Friend Or Foe / Real Life

• The rules of heraldry exist to avert this trope.
• It has been estimated that during any particular war since the dawn of the gunpowder era, as much as ten percent of the casualties were the result of this trope.
• "At least" would be appropriate. People playing "scenario" paintball (in the woods with ambushes and camo, as opposed to open field with team-colored shirts and short-range engagements) and airsoft realize very fast how the only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire indeed.
• During the Battle of Chalons in 451 AD, after the Visigothic King Theodoric had died, the Visigoths and Romans had managed to fight Attila the Hun to a standstill into the night. In the darkness, Thorismund, the new Visigothic king, was nearly killed when he rode toward Hunnic lines thinking they were his own soldiers. Luckily for him, he realized the truth in time and booked it. This was mere hours after his father died. The Visigoths almost lost two kings in a single battle.
• Older Than Steam: During the Battle of Barnet in 1471, a Lancastrian force under the Earl of Oxford was fired on by the Lancastrian centre while returning from a pursuit; their banner, Oxford's “star with rays” had been mistaken for the Yorkist “sun in splendour”. This gave rise to cries of treachery (always a possibility in that chaotic period), Lancastrian morale collapsed, and the battle was lost.
• One urban legend concerning an event in the Hapsburg-Ottoman wars of 1787-91 ramps this up to Epic Fail levels. Between drunkeness, lack of communication, and darkness two Austrian forces both end up thinking they are under Turkish attack; when the Turkish army showed up a couple of days later they find 10,000 casualties and the rest long gone so they take the nearby town with hardly a shot.
• Confederate general Stonewall Jackson was shot by some of his own men and mortally wounded when they mistook him for a Yankee in the dusk when he returned from a reconnaissance ride late during the battle of Chancellorsville (1863).
  • This was a real problem for much of The American Civil War. Confederate soldiers in particular tended to wear non-standard uniforms, due to their government generally being less organized and specifically having serious problems supplying the troops. If you didn't have an overcoat you might take one off a dead or captured Yankee. Combine that with poor communications in a pre-radio era and the huge amounts of smoke produced in combat, and the general confusion caused by combat, and Friend Or Foe happened many times.
  • Further problems were caused by the original flag of the Confederates still being a variation of the Stars and Stripes, which lead to the many redesigns that finally settled on one based on the battle flag of a Tennessee regiment.
• During World War I, being shelled by your own side's artillery was such a big and common hazard, that in the German army there was a much-used saying: "Der schlimmste Feind der Infanterie/Das ist die eigene Artillerie" (The worst enemy of the infantry is the own artillery). The fact the general method for attacking enemy positions during the war was closely behind artillery shelling them certainly did not help.
  • A deliberate version happened on the last day of the war, when one artillery battery kept firing on the Germans despite having been told the armistice had been signed. It took the threat of being fired on by allied artillery to get them to stop shooting.
• World War II also had its share of incidents:
  • The United States did field tests of the practicality of camouflage uniforms. They took a handful of infantry, fitted them with uniforms, put them on the front and see how things turned out. Well, the Germans were the only ones in the theater that had their infantry use camouflage uniforms in appreciable numbers. With that knowledge and the fact that it's on this page, it shouldn't be surprising that most the infantry involved in the test decided to trade in their experimental uniform for the standard issue.
  • The American Navajo Code Talkers' bodyguards were not, as legend had it, to kill them in case of capture. The bodyguards were to protect the Code Talkers from other American soldiers. In the Pacific, a not-obviously-white man talking a strange language was automatically assumed to be Japanese, and many Code Talkers were shot at or arrested as spies. Assigning white soldiers aware of the otherwise-secret Cold Talkers to the Navajo solved this issue.
  • In Antony Beevor's book D-Day: The Battle for Normandy he retells a German joke (from the fighting on the Italian peninsula) made at the expense of the RAF, Luftwaffe, and USAAF —>"If British planes appear, we take cover. If the Luftwaffe appears, nobody takes cover. And if the Americans show up, everyone takes cover."
    • 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.
  • Units engaged in secret operations under cover were always in danger of being attacked by mistake. The Doggerbank, a formerly British merchant ship used by the German navy for covert operations, was sunk by a U-boat mistaking it for a British ship, with the loss of all but one of the crew.
  • Another awkward case for the Germans occurred in 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 Right Hand Versus Left Hand 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 British ships, the Luftwaffe squadrons proceeded to bomb them. The destroyer Leberecht Maass was hit by a salvo of Luftwaffe bombs and promptly exploded, broke in two, and sank in minutes. In the ensuing mayhem, the destroyer Max Schultz pulled out of formation to avoid the bombers, wandered in a German minefield, and also promptly exploded, this time 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 sailors killed in action, resulting in a decisive British victory. This leads to a rare case of a wartime engagement where one of the belligerent parties was not even present for the battle and won regardless.
  • A very awkward battle from Estonia: As it happened, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were both invaders. While the Soviets forcefully conscripted Estonians in 1939-40 and in 1944-45, the Nazis only took volunteers in 1940-1942 until in 1943 they conscripted every able-bodied male into the SS, leaving the Soviets with just the old men and the kids coming-of-age^note  making these men the only SS men who were not automatically treated with a great deal of suspicion after the war, incidentally, since they were the only conscripts to feature in their fighting formations ; either way, there were entire units of Estonians on both sides. During a particularly dark night, one of the Soviet-Estonian companies encountered a Nazi-Estonian company while marching through the forest. Since both sides spoke Estonian, neither unit realized they were marching with the enemy—but when they did, all hell broke loose. Due to low visibility, the soldiers dropped their weapons, grabbed bayonets or knives and then held their weapon in one hand and with the other reached to touch each others' heads under the helmets. This is because the Soviet conscripts had shaven heads while the German army let the volunteers' hair be—so they determined who was friend or foe by haircut. You could say it was the most awkward and largest Knife Fight in military history.
  • Operation Husky: 144 C-47s were on approach for a night-time paradrop operation in Sicily but were fired upon first by Allied ships and then ground forces. A German air attack had occurred just minutes before the C-47s were arriving near the island and the naval AA gunners were simply too nervous to think first and shoot later.
  • Operation Bodenplatte: 900 German fighters and fighter-bombers were launched in a surprise attack to destroy allied airfields in the Low Countries. The attack had failed with 300 planes and 237 pilots lost. Many of the casualties were caused by the secretive nature of the operation which resulted in much of the German Army and Navy in not being informed of a German Air Offensive which in turn led to many German AA batteries opening fire on their own planes.
  • The Royal Navy cruiser HMS Sheffield was subject to this not once, but twice during World War II. The first time was when she was participating in the hunt for the 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. While the sailors presumably shouted unprintable things at the aviators (one of whom messaged an apology via signal lamp), the Sheffield bridge staff dryly messaged the HMS Ark Royal (the aircraft carrier from which the Swordfishes had launched), saying that 1) your planes torpedoed us by mistake, and 2) the torpedoes didn't work. The second occasion was during the 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.
  • The Polish submarine ORP Jastrząb ("Hawk") was escorting an Allied convoy to Murmansk when on May 2, 1942 it was attacked by Allied surface ships. Five crew members were killed and 6 others wounded. The submarine was severely damaged and was scuttled at sea. To this day there is dispute among historians as to who was really at fault for the friendly fire incident.
  • This was a problem during the Warsaw Uprising. Polish fighters would scavenge German weapons and equipment including helmets and clothing. In the chaos of urban fighting it was often hard to tell whether someone running toward you was a German or a fellow resistance fighter dressed in a German camouflage coat.
  • In WW2, there were "natural enemies" that would often attack each other on the flimsiest of excuses. Ships viewed aircraft, submarines, and small torpedo craft as to be shot at until proven otherwise, knowing that their best defense was to engage as early as possible to disrupt an attack. Fighters would view other single-engine aircraft with great suspicion. Submarines thought that anything small with visible guns was an enemy destroyer until it proved otherwise. Torpedo boats tended to see anything that floated as a valid target. Bombers viewed any single engine plane approaching them as a reason to open fire.
  • One issue in air-to-air combat in Europe was that the American P-47 Thunderbolt had a very similar profile to the German Messerschmitt Bf 109, making distinguishing between the two difficult under combat conditions.
  • Operation Cottage: In August of 1943, a combined force of American and Canadian troops launched an invasion of the Japanese-held island of Kiska. However, inaccurate intelligence meant the Allies didn't know that the Japanese had abandoned the island two weeks earlier, and rough terrain and foggy weather led to friendly fire incidents that resulted in 32 soldiers killed and another 50 wounded.
  • The Battle of Los Angeles: In February of 1942, war nerves and a misidentified weather balloon led to US Army anti-aircraft batteries in and around Los Angeles thinking they were under attack by Japanese bombers and firing into the clouds in response. 5 civilians died as an indirect result (3 from car accidents caused by the chaos and 2 from heart attacks), and several buildings and cars were damaged by falling shell fragments.
  • This became an issue given the number of captured Allied tanks and tank destroyers that the Germans made use of. There was also an experiment in modifying Panthers to resemble American M-10 Wolverine tank destroyers, including American-looking paint jobs.
• A number of friendly fire incidents have happened in Afghanistan during The War on Terror:
  • American-on-Canadian: The Tarnak Farm incident of April 2002. A U.S. Air National Guard F-16 mistook Canadian Army soldiers for Taliban fighters with anti-aircraft weapons. The farm had previously been used as a firing range by the Taliban, but was now being used by the Canadians for anti-tank and machine gun exercises. Although denied permission to attack by the controlling AWACS, Major Harry Schmidt believed the soldiers on the ground were targeting his flight leader, and bombed them in response. This cost the lives of four soldiers while wounding eight others.
  • British/American-on-Afghani: During April 2006, British convoy called in an airstrike from American warplanes on Afghanistan police officers, mistaking them for attacking Taliban forces, killing one and wounding twelve. Note that in this case, the U.S. pilots were attacking as specified by the British, and not making an error of judgment of their own.
  • British-on-British: In Sangin Province during August 2006, an RAF Harrier was called in to assist British troops during a firefight with the Taliban. The Harrier strafed the British instead, missing the enemy by 200 meters. This angered Major James Loden of 3 PARA, who called the RAF "Completely incompetent and utterly, utterly useless in protecting ground troops in Afghanistan." Some British paratroopers have even said they prefer American air support to the Royal Air Force.
  • American-on-British: In a case of Poor Communication Kills, one of two American F-15Es called in to support a platoon from 1 R ANGLIAN dropped a bomb on top of the unit, killing three soldiers. The forward air controller in the platoon, Sergeant Mark Perren, was not issued a noise-reduction headset; the platoon was under heavy fire by the Taliban, making it hard to hear radio transmissions. When the F-15E pilot repeated misheard target coordinates for confirmation, Sergeant Perren wound up confirming his own location as the target.
  • British-on-Danish: In Helmand Province during September 2007, British soldiers fired Javelin missiles at a unit of Royal Life Guards, killing two of them. The British soldiers had mistakenly identified the Royal Life Guards' camp as a Taliban hideout, and requested permission to attack. The Royal Life Guards, not realizing they were the ones being targeted, granted permission.
  • Dutch-on-Dutch/Afghani: During January 2008 in the Uruzgan Province, a unit of the Dutch Army attacked a composite group of Dutch and Afghan soldiers that they had mistaken for the Taliban. Two Dutch and two Afghani soldiers were killed before the firefight ended.
  • American-on-British: In January 2008, two Apaches, one British and one American, were called in to support a unit of Grenadier Guards and Afghan forces fighting the Taliban in the Helmand Province. The British Apache opened fire on the Taliban, while the American Apache attacked the Grenadiers. Only one person was wounded. After the incident, a high ranking British Army officer claimed that in contrast to the UK's full-time professional air forces, most American pilots are merely reservists, implying that this is why British-on-American friendly fire incidents never happen.
  • British-on-British: Later that year in July, a British WAH-64 Apache was called in to support a unit from 2 PARA against Taliban fighters. After attacking the Taliban positions, the Apache mistook the 2 PARA unit for more Taliban and opened fire, wounding nine of them.
  • German-on-Afghani: In early 2010, a unit of German soldiers arriving at the scene of an earlier firefight where the Taliban had ambushed a bridge-laying and mine-clearing operation encountered Afghan Army soldiers in civilian vehicles. After the Afghanis ignored an order to stop, the Germans fired on them, killing six of the soldiers.
  • American-on-Pakistani: In November 2011, a joint 150-man U.S. and Afghani unit came under fire and called in an airstrike. Miscommunication between U.S., NATO, and Pakistani forces led to two Pakistani border posts being destroyed, killing 25 Pakistani soldiers.
  • American-on-American: This is what happened to Army Ranger Spc. Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, 2004. Official story: 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 Afghani soldier. Tillman was also a professional football player, a safety for the Arizona Cardinals, making the situation even more delicate for the U.S. Armed Forces. Initially the fact it was friendly fire was covered up. Tillman was portrayed as leading a heroic charge against the enemy. The truth was revealed when Tillman's family got suspicious and started investigating. There is some evidence that Tillman's death was not an accident, as he'd begun to criticize the military and the Afghan war. He had planned to meet with Noam Chomsky, a well-known scholar who's been highly critical of U.S. foreign policy, and possibly run for office after his service.
• The 2022 Ukrainian-Russian war quickly proved to be an absolute nightmare in this regard. The languages are mutually intelligible (and many Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language anyways), they're ethnically similar, and as former members of the USSR, both sides are using AK-pattern rifles and derivatives of the various Soviet-era tanks and other combat vehicles. Identification quickly boiled down to colored arm (and head, and leg) bands. The identity issues were shown to full effect in a video that showed a Russian tank roll right up to a group of Ukrainian soldiers, neither side realizing the other's identity, until the tank crew finally twigged and fired at point-blank range.
  • Russian soldiers wear white armbands, units from the Russian-backed "separatist" Donetsk and Lushansk "People's republics" red, with some VDV paratroopers going for duct tape silver. The orange-and-black St. George's ribbon has also been used.
  • Ukrainian forces seem to have gone with yellow, blue and green, the first two being the colors of the Ukrainian flag. It has been speculated that yellow is for regular troops, blue for volunteers/TDF, and green for police and/or marines, though it's not actually clear.
  • Russian vehicles were painted with white "Z", "V", "O", "X", and "A" markings, the "Z" quickly becoming emblematic of the Russian invasion as a whole and gaining a notoriety all its own as the next best thing to a swastika.
  • Ukrainian vehicles tend towards yellow-and-blue stripes, sometimes adding a Ukrainian flag.
• In 1796, Amédée Laharpe, a Swiss general fighting for the French Republic, was mistaken for an enemy officer while conducting a reconnaissance at dusk and killed by his own soldiers. Made even more cruel by the fact that he was condemned to death in his home country for supporting the Revolution, and had to leave everything to serve France.
• Napoleon's Grand Army included Hanoverian battalions, who wore the same red coat as the English did. Most of the casualties among Hanovrians serving in the Peninsula were caused not by the Spanish, Portuguese or English, but by their French allies mistaking them for English. In particular, General Marbot tells the story of a Hanovrian battalion at Fuentes d'Oñoro sent to defend a vital spot... and shot at by both the English and the French who were sent as reinforcements. They held the position for several hours. Similar misfortunes happened to the Saxons whose uniforms looked like those of the Austrian, notably at Wagram.
• 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!"
• During the 1980's in brawls between neo-nazi and anti-fascist Skinheads, Anti-fascists would often wear their bomber jackets reversed, as otherwise everyone would be wearing identical clothes and shaved heads.