History Main / FriendOrFoe

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': This gets intentionally invoked in "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS4E10CarnageOfKrell Carnage of Krell]]". [[spoiler:General Krell first sends the 501st to intercept a group of Umbarans who have disguised themselves by wearing clone armor, then sends a message to the 212th, telling them that a disguised group of Umbarans is heading their way. Predictably, when the two groups run into each other in the jungle, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQ6YQvUU5s both assume the other to be the disguised enemy and open fire]]. When Rex finds out that one of the "enemy" corpses is a clone and starts screaming at everyone to stop firing, both groups realize their mistake, but that realization comes too late for the multiple troopers who have already been killed.]]

* So, so true in most online shooters. If you never accidentally fired at your teammate, you probably never played a shooter online.

* Played with in regards to TheIncredibleHulk as there are many instances where he's so enraged he's basically lashing out at whoever is in his vicinity, even if they were on somewhat genial terms before he started going nuts.

* ''A Sailor of Austria'' by John Biggins. Lt. Otto Prohaska receives orders to shell enemy forces in a small harbour that isn't even on his maps. He turns up at where he thinks is the enemy area and starts shelling it with the deck gun, doing only minor damage, when the lookout suddenly realises they're shelling their own troops, so they quickly submerge and get the hell out of there. Later Prohaska reads in a newspaper about how his submarine bravely attacked an enemy harbour, causing such massive damage that the cowardly enemy fled in terror. ''In the same paper'' is an article about the brave Austrian soldiers who sank an enemy submarine who opened fire on them while [[DressingAsTheEnemy treacherously flying the Austrian flag]].
** Later the German navy accuse him of torpedoing one of their mine-laying submarines that had gone missing, one that had his future brother-in-law serving on it as well. His fiancee doesn't hold it against him as accidents happen in war, but Otto lives with this doubt for years until he finally comes across proof that the submarine blew itself up with a malfunctioning mine.

** The [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy cruiser HMS ''Sheffield'']] was subject to this not once, but ''twice'' during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The first time was when she was participating in the hunt for the [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons German battleship ''Bismarck'']]. A squadron of Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers had been sent to attack the ''Bismarck'', but not been informed of the position of the ''Sheffield'', and attacked the ''Sheffield''. Luckily, the torpedoes had been armed with highly-unreliable magnetic detonators, and most of them exploded prematurely. The second occasion was during the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Barents_Sea Battle of the Barents Sea]], when the ''Sheffield'' was mistaken for the German cruiser ''Admiral Hipper''...by the two destroyers assigned to escort the ''Hipper''. The ''Sheffield'' did not make a similar mistake, and sank one of the German destroyers.

** American-on-American: This is what happened to Army Ranger Spc. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, 2004. Tillman's unit was ambushed and split in two during a patrol and his section moved ahead to get into a better position to provide support. The other part of the unit mistook the Tillman's section for the enemy and fired on them killing tillman and an Afgani soldier. Tillman was also a professional football player, making the situation even more delicate for the U.S. Armed Forces.

* At the end of ''Under Ten Flags'' (1960), a British officer who's a POW on the German raider notes the irony that he's dying from a British shell splinter (from the cruiser that's firing on them), and points out to Captain Rogge (who's tried to fight the war in a civilized manner) that such decency isn't possible in modern warfare.

* Part of the backstory of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' character Sam Braddock. He was a long-distance marksman in Afghanistan, taking out targets from over a kilometer away, which meant that he couldn't make out any detail about his targets and was relying on information from reconnaissance teams to give him the all-clear to fire. For reasons that are never explained, on Sam's final Army mission, Sam's best friend somehow ended up in the target zone after Sam had been cleared to fire and took one of Sam's bullets. Despite the fact that he couldn't have known, the episodes where this is mentioned make it clear he's carrying an incredible amount of guilt over what happened.

*** Bombings by mistake, especially by US aircraft, seeing as there were so many of them, were deadly and common. The highest ranking US general killed in the European Theater of Operations, General McNair, was killed while visiting the front when his observation post was bombed by B-17s by mistake.

* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', Jerin threatens to shoot Cira while he's escaping. She barely manages to get past the gun; then she [[ReverseMole helps]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' episode ''Lost And Found'', [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Those Two Bad Guys]] [[FunnySchizophrenia Blitzwing]] and [[UndyingLoyalty Lugnut]] are fighting the Autobots at the bottom of a lake. When the lake gets muddied up from the fighting, Lugnut sees a dark figure and punches it...

-->'''Nick Fury''': I'm pretty sure I did too. Sometimes it just gets like that.

* Played for comedy and subverted in ''DoNotAdjustYourSet''. The exchange went:
-->'''Guard''': Halt! Who goes there, friend or foe?\\
'''???''': Foe!\\
'''Guard''': Uh...oh! ''[shoots]''\\
'''Officer''': ''[stumbles on-screen, speaking carefully]'' Well done, Foster...just checking. ''[collapses]''

* An episode of ''Series/{{Mash}}'' ('[=C*A*V*E=]') dealt with the 4077th's issues with a well-meaning artillery barrage. It's not the only time it happens.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. PlayedForLaughs in "Message in a Bottle" when two squabbling EMH's are trying to work out how to pilot an experimental Starfleet spacecraft in the middle of a fight between Starfleet and Romulan vessels. At one point they launch a photon torpedo that loops past a Romulan warbird, slamming into the shields of a Defiant class vessel.

* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode [[Recap/SupernaturalS09E02DevilMayCare "Devil May Care" (S09, Ep02)]], Kevin shoots an arrow at Dean when he enters the bunker before he realizes who Dean is.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080910 Agatha gets questioned]] before she gets helped.[[labelnote:Context (some spoilers)]]Last the helper had seen her, Agatha had been possessed by the BigBad, who was much, much less kind to Vrin.[[/labelnote]]

* Comes up regularly as a topic of discussion in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', usually as an explanation for why Schlock can't have more or bigger guns. Exploited in an early storyline: when hired out by two local gangs at once, they get the gangs to wear IFF tags to avoid being inconveniently shot by their mercs (who "don't know your 'homeyz' colours from crapstains", direct quote)...and then use the tags to make it easy to round up ''all'' the gang members and complete a contract for local law enforcement.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the WebVideo/TGWTGYearOneBrawl everybody had trouble determining who was on whose side--one time WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic asked if That Chick with the Goggles was on his side; as she said no he immediately punched her.
* The first casualty in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''? Church, of the Blue army. The shooter? Caboose, also of the Blue army. Church is not pleased.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': This gets intentionally invoked in [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS4E10CarnageOfKrell "Carnage of Krell"]]. [[spoiler:General Krell first sends the 501st to intercept a group of Umbarans who have disguised themselves by wearing clone armor, then sends a message to the 212th, telling them that a disguised group of Umbarans is heading their way. Predictably, when the two groups run into each other in the jungle, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQ6YQvUU5s both assume the other to be the disguised enemy and open fire]]. When Rex finds out that one of the "enemy" corpses is a clone and starts screaming at everyone to stop firing, both groups realize their mistake, but that realization comes too late for the multiple troopers who have already been killed.]]

-->'''Blitzwing''': Whose side are you ''on''?

* Modern GPS based tech used by US and other infantry is partially to prevent this. Specifically, this is for when infantry calls for artillery support and provides their own position as the place to drop artillery on. This has resulted in many deaths, mostly American (because Americans are known for their heavy use of artillery and airstrikes). Today thanks to the GPS tech, a call for fire will result in a challenge from the artillery group of "That's your position!". In the event that the infantry wants the artillery strike or airstrike on their own position (such as if the enemy is on top of them, or if the infantry is retreating and being pursued by the enemy), they can respond "I know what my fucking position is!"

* Part of the backstory of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' character Sam Braddock. He was a long-distance marksman in Afghanistan, taking out targets from over a kilometer away, which meant that he couldn't make out any detail about his targets and was relying on information from reconnaissance teams to give him the all-clear to fire. For reasons that are never explained, on Sam's final Army mission, Sam was cleared to fire but his best friend somehow ended up in the target zone at the wrong time and took one of Sam's bullets. Despite the fact that he couldn't have known, the episodes where this is mentioned make it clear he's carrying an incredible amount of guilt over what happened.

* Part of the backstory of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' character Sam Braddock. He was a long-distance marksman in Afghanistan, taking out targets from over a kilometer away, which meant that he couldn't make out any detail about his targets and was relying on information from reconnaissance teams to be sure that everyone in the target zone was an enemy. For reasons that are never explained, on Sam's final Army mission, his best friend ended up in the target zone at the wrong time and took one of Sam's bullets. Despite the fact that he couldn't have known, the episodes where this is mentioned make it clear he's carrying an incredible amount of guilt over what happened.

* The DressingAsTheEnemy tactic used by the German soldiers at Bastogne in ''Film/{{Battleground}}'' forces the real American soldiers to do this a lot. One encounter between the American protagonists and some other Americans in a jeep leads to a comic exchange in which they're challenging each other to prove themselves by asking how the Brooklyn Dodgers did last season or who Creator/GingerRogers is dating.

-->'''''TRIGGER DISCIPLINE''', ya whale piper!''

** Another awkward case for the Germans occurred in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wikinger Operation Wikinger]], a sortie by the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine as a commerce raid. The problem was that neither detachment was coordinated by a single unified command, on account of Interservice Rivalry and plain old RightHandVersusLeftHand ineptitude. What followed was a case where German destroyers were spotted by German aircraft, who in turn spotted the German bombers. The destroyers fired first, taking the Luftwaffe units as hostiles. Convinced that the vessels beneath them were hostiles, the Luftwaffe squadrons proceeded to bomb them. The destroyer ''Leberecht Maass'' was hit by a salvo of Luftwaffe bombs and promptly exploded. In the ensuing mayhem, the destroyer ''Max Schultz'' pulled out of formation to avoid the bombers, wandered in a German minefield, and instantly exploded with no survivors. Fearing that the loss of the ''Max Schultz'' was due to a British submarine torpedo attack, the destroyer ''Theodor Riedel'' proceeded to fire large numbers of depth charges into the water, which successfully blew up its own rudder. The total loss to the Germans were two destroyers sunk, another damaged, and nearly 600 casualties, resulting in a decisive British victory. This leads to a rare case a wartime engagement where one of the belligerent parties was not even present for the battle ''[[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing and won regardless]]''.

* A number of friendly fire incidents have happened in Afghanistan during TheWarOnTerror:

'''EMH Mk 1:''' Then whose fault was it: the torpedo's? You're supposed to tell it what to do!