Speaking of my time in a different place.....each Morning in our preflight brief of the crew....I was required to read from a pretty yellow laminated card to the rear cabin crew that dictated our ROE for using our Door Guns on the Chinook.
Short version was we...Me the Aircraft Commander and the Door Gunners had to know the location of the all of the friendlies, the location of the bad guys, the exact location from which the ground fire was coming from, and our aircraft be in imminent risk of sever damage, loss, or injury or death to the Crew and/or Passengers.....and after being informed of their part.....I had to give the Order to Return fire and limit it to only that absolutely required.
All that sounds good on paper.
Reality is quite different.
I was adamant the Gunners should know where the threat was and that there were no good guys in the way....and if we were taking Hits from that ground fire.....they should get a Smoke out.....and fire at the bad guys up and tell me which way to go to evade the hostile fire being directed at us.
I still firmly believe M-60/M-240 7.62 Machine Guns on a Chinook are just a form of psychological warfare....it does squat to hurt the enemy....but makes the Chinook Crew feel better.
Mini-Guns on the other hand....now that is a different story.
Generally in my time our dangerous engagements were close to the ground on take off or landing....as anything could hit us and in the jungle...would be very close to us.
Enoroute our concerns were with.51's and the occasional 20mm....until later in the war then it all changed with bigger guns some with radar and the SA-7 showing up.
Yes we want to avoid harming innocents....and should do our best....but there has never been an "immaculate" War fought in history.
In my thinking, losing friendly troops should not be a direct by-product of ROE's ever.