This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Military, Military History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Collateral damage is the damage to unintended targets during military operations. I am sure that every military ring customer out there has heard this term. Another term that we use which is similar is friendly fire.
Generally when I think of friendly fire I think of combatants accidentally killing their own comrades. When I think of collateral damage I generally think of damage to noncombatant persons or buildings or equipment. This is not necessarily correct. It’s just my thinking.
Smart bombs and missiles have brought us a long way in preventing collateral damage but it is impossible to eliminate it totally.
Military plannere use other strategies to eliminate collateral damage. All are situational. One such strategy is called rules of engagement (ROE). Rules of engegement tell individual combatants when they are allowed to fire their weapons at enemy combatants.
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