Fratricide

The most common cause of Fratricide is the loss of Situational Awareness (SA). In investigating Fratricide incidents, almost every one stems from some loss of SA on [the] part of the members involved. Situational awareness errors may stem from inadequate instruction or clarity of orders (understanding), may include navigational errors in the battle-space by air or ground units, or may be caused by environmental conditions. Another common error contributing to fratricide is inaccurate Combat Identification or Positive Identification (Sanchez, 2004).

The combat elements, which can contribute to Fratricide, are the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), Situational Awareness (SA), and Target Identification (TgtID) employed in a theater of operations, as well as consideration of the Department of Defense (DOD) and service branch’s efforts in using technology and HSI to mitigate Fratricide and enhance FFI (Wilson, 2005).

Getting the Big Picture

Organizing the technologies involved in getting the combat picture fall into six groupings of Combat Identification Devices (CID) and systems (Wilson, 2005). These groups are (1) User-passive Signaling Devices, (2) User-active Signaling Devices, (3) Interrogation and Response Systems, (4) Situational Awareness (SA) Systems, (5)Recognition Training Systems, and (6) Emerging Technologies. These technologies are the paint that makes the picture.