Fratricide (military)

Fratricide, in a military context, happens when members of one's own forces are hit by fires from the same side. This is often called "friendly fire", although the apocryphal "Murphy's Laws of Combat" mention:

• Friendly fire isn't.
• When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.

Formally, the United States Department of Defense defines "friendly fire" as

In casualty reporting, a casualty circumstance applicable to persons killed in

action or wounded in action mistakenly or accidentally by friendly forces actively engaged with the enemy, who are directing fire at a hostile force or what is thought to be a hostile force.

— United States Joint Chiefs of Staff

Fratricide was one of the major causes of Coalition casualties during Operation Desert Storm. Deconfliction is the part of mission planning that tries to ensure that all preplanned attacks know the position of friendly forces. One of the drivers of network-centric warfare is giving all units and personnel improved situational awareness, such that a unit that moves to take advantage of a sudden enemy weakness is not incorrectly identified as an enemy force to be engaged.

In swarming (military) and other forms of operations in which multiple friendly directions strike in constantly changing time and space, real-time communications are key in avoiding fratricide. Even so, without computer assistance to recognize impending fratricide, people may be overloaded with information and make errors in recognizing their own side.

Inadvertent interference with one's own weapons effects

It can affect both people and materials; there are a number of nuclear warfare scenarios where the explosions from earlier bombs and warheads interfere with missiles and aircraft that must travel through turbulent air or intense radiation.