The term friendly fire refers to incidents where combatants accidently light up their own forces. It can be small arms fire, missiles, artillery, or bombs. These incidents can occur during operations by all branches of service. All Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps custom military ring customers are familiar with the meaning of this term.

I have personally had an incident where I almost called an air strike on friendly soldiers (in training). The pilot who was to drop the bombs was alert enough to see that the situation on the ground didn't look like it should and abort the mission.

The problem is that in war everyone and everything is going 1000 miles an hour in all directions. Friendly forces are engrossed and involved with the enemy so many times they don't know their exact location. The battlefield is covered with smoke most of the time so the obscure tank that you see which is not in the place where it should be might be one of yours who has chased someone, or is being chased.

All of my aviation ring customers know that when they are called on they do not know exactly where ground forces are located. They have to go with the information that the observer gives them.

My forward observer ring customers know that many times when a target is called in by a person in trouble who dosen't normally call for fire support he can easily get the coordinates wrong. If you can't see what he is looking at you can't verify the information.