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Check out the most expensive War Games in history -- the USA got annihilated, and there were a lot of hurt feelings. The Lt. Gen. quit in the middle of the game
by kevmo 5y ago
Check out the most expensive War Games in history -- the USA got annihilated, and there were a lot of hurt feelings. The Lt. Gen. quit in the middle of the games, because he kept winning and they kept changing the rules to force a USA victory.
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
- quercusa 5y agoYou'd think Blue would have prepared for small boat suicide attacks less than two years after the USS Cole attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
- Breza 5y agoIt's really concerning that the Navy had serious accidental collisions years after that attack. It suggests that it's still alarmingly easy to get close to a destroyer without anyone noticing.
- B1FF_PSUVM 5y agoNo one expects the "loyal opposition", oh wait, they did ...
- enriquto 5y agoThis story is absolutely bonkers. If the wikipedia page is true, this paints a very ridiculous state of US high brass. I refuse to believe that a major military nation may engage in such petty stupidity. Thus my conclusion is that the whole summary of the events is carefully crafted to misled future enemies of their true capabilities.
- kevmo 5y agoPowerful countries have done dumb stuff all throughout history. It's one reason why empires don't last. Burying your head in the sand only makes you part of the problem.
- enriquto 5y ago> makes you part of the problem. Fortunately for everybody, I have no influence on any military nor political force anywhere. Or any relevant responsibility for that matter. The world is safe from my wrong opinions.
- newsclues 5y agoNever underestimate the incompetence of senior leadership.
- corty 5y agoExercises are different. When you don't have to fear death for you or your troops, you don't act the same I guess. I think the blue team would have thought twice about letting their ego run the show if the red team had used life ammo.
- daveevad 5y ago> Thus my conclusion is that the whole summary of the events is carefully crafted to misled future enemies of their true capabilities. Thus you have discounted the strategy that disclosing exactly what happened misleads future enemies the most.
- walshemj 5y agoThe US "Mark 14 torpedo" was far far worse
- onepointsixC 5y agoThis story is a lot less impressive when you start learning the details. Such as the fact that the motorcycle messengers traveled at the speed of light to instantaneously transmit orders. The fact that the salvo of cruise missiles came from boats which could not carry them, and the fact that simulator's fleet defenses were turned off to prevent them from targeting commercial air and commercial shipping.
- seoaeu 5y agoDo you have more details on the "speed of light" motorcycles? That sounds like an interesting read
- goatsi 5y agoTo quote someone on Reddit [0]: "Van Riper famously used "motorcycle couriers" to get around the destruction of his C2 network. The problem was that this was handled as simple handwaving, with him saying that he would use motorcycle messengers to handle all the message traffic. Despite supposedly doing so, he continued to relay messages as if he doing so with a normal communications network. Essentially, his motorcycle messengers were treated as being just as efficient as an electronic communications network. Clearly, that wouldn't be possible, hence the folks joking about "light speed motorcycles"." [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/so_what_is_the_deal_with_millennium_challenge/glmt4sp/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/so_what_...
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoCuriously the Japanese Navy War Gamed their attack on Midway in a similar fashion, and the "USA" team placed their carriers exactly where Nimitiz did a few weeks later, and sank the Japanese fleet. The top brass then "re floated" and announced the US Navy must sail from Pearl and so be ambushed, as per plan. So, yeah, risk management is everything