War etiquette?

[ColJack]

is there an unspoken agreement that all medical areas and personel be left alone during a war?

I've just been watching "the pacific" and they had a ship with a great big awning on the back with a red cross on it..

now to me, that screams a bloody great big target for a bomber etc..

I may be a bastard for saying this, but if I were commanding an army my first order would be to make the opposing medical teams and areas one of the priority targets..
if they can't fix up their guys then there's fewer of them to fight back and they may give up faster, saving lives on both sides in the long run..

 

[wotan]

Genever convention?

The Americans probably think that way too.

Wotan

 

[Thermo]

Mediacl facilities and personel etc are supposed to be protected by the geneva convention. Not much good though when not everyone has signed up to it, like the japanese in world war 2

The japanese went through various military hospitals in malaya and singapore and bayoneted injured soldiers as they lay in the beds. In some cases germans shot up british field hospitals. Recently read a book about medics in the first and second world war. Very very moving

I watched the pacific, very impressed, apart from the fact that in the first scenes where the marines are getting briefed the map behind the officer, shows that germany had occupied iceland. Surely they could have got that right!

 

[Lincsbodger]

This is an interesting subject, Ive had various discussion's with people over the years.

I simply cannot see how you can have 'rules of war'.

It seems to be some sort of attempt to make war 'civilised'. That in itself is doomed, because war isnt civilised. War isnt the opposite of Peace, because peace is the presence of civilisied agreement. War is the breakdown of civilisation. In the absence of civilisation, there are no rules. Bomber Harris summed it up nicely - "All that matters is you bloody well win." There is no point in war if you dont intend to win, and therfore any tactic or strategy is valid, including bombing hospitals.

Trying to impose rules on war is hypocrisy, and delusional.

Over the last 150 years the nature of war has profoundly shifted. In th Crimean War, of all the casualties about 15% were civilian and 85% were military. That ratio has shrunk and shrunk after each war.

World War One - 9 million military dead, 6 million civilian
World War Two - 22 million military, 47 million civilian
Vietnam War - 266k military 2 million civilians


The number of civilian deaths is rocketing , and the military deaths falling. By mid 21st century, with the advent of remote controlled, and AI controlled vehicles, guns, tanks, etc, you can expect military casualties to be negligible and civilians to take wholly the brunt of a war.

Such a war is called Total War, and wars of this type were first fought in WW1. You cannot have rules for such a war, because all persons are involved in the war, and therefore 'legitimate' targets - this justification was used for the Area bombing strategies of both the RAF, the USAAF and the Luftwaffe in the 20th Century.

 

[Johnmelad502]

Injured soldiers take up resources. Dead soldiers are sometimes buried sometimes not.

Injured soldiers need manpower to move them to the back of the line for treatment, then more military personnel have to guard the hospital and run/resource it.

This is why anti personnel mines are designed to injure not kill.

Click thingy

 

[Homesafe]

Isreal recently used phosphorous bombs in the conflict that it totally lost in, agaist a democratically elected government.
But then if you have the kind of influence the Isreali gov. have you don't need to bother about the 'geneva agreement' do you?

 

[Johnmelad502]

Isreal recently used phosphorous bombs in the conflict that it totally lost in, agaist a democratically elected government.
But then if you have the kind of influence the Isreali gov. have you don't need to bother about the 'geneva agreement' do you?

Elected Terrorists. As they say, you get the Government you deserve.

 

[Lincsbodger]

Isreal recently used phosphorous bombs in the conflict that it totally lost in, agaist a democratically elected government.
But then if you have the kind of influence the Isreali gov. have you don't need to bother about the 'geneva agreement' do you?

Phosphorus incendiaries were used in WW2, there not new. The americans refined the idea with napalm tho.

Keep dissolving foamed polystyrene in petrol until you get a sticky goo. Then dissolve in soap flakes to lower the surface tension and make it flow easier. Add phosphorous pentoxide so it burns without oxygen (eg under water). Nasty stuff.

 

[Deluks]

Injured soldiers take up resources. Dead soldiers are sometimes buried sometimes not.

Injured soldiers need manpower to move them to the back of the line for treatment, then more military personnel have to guard the hospital and run/resource it.

This is why anti personnel mines are designed to injure not kill.

Click thingy

I believe that this was one of the reasons that the MOD shifted to a lighter calibre weapon when they adopted the SA80. The troops themselves, particularly the falklands vets mourned the loss of the larger calibre as it had such amazing stopping power and would go through brick walls. It could also go straight through the target if the shot landed somewhere fleshy, whereas the SA80 round will cause more wounding and increasing the chance of incapacitating the enemy.

I guess that some rules of war, however loosely followed will increase the chances of troops maintaining a level head when in combat.

 

[joinerjohn]

Israel recently used phosphorous bombs in the conflict that it totally lost in, agaist a democratically elected government.
But then if you have the kind of influence the Israeli gov. have you don't need to bother about the 'geneva agreement' do you?

Whilst not supporting what the Israeli's did or used to retaliate, you have to admit they were under extreme pressure to do something.
Under sustained and indiscriminate rocket attack from it's neighbour, they did what they had to do.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but the whole world just stood around while the rockets were coming over the border. Blair, supposed Middle East Envoy to the UN did nothing.
If the UK was under attack from say France and they were firing rockets over the channel, ,,, How long before the govt decided to retaliate? Or would you rather they did nothing but turn the other cheek??

 

[Lincsbodger]

Two wrongs don't make a right, but the whole world just stood around while the rockets were coming over the border. Blair, supposed Middle East Envoy to the UN did nothing.?

Yes the irony of making Blair the Middle East Peace Envoy was delicious. Someone was really taking the **** there.

 

[Donkmeister]

AI controlled vehicles, guns, tanks, etc

Illegal under the Geneva Conventions; you must have a "Human-In-The-Loop". That is why men sit in offices in the US controlling UAVs over the Middle East, using massive amounts of satellite bandwidth rather than just saying "Yo killbot, cap the ass of anything that's 6'7" with a grey beard"

If the UK was under attack from say France and they were firing rockets over the channel, ,,, How long before the govt decided to retaliate? Or would you rather they did nothing but turn the other cheek??

It depends... if that part of the UK was known by every other nation in the world as Ile de France and contained that well known English city called "Paris", I would imagine that we would understand the Frenchies' peaves about us annexing their land.

It can be easily argued that Israel are the de facto leaders in "the area that many know as Palestine", however the leaders de jure depend whether you take your beef kosher or halal... or in a 4lb cheeseburger delivered straight to the window of your SUV with a "Bush-Cheney" bumper sticker.

 

[Lincsbodger]

AI controlled vehicles, guns, tanks, etc

Illegal under the Geneva Conventions; you must have a "Human-In-The-Loop". That is why men sit in offices in the US controlling UAVs over the Middle East, using massive amounts of satellite bandwidth rather than just saying "Yo killbot, cap the ass of anything that's 6'7" with a grey beard"

If the UK was under attack from say France and they were firing rockets over the channel, ,,, How long before the govt decided to retaliate? Or would you rather they did nothing but turn the other cheek??

It depends... if that part of the UK was known by every other nation in the world as Ile de France and contained that well known English city called "Paris", I would imagine that we would understand the Frenchies' peaves about us annexing their land.

It can be easily argued that Israel are the de facto leaders in "the area that many know as Palestine", however the leaders de jure depend whether you take your beef kosher or halal... or in a 4lb cheeseburger delivered straight to the window of your SUV with a "Bush-Cheney" bumper sticker.

Um its not illegal to develop such weapons, only use them, and when has the US been shy of using illegal weapons.

I presume you havent heard of:

Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot ("BEAR")
Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System
Excalibur unmanned aerial vehicle
XM1216 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle
MQ-1 Predator (entirely self controlled)
Phalanx CIWS, a radar-guided Gatling gun platform (no humans involved)

All of these will be improved with AI once it become feasible, you see. The wars of the future will be fought by AI, robots, system hackers and intelligent satellite killer suborbital missiles

Yo killbot, cap the ass of anything that's 6'7" with a grey beard"

Thats exactly what this does:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=762

Its later than you think.

 

[Donkmeister]

I presume you havent heard of:

Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot ("BEAR")
Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System
Excalibur unmanned aerial vehicle
XM1216 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle
MQ-1 Predator (entirely self controlled)
Phalanx CIWS, a radar-guided Gatling gun platform (no humans involved)

I confess I have only heard of 3 of your 6, however I have very much more than "heard of" 2 of these 3. The third is, to my knowledge, not designed to carry any sort of lethal package.

I will explain your error. Autonomous target acquisition is NOT illegal. Autonomous weapon effects ARE illegal.

Two very different concepts.

 

[Lincsbodger]

Theres an american version of the gun above on a half track powered platform designed to roam the battle field on its own and identify and kill enemy soldiers.

The rules really are about to go out the window............