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When you are carrying live ammo and are in a combat zone, you are very tense.
Tense people are jumpy.
When one of your buddies, whom you most likely trust, opens fire in a particular direction, you ALL open fire in that direction and ask questions after the order to cease fire is given.
Standard reaction to an ambush or guerilla attack.
I can believe it is happening but I don't believe it is done with intent.
Americans have a very bad reputation for just opening up. Didn't more US casualties occur from friendly fire in Gulf War 1?
Recently, a US marine opened up with an LMG on a British convoy of the Black Watch regiment. They were travelling in a land rover convoy and he only stopped when a brit trooper climbed out and yelled at him. It happens, more so with the US troops, but it happens everywhere.
Now, I don't have any stats at hand but this is my opinion:
Britain has been involved in a lot more of these type of conflicts through the past few hundred years, so the training on holding fire is a lot more ingrained. Ireland, Burma, India and many places in the Gulf. What looks threatening behaviour to green US troops is less so to soldiers more familiar with the region.
The typical US doctrine since the Vietnam war has been one of superior firepower and the people who were in Vietnam and rarely saw the guys firing at them have influenced the current practices of the troops. Unfortunatley, jungle warfare tactics aren't that suitable here. Now I'm not saying that they are going ahead and actively teaching this, but if you have an instructor who made it therough 'nam, then chances are, sitting around the campfire, you'll hear his stories of regarding what training says you should do and what you REALLY should do. And those stories perpetuate with soldiers, they feed on them and pass them on. "When my daddy was in Khe Sanh..." has a lot more impact on their training than what the manual says. So now you get a lot of troops eager to protect themselves by shooting a lot.
It's understandable, but unfortunate.
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