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I'm not sure if this type of thing has been cataloged, though there are individual battles that were known for high rates of friendly fire.
Of the battles, campaigns, and wars throughout history for which there exist at least semi-reliable accounts, which ones particularly stand out due to the high rate of "blue on blue" casualties?
If you look at civilians as friendly fire deaths, you can't over look D-Day. As many French civilian were killed on June6, 1944 as the total of Allied and Nazi combined. Numbers are about 7K Germans, 12K Allies, 20K French. The civilians could not be warned to "leave the area immediately" until after the fighting had started.
The Normandy Breakout. Probably the biggest case of American friendly fire took place at the breakout from Normandy near St. Lo. To clear the area of enemy, their defensive line was attacked by US heavy bombers. Targeting of the later part of the bomber stream was obscured by heavy smoke from the first bombers; these later groups sighted on the smoke. Unfortunately, the smoke had blown over the American lines, 813 men were killed.
These are numbers from WW2. Numbers could be worse in other conflicts. I know as an example, in WW1 acceptable friendly fire was about 15% when troops were to charge machine gun nests and the allies would have to provide artillery cover. If these percentages were ever reached, I'm not sure without further research.
The Gulf War (first one) had a proportionally high rate. According to Wikipedia, "190 Coalition troops were killed by Iraqi combatants, the rest of the 379 coalition deaths being from friendly fire or accidents", also "While the death toll among Coalition forces engaging Iraqi combatants was very low, a substantial number of deaths were caused by accidental attacks from other allied units. Of the 148 American troops who died in battle, 24% were killed by friendly fire, a total of 35 service personnel." I don't know how that compares to other wars but it's strikingly high to me.
It is impossible to know the numbers, but according to the accounts by Mexican diarists who participated, a great percentage of the Mexican casualties during the Alamo assault were the product of friendly fire.
Santa Anna's army was composed of mix of some professionals, but also a great mayt "recruits" who were simply peasants who lived on the march route and were siezed and forced to join the army. They received pretty much zero training, just given a musket and some ammunition and shown how to load and fire it.
The typical Mexican peasant of that day was of mixed Indian blood and was very short of stature and probably quite thin. The kickback from the 58 caliber musket that they were given was so severe that these small people were having their shoulders dislocated by the musket butts when they attempted aimed shots. As a remedy, most braced the butt of their muskets on their belt buckles to try and absorb the impact. This of course caused them to fire too low.
On the morning of the assault, Santa Anna had his better troops in the front lines, and the peasant recruits were to be a second wave. When that second wave arrived, it found a great many of the other troops milling around under the Alamo walls, looking for the means to break into the fort. The peasants were told to fire a volley to keep the defenders heads down, and with their belt buckle technique, they instead blasted their own troops in front of them.
Just looking at some Civil War data. The battle of Antietam was the deadliest one day in US history. By the end of the day 5% of the dead were from friendly fire. Approximate number around 1150 men.
Do you mean to include Fragging? Friendly Fire, broadly interpreted, can arise from quite a few different factors, and each combat situation can be more or less conducive to any one of them.
I was going to suggest the Gulf War as well. A lot of these modern "actions" have been unique in having very high percentages of friendly fire deaths.
Historically the Battle of Karansebes is considered quite an interesting affair. It took place during the Austro-Turkish War of 1787-1791. The 100,000 man strong Austrian army was seeking battle with the Turks. The Army encamped at Karansebes and sent scouting parties out. An advance group of Hussars crossed the Timis river and stumbled upon a group of Romani that sold the Hussars schnapps.
While the Hussars were busy drinking, an infantry regiment also crossed the river and stumbled onto the Hussars. The Hussars refused to share and set up "fortifications" around their barrels. A fight ensued and one of the infantry fired a shot. The Hussars and infantry were going at it when one of the infantry units started shouting "Turcii, Turcii" (The Turks, The Turks). The Hussars thinking the Turks were attacking took off for the main encampment with the infantry running behind them.
The Austrian army was composed of various nationalities, so communication was difficult. The Hussars and infantry raised an alarm running through camp and the entire army started to flee. As officers tried to stop them by yelling "HALT, HALT" some units heard it as "Allah, Allah" and everyone started shooting. A corps commander thought the Hussars were Ottoman cavalry and ordered his artillery to open fire on them.
With the entire camp thoroughly confused and artillery raining down, the entire army fled shooting at anything in the shadows thinking the Ottomans were everywhere and they were surrounded. As the army routed Joseph II, Emporer of Austria tried to restore order, but got knocked off his horse into a creek by fleeing troops from an imaginery enemy.
Two days later the Ottoman army arrived and found the bodies of 10,000 Austrian soldiers littered throughout the area.
The Gulf War (first one) had a proportionally high rate. According to Wikipedia, "190 Coalition troops were killed by Iraqi combatants, the rest of the 379 coalition deaths being from friendly fire or accidents", also "While the death toll among Coalition forces engaging Iraqi combatants was very low, a substantial number of deaths were caused by accidental attacks from other allied units. Of the 148 American troops who died in battle, 24% were killed by friendly fire, a total of 35 service personnel." I don't know how that compares to other wars but it's strikingly high to me.
I believe that. There were so many different nationalities involved moving at a high rate of advance, that it stands to reason.
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