Rules of Engagement

River Rat

Gentlemen (and Ladies): The news media has been talking about "rules of engagement" in Iraq lately, and I firmly believe this was a Vietnam-era invention that was truly idiotic. At least, I don't believe its formal equivalent existed in WWII. Any thoughts and recollections from those who had to cope with such outlandish rules as "Do not return fire unless authorized to do so?"

11b6r

Well, I had a friend that ran afoul of this in Italy in WW II. Seems the enemy had an artillery spotter in a structure, friend took offense at having 88mm rounds fall near him- and since HE was an artillery FO, starting calling in 105 fire on the structure. A general officer interrupted his call for fire- on the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

kraschenbirn

Having been a serious student of military history for almost 40 years now, I can say, positively, that I've only encountered a handful of references to "no-fire" zones and all of those involved religious or cultural considerations. In general, WW2 "rules of engagement" seem to have been pretty simple: "Kill the enemy wherever you find him."

One of my uncles who served under Patton in both North Africa and Europe...he was a tank commander, first in M3s (Grants) and later in M4s (Shermans)...once told me that their "rules of engagement" after Normandy were essentially "If it moves, kill it!" based upon the assumption that, under the Nazi occupation, any motorized transport was being operated by either the Germans or French collaborators.

Another uncle (still living) who flew Thunderbolts (P-47Ds) late in the war said that, during "fighter sweeps", they were allowed pretty much "free fire" on surface transportation (road, rail, and water), even in the occupied countries, but were, otherwise, restricted to identified military target such as airfields, supply depots, etc. Of course, if they were directly supporting ground forces under the direction of a Forward Observer, they strafed/bombed whatever targets he designated.

On the other hand, in RVN (where I did two tours crewing Hueys), our rules were mostly "Don't fire unless fired upon." except for those areas designated as 'free fire zones" where it was open season on anything that looked like it wasn't a natural part of the real estate.

bobski

rules of engagement usually involve areas that are NOT total war zones.
technically, nam wasnt a war, rather, the famous police action title. so rules were implimented to ensure not everyone was targeted.
get my drift?
just like cops today are required to protect the public in the execution of their objective.
rules of engagement actually use to be unspoken respect enemies had in their profession.
case in point, ww2 bombers never targeted civilian targets. did strays happen? of course. but it was not part of the briefing to try to bomb civ-targets.
but when england began night raids on germany, precision was not part of the deal. germnany got so mad, they did the same to england in retaliation and behold, carpet bombing was born.
rules of engagement were always around, but were easily ignored.

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hope it helps.