Talk:Friendly fire

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Friendly fire article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2: 100 days

Military history: Aviation / Maritime / Technology / Weaponry / North America / United States Start‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion not met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military aviation task force
	Maritime warfare task force
	Military science, technology, and theory task force
	Weaponry task force
	North American military history task force
	United States military history task force

Death Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Daily pageviews of this article

A graph should have been displayed here but graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at pageviews.wmcloud.org

Accountability[edit]

[1] I reverted a recent addition, as this appeared to be largely the author's own opinion albeit sourced by supporting cites from other author's opinion. It appeared at least to me to be a WP:GREATWRONGS piece, as such not encyclopedic content. Bringing it here for further discussion. W C M_email 20:45, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe some could be worked into other sections, such as the more readily available video-producing technology that prevents suppression of the facts of friendly fire, but it doesn't warrant a new section. The wording is really terrible, and obscures the valid points, constantly referring to how things 'seem' or what is 'ínteresting' and it makes a lot of OR conclusions. Directly quoting the names of the authors of references in the text makes poor reading. The statement should be made, with citations backing it up. Otherwise it looks like cheerleading the opinion of the quoted authors. Mdw0 (talk) 16:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Definition[edit]

The defining first paragraph currently reads:

Friendly fire is an attack by a military force on non-enemy, own, allied or neutral, forces while attempting to attack the enemy, either by misidentifying the target as hostile, or due to errors or inaccuracy. Fire not intended to attack the enemy, such as negligent discharge and deliberate firing on one's own troops for disciplinary reasons, is not called friendly fire. Nor is unintentional harm to non-combatants or structures, which is sometimes referred to as collateral damage. Training accidents and bloodless incidents also do not qualify as friendly fire in terms of casualty reporting.

Does fire on friendly forces include on neutral forces or only own and allied forces? Is friendly fire only in action and not in training? First sentence source, edit? citation? -Yohananw (talk) 04:22, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Attacks on neutral forces could count, but I have found in my reading that most definitions bring it back to the intent of the attacker. If the attacker believes they are targetting the enemy, but the people they hit are not the enemy, then that is friendly fire. The source for the definition is the #1 citation. Not every single sentence requires a separate citation. Mdw0 (talk) 08:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a Google search on the definition of 'friendly fire' brings up the following for me: "Weapon fire coming from one's own side that causes accidental injury or death to one's own forces." Note that it does say "one's own forces." If there are different definitions, that should be detailed, rather than just, say, adopting the broadest definition found or creating an amalgam of different definitions. ← ZScarpia 14:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get back to you when you're capable of a slightly broader commitment than one 'Google search' Mdw0 (talk) 11:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to Oxford dictionary, the term "Friendly Fire" is defined as: "Military weapon fire coming from one’s own side, especially fire that causes accidental injury or death to one’s own forces." No mention of non-enemy or neutral forces, or a precondition that it must be performed while attempting to attack an enemy. I believe it's safe to say that Oxford dictionary is a reliable source; thus, use its definition and cite accordingly. In other words, as it now stands, the recent edit of the definition by Yohananw is not supported by a reliable source.Ken (talk) 18:16, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that unintentional targeting of neutral forces is "collateral damage" but not "friendly fire." If there are neutrals around, then according to the laws of war, they'd be considered non-combatants, even if they happen to be under arms. Neutrals, whether civilians or soldiers, would not consider either side's attacks to be "friendly" in origin. WP Ludicer (talk) 03:30, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

green on blue / blue on green[edit]

is missing --Mattes (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Friendly Fire (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:02, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]