How do combat pilots identify friendly vs enemy ground forces? Infantry seems like it would be almost impossible to discern.
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They know where they are and they get told where the enemies are they are supposed to attack. So if there is a rapid change on the ground they will have no clue unless there is a good line pf communication that keeps them updated.
Friendly fire incident happen when something does not go to plan.
It is not the simplest thing to do and multiple times mistake has been made and the own side have been hit.
The general idea to avoid it is only attack target of opperity in a area you know no frenldy unit it like behind the frontline.
Attack close to own ground units are called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support) and what is commonly done is to have people on the ground that communicate to the air unit above to coordinate the attack and tell them were friendly and enemy unit are. A pilot that just attack what he see in a situation like this is very risky.
A simple but efficient way is colored smoke signals, your side throw smoke grenades with colored smoke and the pilot say the spot for example red and green smoke. The gound personnel confirm that is the right color and use it to tell where from it the enemy is. In unsecured radio the ground crew should nevel tell the air crew the colors because then the enemy could deploy the correct smoke too.
Today GPS cooridnate can be used to define where the enemy exactly is. Laser designator exist to that you can point to a target and bomb is guided to the reflection.
If there are a large diffrence in the level of technology on the different side infared beacons that flashes can be but on troops. Unless the enemy have night vision equipment the IR breacons are invisible but they are very clear if you have the right equpment
Mostly just communication and intel, but there are things like lasers, radar, and IR strobes that are very apparent if viewed with the right equipment but invisible to the naked eye
So historically and still to a extent today you use land marks.
E.G. “We are next to the three story building with the blue and green awning. The enemy is at NW 400 yards.” Another common method is to pop colored smoke. E.G. “We are next to the blue smoke” You then hope they get it right. Friendly fire in air support mission with these methods is absolutely something that happens.
Assuming it’s not being jammed you can also use GPS.
If you have a advanced attack aircraft like the F15E it will have something called a targeting pod. Which is a attached pod that has powerful cameras that provide a incredibly improved view. This drastically reduces the risk of friendly fire as the JTAC (Guy who directs the aircraft) can just wave a small flag or something like that and the aircraft can see it.
I’m a former JTAC-I (Joint Terminal Attack Controller – Instructor) and AH-1W Cobra pilot. It basically comes down to the controller telling the pilot where the nearest friendly forces are relative to the target, giving the pilot appropriate restrictions in order to avoid accidentally targeting friendlies, and then monitoring the attack to ensure it goes according to plan. Only in certain instances, such as at night, will friendlies be deliberately marked. Most of the time we prefer to only mark the target that is being struck.
Communication. When doing close air support the big thing for us flying the plane is to make sure we identify where the friendlies are before ever releasing weapons. When we get passed the 9 line we confirm everything makes sense. The 9 line is like one consolidated communication piece between us and the folks on the ground.
There is a JTAC on the ground that does all the targeting. The JTAC communicates to the pilots where to attack. The JTAC is responsible for all of the situational awareness so as to not kill friendly forces
They can’t see the troops on the ground, but they know that friendly troops are at XXXXX coordinates and the enemy is at YYYYYY coordinates because radios exist.
From the air – without any other visual clues than what you have been told, yes, its impossible to discern. I was never in the air force or anything like that, but have flown planes a bit. Its very hard to even recognize what city your are flying over in winter for example, so you have no idea other than what being told by instruments/info, and people are not even visible unless you fly quite low. So your situational awareness comes from whatever intel/ATC/Radio – with specific co-ordinates for instance on where to go/bomb.
Thats why they will stay in the sky for a long time, just circling, perhaps even refueling in air, to just be there waiting for *that* specific command. Its the same in the sky as in a fighter jet moves so fast that its extremely difficult to see “who it is” – if two fighters pass each other, we are talking way over the speed of a bullet. So they have to get info from someone else on whats going on.
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