History Main / UnfriendlyFire

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', the Umbaran troops, after [[HitAndRunTactics employing guerrilla tactics]] for a few episodes, steal several Clone Trooper uniforms, leading to some cases of this. [[spoiler:Except everyone killed in that battle was a Clone Trooper, and the Umbarans stealing uniforms story was entirely a ruse by their SmugSnake Jedi General, to make the Republic lose the battle, and help him prove himself to the Sith. In response, both Clonetrooper units turn on him and arrest him.]]

** [[spoiler:Shepherd tries to do this to ''everyone'' in the 141 after Russia declares war, becoming more blatant about it as the game goes on. After retrieving Rojas in Brazil, Shepherd blocks the escape chopper, forcing the 141 to call Nikolai to evac them, and letting a few dozen of Rojas's men try to kill them in the meantime. While storming the Gulag, Shepherd tries to bring down the castle with the Navy's missiles with the 141 still inside, halfheartedly apologizing by saying that "The Navy's not in a talking mood right now" when the walls start crumbling. In the airplane graveyard, Price and Soap get caught in the middle between Makarov's and Shepherd's men, and in Shepherd's Afghanistan base, Shepherd activates the base's self-destruct mechanism and calls down artillery fire on his own troops to get Price and Soap, saying "For those of you still inside, your service will be noted."]]

** Garrod finds himself and Tifa being attacked by several Vultures and Bandits after the X. As he tries to fight his way through, several of the enemies start deciding that the damaged mobile suits and each other make for much easier salvage and start turning on each other.

* ''Manhua/RavagesOfTime'': Zhou Yu captures a city right out from Yuan Shu's nose by pretending to surrender to one of his generals and then giving false information to the generals' forces such that they end up attacking one another in the middle of the night, decimating the forces and leaving the city unguarded.

** A Skaven's (rat-man) life is cheap, they are the only Warhammer troops that can shoot into melee and deliberately kill their own. Casualties are divided evenly amongst the Skaven and the enemy. This is known as [[IncrediblyLamePun Corateral Damage]].

Shoot the guy InTheBack yourself, or push him into enemy fire, it makes little difference. Nobody's going to check. That annoying squadmate or sergeant is dead, and you can now resume shooting the enemy like nothing wrong happened. Even if someone recognizes that it was your side's ammunition, FriendOrFoe might have happened; even if someone knows you shot him, you can feign bewilderment, claiming in a FriendOrFoe situation you made a terrible but understandable mistake -- sometimes.

* In ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', the missions in Overlook introduce you to one of the town's inhabitants, a misogynist {{Jerkass}} named Dave. He repeatedly insults and berates the [[PlayerCharacter Vault Hunter]] ''[[UngratefulBastard while they're doing missions that directly benefit him]]'', and is even worse towards Karima, Overlook's mayor and quest-giver. After helping Karima construct a DeflectorShield to protect the town, your final mission is to test it by commandeering a Hyperion mortar and firing it at Overlook. At Karima's direction, you input the coordinates and launch the mortar. Dave breaks into your radio channel to spew some more grossly offensive comments towards Karima... until the mortar shell comes down on top of his house, sending it and him plummeting into the sea. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Karima]] then [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing cheerily]] comments something along the lines of, "Okay, now let's try it with the shield ''up''".

** In ''Sharpe's Waterloo'', the Prince of Orange (a.k.a. "The Young Frog"), who happens to be Sharpe's immediate (nominal) superior, is eventually shot by Sharpe because he's too stupid to lead and is putting everyone's lives at risk, having got ''two entire regiments'' killed. Later, Sharpe apologises to the member of the Prince of Orange's staff who'd finally snapped and told Sharpe (who had himself walked off in disgust) about what Orange had done... because it wasn't a kill shot.

** Given the number of enemies they make on their own side, Sharpe and his friends pull this quite a few times. Notable examples include the bullying and murderous Sergeant Lynch being dispatched on patrol with a number of the men he'd bullied and last being seen with them all ''grinning'' at him, Sharpe casually dispatching Lieutenant Berry while on patrol (in his first very first appearance) and making it look like Lord Hale, who was actually killed by his wife and Sharpe's lover in self-defence, died in battle at Trafalgar.

* [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic Star Wars: The Old Republic]]

* ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate'', both versions, feature this prominently.

* ''Battle Tech Novelizations''
** In the novel ''[[TabletopGame/BattleTech Warrior: En Garde]]'', a colonel hands a letter to his assistant informing his commander that a particularly arrogant [[StateSec Internal Security Force]] agent has died in a kendo practice accident, receiving a crushed windpipe... just as the agent walks in in his kendo armor.

* Creator/SandyMitchell's Literature/CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM''') novels strongly imply that this is frequent practice in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe. Commissars are frequent targets, primarily because [[BadBoss shooting soldiers for crimes/cowardice in the field]] ([[AlternateCharacterInterpretation or]] [[ShootTheDog just to keep the others in line]]) [[PunchClockVillain is their job]]. In fact, Cain's motivation for [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything NOT behaving like a stereotypical Commissar]] and inspiring his men without needing to shoot them is specifically to ''avoid'' little accidents like these.

* ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'': The preface to ''Literature/ThePathsOfTheDead'' confirms through denial that Adron did this in battle to a challenger to leadership for the House of the Dragon. The two were on the same side, but Adron hired the assassin Mario to kill the other guy during the battle. It's kind of important to learn this, as while Adron comes across as a WellIntentionedExtremist when trying to seize the throne in the previous book, with the new information, he seems more clearly to be TheEvilPrince.
* In ''Literature/DragonBones'', that was how Ward's father got rid of Ward's grandfather. Not a real battle, though, they were fighting some bandits at the time.

* In Creator/BenCounter's ''Galaxy In Flames'', Loken tells this to two iterators and concludes it was because he wanted certain men court-martialed. They conclude that nay-sayers are being eliminated. [[spoiler:Later in the book, the Warmaster sends a third of his forces to a planet and virus-bombs them. Only Tarvitz's discovery let any of the betrayed men survive. After the attack, Tarvitz goes to join his Legion's survivors, partly in hope of reorganizing their forces, but part so that he could [[DyingAlone die with them]] at need, in defiance of the division the Warmaster had tried to bring.]]
* [[AxCrazy Lijah Cuu]] in Creator/DanAbnett's ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''The Guns of Tanith'' uses this method to dispose of [[spoiler:Bragg.]]
** In the next novel, ''Straight Silver'', Cuu likewise uses this as cover to murder [[spoiler:Sehra Muril]]. Larkin considers doing this to Cuu, even joining a patrol with his hated enemy to find the opportunity, but agonizes over the shot [[WhatYouAreInTheDark and ultimately can't take it]], much to his later shame and regret.
** In ''Ghostmaker'', Sturm ordered his artillery to open fire on the Ghosts because they were chasing enemies and he could claim it was a FriendOrFoe situation.

* In the beginning of ''[[Literature/TheDarkElfTrilogy Homeland]]'', Dinin [[KlingonPromotion kills his older brother]] during the battle with another house. Mind you, no one is fooled. Later, it is mentioned that wizards cannot participate in surface raids -- because some guy killed a few drow with a fireball in a raid and claimed it was a malfunction of his magic due to the conditions (the investigators were in no hurry).
* At the end of Creator/GrahamMcNeill's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' novel ''False Gods'', Loken explains to Torgaddon that Varkasus had been killed with Imperial ammunition -- and not a stray shot, but dead on.
* In ''If I Die in a Combat Zone (Box Me Up and Ship Me Home)'' Tim O'Brien recounts a UsefulNotes/VietnamWar episode when an NCO who was assigning [[BlackDudeDiesFirst most dangerous missions to the black soldiers]] was disposed of in this way.

* As detailed in "The Spell of War", the first mystery solved by Literature/LordDarcy involved a case of this when he was an 18-year-old lieutenant in the autumn of the War of '39.

* In Creator/JamesSwallow's TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} ''[[Literature/BloodAngels Red Fury]]'', Flesh Tearers fire on a location where they know Blood Angels are. While they know they will survive, being Astartes, they also know they will be caught in the rubble. (The first of [[DividedWeFall several unfriendly incidents]].)

* In a ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' story, the "Look, sir, droids!" stormtrooper does this. He had been a promising AT-AT pilot who was relegated to backwater stormtrooper duty after exposing a flaw in the AT-AT design to its creator. He is repeatedly confronted with the cruelty of the Empire, including the Lars murders and the massacre of the Jawas, and especially of his commanding officer. When he sees his captain draw a bead on Han Solo during the hangar bay fight, he calmly shoots him in the back. He later defected and informed the rebels about that little flaw...
* In the [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]] novel Literature/{{Shatterpoint}}, the trope is Invoked by Mace Windu. During the climactic battle, a horde of Separatist droid starfighters are decimating the clone ground forces. Mace manages to commandeer two gunships of the local militia, who are allied with the Separatists, and fires on the starfighters. The droids, not having the programming to understand hijacking, believe that the militia has turned on them, and promptly annihilate dozens of the gunships.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''. After demanding at gunpoint that his troops carry out an ill-conceived attack on Kobol, Crashdown gets shot in the back by Dr. Baltar, who later claims he died "in the best traditions of the service". None of the others dispute this version of events. For bonus points, the episode is titled "Fragged". Cally then uses it to blackmail Baltar in the very next episode to get Tyrol out of trouble, however -- displaying remarkable ingratitude, given that Crashdown was threatening to shoot her in the head when Baltar killed him, something Baltar all but {{lampshades}}.

Shoot the guy yourself or push him into enemy fire, it makes little difference. Nobody's going to check. That annoying squadmate or sergeant is dead, and you can now resume shooting the enemy like nothing wrong happened. Even if someone recognizes that it was your side's ammunition, FriendOrFoe might have happened; even if someone knows you shot him, you can feign bewilderment, claiming in a FriendOrFoe situation you made a terrible but understandable mistake -- sometimes.

* One issue of ''ComicBook/ThePhantomStranger'' involved a would-be revolutionary constructing a metal, robotic "god" (who could shoot and fight like a human) as a symbol of his people - unfortunately, said "god" got interested in the revolutionary's wife and decided to MurderTheHypotenuse this way.

* In ''Fanfic/GuardiansWizardsAndKungFuFighters'', [[KnightTemplar Alistar Tharquin]] hates Jade, on account of [[spoiler: [[FantasticRacism her being a Shapeshifter]]]]. So, prior to the Rebellion's assault on Torus Finley, he makes the decision to have his ally Rhouglar assassinate her during the chaos of the battle, in order to eliminate her in a way that no one will suspect him for.

* This was how Staff Sergeant Barnes disposed of [[spoiler:Sergeant Elias]] in ''Film/{{Platoon}}''. And how [[spoiler: Chris]] disposed of [[spoiler: Barnes]].

* The ''Literature/FatherBrown'' mystery "The Sign of the Broken Sword" by Creator/GKChesterton. An interesting twist on both tropes: Murderer, [[spoiler: General St. Claire, killed his victim first, and then planned an otherwise pointless assault so that it would happen at exactly the same spot, thus hiding his victim among other casualties.]]
* The scoundrel Harry {{Literature/Flashman}} has many opportunities to do this over his scandalous career, but usually chickens out. A notable example is in ''Flashman and the Angel of the Lord'', where he is blackmailed (by Northern Abolitionists ''and'' Southern Secessionists) into infiltrating John Brown's gang and assassinating him if his raid on Harper's Ferry looks like it might succeed. During the raid Flashman instead shoots [[spoiler: his co-conspirator before ''he'' can kill Brown]], saving Brown and still fulfilling the trope.

** In the next novel, ''Straight Silver'', Cuu likewise uses this as cover to murder [[spoiler: Sehra Muril]]. Larkin considers doing this to Cuu, even joining a patrol with his hated enemy to find the opportunity, but agonizes over the shot [[WhatYouAreInTheDark and ultimately can't take it]], much to his later shame and regret.

* In the beginning of ''[[Literature/TheDarkElfTrilogy Homeland]]'', Dinin [[KlingonPromotion kills his older brother]] during the battle with another house. Mind you, no one is fooled. Later, it is mentioned that wizards cannot participate in surface raids - because some guy killed a few drow with a fireball in a raid and claimed it was a malfunction of his magic due to the conditions (the investigators were in no hurry).

-->''That evening we dug foxholes and cooked C rations over heat tabs. The night was hot, so instead of sleeping right away, I sat with a black friend and helped him pull his watch. He told me that one of the black guys had taken care of the first sergeant. It was an M-79 round, of a grenade launcher. Although the shot was meant only to scare the top sergeant, the blacks weren’t crying, he said.''

* Attempted by [[spoiler: Captain Kila]] in ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' who tried to have the fleet commander Captain Geary killed by some accident or another ''three times.'' She only gets discovered when she kills a [[RedemptionEqualsDeath former ally]] who managed to leave a message to Geary before her ship blew up.
* This happened at the city of Pale, in Genabackis, in the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', during the fight with Anomander Rake and Moon's Spawn; Tayschrenn took advantage of the battle to kill two of the High Mages on his side, and Rake lost the battle because he was investing a lot of his energy just protecting mages on the opposing side from Tayschrenn. Or so it seemed at the time anyway. In truth, Tayschrenn's involvement was a lot less of a simple attack on his own side than it appeared at first glance and less pre-planned. He was [[spoiler: in fact more of a good guy taking action against a third party that was interfering, which was misunderstood by the Pov character at the time in the chaos, not helped by those who seemed to believe her and subsequently rebelling against the empire (then appearing a lot more evil than in fact it is -- though not being all sunshine and roses of course) being revealed a long way down the line to be involved in a very long term GambitRoulette with Tayschrenn (although that incident was not a part of the plan) and in fact still loyal]].

* In Creator/DerekRobinson's Battle of Britain novel ''A Piece of Cake'', the pilots of Hornet Squadron conspire to dispose of a commanding officer whose stubborn adherence to outmoded air-fighting tactics is getting pilots killed in droves. The one man who realises his comrades have murdered the c/o is then promoted to command the squadron. His [[TheBrigadier Very Senior Officer]] curtly tells him to work out what Rex got wrong - and learn from that.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''. After demanding at gunpoint that his troops carry out an ill-conceived attack on Kobol, Crashdown gets shot in the back by Dr. Baltar, who later claims he died "in the best traditions of the service". None of the others dispute this version of events. For bonus points, the episode is titled "Fragged". Cally then uses it to blackmail Baltar in the very next episode to get Tyrol out of trouble, however - displaying remarkable ingratitude, given that Crashdown was threatening to shoot her in the head when Baltar killed him, something Baltar all but {{lampshades}}.

* This gets mentioned in an episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' when a wounded enlisted man dies on the table. When Hawkeye informs his squadmates one caustically questions whether it was an enemy soldier that killed him or one of theirs. [[spoiler: It turns out the soldier was a known thief and con artist who had been targeting his own squad.]]

** There is a huge twist towards the end, in which [[spoiler:General Shepherd uses Roach and Ghost to obtain information implicating him as the mastermind behind the massive war breaking out between America and Russia, then suddenly executes both of them]]. He presumably covers it up by claiming they were killed in battle. Note that this is not an inversion since the trope criteria doesn't specify the direction [[spoiler: ranks between the victim and perpetrator go]], but [[spoiler: a superior officer killing his own men]] in a way that fits this trope is fairly rare.
** [[spoiler: Shepherd tries to do this to ''everyone'' in the 141 after Russia declares war, becoming more blatant about it as the game goes on. After retrieving Rojas in Brazil, Shepherd blocks the escape chopper, forcing the 141 to call Nikolai to evac them, and letting a few dozen of Rojas's men try to kill them in the meantime. While storming the Gulag, Shepherd tries to bring down the castle with the Navy's missiles with the 141 still inside, halfheartedly apologizing by saying that "The Navy's not in a talking mood right now" when the walls start crumbling. In the airplane graveyard, Price and Soap get caught in the middle between Makarov's and Shepherd's men, and in Shepherd's Afghanistan base, Shepherd activates the base's self-destruct mechanism and calls down artillery fire on his own troops to get Price and Soap, saying "For those of you still inside, your service will be noted."]]

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' you are asked by a turian Marietta to help clear the name of her husband Nilken Rensis who has been convicted of fratricide on his squad leader during a hopeless battle against the Kett. Your investigation into the matter technically clears Nilken. It was a shot from a Kett weapon that killed the squad leader. But an audio log shows that Nilken did argue with and even scuffled with his squad leader, while the squad was engaging hostile Kett. Most damming is a recording in which Nilken fired his weapon at his squad leader - it was only his dumb luck that his shot missed. You can, if you choose to, exile him for his attempt at fratricide.

* In the ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' miniseries "Recovery One", [[spoiler:Agent South]] shoots [[spoiler:Agent Wash]] to provide armor equipment as bait for the Meta and escape from the scene. In fact, she frequently puts her allies in a position to die. Her brother, for example, suffered such a fate, and she nearly gave Delta to the Meta to get away. [[spoiler: [[LaserGuidedKarma Wash returns the favor in kind when he finally catches up to her]].]] Several of Sarge's plans start and finish with him shooting Grif. Slightly fewer start and finish with him directing someone else to shoot Grif.

* Julian the Apostate was the only [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Roman emperor]] after Constantine to attempt to revive the pagan religions. He was killed in a skirmish with the Persians, and some have alleged that it was one of his Christian soldiers who killed him. Others say he was simply TooDumbToLive, as he [[SuicidalOverconfidence didn't wear armor on the day he died because]] he [[AGodAmI thought]] he was [[GodEmperor a god]] and therefore invulnerable. More sober explanation would be the fact that he was mortally wounded when leading a counter-attack against a Persian cavalry unit, which ambushed him and his party during their - rather ''hasty'' - withdrawal from Persia, so choosing between wearing/not wearing armor was probably not amongst his options at the moment.

* At the end of the mission [[https://youtu.be/kDP50m0fnSQ?t=13m48s Foymer's Barn]] published by Creator/ShackTactical, an ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}}'' clan, a member of the group called Madcows not only carelessly [[FriendOrFoe mistakes a teammate for the enemy]] and kills him, but the teammate he killed was a team leader of one of the fire teams. [[ThatOnePlayer Dslyecxi]], the clan founder, happens to be standing nearby and is less than pleased that Madcows isn't showing much remorse for his actions, so he orders Madcows to stand over the body and not look away. Dslyecxi then stands behind Madcows, makes sure that nobody is looking directly at them, carefully lines up a shot to the back of Madcows' head... and the footage suddenly skips forward a few seconds and shows Madcows dead on the floor, apparently due to an "enemy sniper" in the nearby woods, [[ImplausibleDeniability despite the fact that Shack Tac doesn't play with snipers and mere seconds later a message from the computer will confirm that all of the enemy have been killed off]]. Convenient, that. And oddly enough, several other players from the group are thanking Dslyecxi for some reason, although they won't say why.

* On ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' Matt Ehrmantraut was an honest cop in a precinct full of {{dirty cop}}s. He was killed in the line of duty by "an unkown drugdealer" while backed up by the two cops who feared that he would turn them in for taking bribes.