saying what would be easy or not. Maybe they have a system like that in place but something went wrong. I will wait for the investigation.

No, I think we can say that's easy - the plane has a programmable computer and afaik runs on Linux - the plane has GPS which is doubtless linked into its computer and is the basis of its precision targeting that isn't laser based. One simply writes an app which flags a warning on the pilot's HUD if the plane targets certain GPS co-ordinates. You could get slightly more advanced and have the computer programmed with the blast radius of the plane's weapons, then it could tell the pilot if his attack was likely to cause collateral damage based on whether those GPS coordinates fell within the blast radius.

That's all extremely basic, it doesn't require anything external other than GPS positioning data and relative targeting data.

I know enough about British military operations to know that part of the briefing even for ground forces will include "this is a hospital, do not shell it". To suggest that American briefings do not include a similar section on civilians in the area is to suggest that the American forces have no situational awareness.

Now, to be fair, I've never encountered a British serviceman who would agree with that last proposition - in Iraq they even had a T-shirt "I'm with stupid" and it had UK and US flags on.

Collateral damage doesnt mean that the attack itself wasnt deliberate its that certain casualties from the attack were. So for example if a plane dropped a bomb on a Taliban target and the blast killed a nearby civilian, the civilian would be collateral damage.

Collateral damage means something that was not the target was within the target area, historically "collateral damage" was restricted to damaged buildings and then you tallied the "civilian casualties" separately.

Accidentally attacking a hospital and mistaking it for a legitimate target is gross incompetence and someone should be receiving a dishonourable discharge - either the pilot or the squadron commander.

Deliberately attacking a hospital, even one held by the enemy, is a war crime and everyone who knew it was in hospital should go to prison.

[Hooahguy]

No, I think we can say that's easy - the plane has a programmable computer and afaik runs on Linux - the plane has GPS which is doubtless linked into its computer and is the basis of its precision targeting that isn't laser based. One simply writes an app which flags a warning on the pilot's HUD if the plane targets certain GPS co-ordinates. You could get slightly more advanced and have the computer programmed with the blast radius of the plane's weapons, then it could tell the pilot if his attack was likely to cause collateral damage based on whether those GPS coordinates fell within the blast radius.

That's all extremely basic, it doesn't require anything external other than GPS positioning data and relative targeting data.

I know enough about British military operations to know that part of the briefing even for ground forces will include "this is a hospital, do not shell it". To suggest that American briefings do not include a similar section on civilians in the area is to suggest that the American forces have no situational awareness.

Thank you, expert on GPS and targeting practices, it truly must be that simple!

Collateral damage means something that was not the target was within the target area, historically "collateral damage" was restricted to damaged buildings and then you tallied the "civilian casualties" separately.

I literally just said that, no need to clarify.

Accidentally attacking a hospital and mistaking it for a legitimate target is gross incompetence and someone should be receiving a dishonourable discharge - either the pilot or the squadron commander.

Deliberately attacking a hospital, even one held by the enemy, is a war crime and everyone who knew it was in hospital should go to prison.

No argument here.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Thank you, expert on GPS and targeting practices, it truly must be that simple!

Please, find a way to make it more complicated - then you can become a defence contractor.

Think about it - your computer can do this in a virtual world using internal positioning data - a computer can't tell the difference between "real" and "virtual" it just runs the numbers, the only limit to the effectiveness of the system is the accuracy of GPS data (not a problem) and the accuracy of intel (often a problem).

However, in this instance it seems pretty clear that, actually, the Coalition must have known there was a hospital there.

There's the further question of why they're destroying buildings in a friendly city

[Hooahguy]

Please, find a way to make it more complicated - then you can become a defence contractor.

Think about it - your computer can do this in a virtual world using internal positioning data - a computer can't tell the difference between "real" and "virtual" it just runs the numbers, the only limit to the effectiveness of the system is the accuracy of GPS data (not a problem) and the accuracy of intel (often a problem).

However, in this instance it seems pretty clear that, actually, the Coalition must have known there was a hospital there.

Well considering neither of us are programmers for military jets (we dont even know what kind of plane it was, it could have been an older one with older targeting software), I will leave this up to the experts. Which neither of us are.

There's the further question of why they're destroying buildings in a friendly city

You clearly havent been reading any news reports about the conflict until now, have you? Kunduz was recently taken by the Taliban after the Afghan army (expectedly) ran away from the fight. Now the Afghan army (with coalition help) are trying to retake it. The city is far from peaceful at the moment.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well considering neither of us are programmers for military jets (we dont even know what kind of plane it was, it could have been an older one with older targeting software), I will leave this up to the experts. Which neither of us are.

I don't claim to be an expert but I know enough to understand that GPS is data you can always get to inform your targeting.

Re age - I dug this up from 1999:

http://www.navsys.com/papers/9906003.pdf

Wikipedia is also helpful here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missil...#GOLIS_systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision-guided_munition

"The precision of these weapons is dependent both on the precision of the measurement system used for location determination and the precision in setting the coordinates of the target. The latter critically depends on intelligence information, not all of which is accurate. According to a CIA report, the accidental United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during Operation Allied Force by NATO aircraft was attributed to faulty target information.[13] However, if the targeting information is accurate, satellite-guided weapons are significantly more likely to achieve a successful strike in any given weather conditions than any other type of precision-guided munition."

So you have a GPS guided system where human operators, in the air or on the ground, are inputing the wrong co-ordinates. At whatever stage you are inputing said co-ordinates it would be trivial to insert a stage which checks against a list of "invalid" targets, taking into account munition type and blast radius, and returns a red flag.

That's really basic computing.

You clearly havent been reading any news reports about the conflict until now, have you? Kunduz was recently taken by the Taliban after the Afghan army (expectedly) ran away from the fight. Now the Afghan army (with coalition help) are trying to retake it. The city is far from peaceful at the moment.

No - I have, and it's a valid question. Why are we destroying infrastructure in a friendly city we are trying to recapture?

[Hooahguy]

I dont know enough about GPS and targeting to really argue so as Ive said before, Im going to wait until more information becomes available.

No - I have, and it's a valid question. Why are we destroying infrastructure in a friendly city we are trying to recapture?

Welcome to urban warfare. Expecting to retake a city from enemy hands mostly intact is a fantasy at best.

[Montmorency]

Welcome to urban warfare. Expecting to retake a city from enemy hands mostly intact is a fantasy at best.

What is the point of urban warfare? More generally, what is the point of warfare? To achieve some political end.

The taking of a city is only a means to an end.

And to be frank, destroying cities in Afghanistan has always been harmful to our desired ends - even more so now that we don't even have a significant ground presence.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I dont know enough about GPS and targeting to really argue so as Ive said before, Im going to wait until more information becomes available.

I'll have my "told you so" ready, then.

Welcome to urban warfare. Expecting to retake a city from enemy hands mostly intact is a fantasy at best.

Welcome to Urban Warfare done badly - you may wish to consider some historical examples, including WWII, where shelling prior to sending in the infantry actually worsened the result.

The US has done Urban warfare badly since at least Vietnam, because you fetishise your soldiers you are unwilling to spend them to re-take a city street by street, so you spend civilian lives instead.

That's the thing, despite all these airstrikes you'll still end up having running gun battles in the streets where some poor sod will get cut off, go down a blind alley and get painted against the wall.

[Husar]

No, I think we can say that's easy - the plane has a programmable computer and afaik runs on Linux - the plane has GPS which is doubtless linked into its computer and is the basis of its precision targeting that isn't laser based. One simply writes an app which flags a warning on the pilot's HUD if the plane targets certain GPS co-ordinates. You could get slightly more advanced and have the computer programmed with the blast radius of the plane's weapons, then it could tell the pilot if his attack was likely to cause collateral damage based on whether those GPS coordinates fell within the blast radius.

That's all extremely basic, it doesn't require anything external other than GPS positioning data and relative targeting data.

That was amusing to read, a 20 million US$ combat airplane is basically just a flying smartphone now. What plane was it anyway? Maybe someone forgot to install the latest bugfixes?