Posted on 06/26/2019 8:19:05 AM PDT by gasport
That time a Marine general led a fictional Iran against the US military – and won In 2002, the U.S. military tapped Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper to lead the red opposing forces of the most expensive, expansive military exercise in history. He was put in command of an inferior Middle Eastern-inspired military force. His mission was to go against the full might of the American armed forces. In the first two days, he sank an entire carrier battle group.
(Excerpt) Read more at wearethemighty.com ...
Link, comments?
We were told that Iraq had a very strong military. But they wilted under US firepower.
Iran, however, really does seem to be a more serious challenge. It’s a big country, they have a good military and they have foreign friends.
I suspect that fighting Iran in a “limited” way would not work well for us. But one of these days we will get back to waging war by obliterating entire cities. That tends to finish things off more decisively. Ask Germany and Japan.
I googled it. Worth the read.
US Forces didn’t shoot back lol
The exercise is a joke.
I would like to see how they “gamed” it. Military history of “gaming” is replete with stories of people who went outside the established “rules”.
In real life, “rules” are and should be broken, and intelligent commanders keep those things in mind. In games, that doesn’t always happen due to the structure of the game because they may be trying to test a narrow group of situations.
If we did go to war with Iran, I prefer our chances to successfully wipe out the ports, facilities and infrastructure to a very high degree.
Doesn’t mean it won’t cost us lives. Doesn’t mean they won’t initate terror campaigns around the world to attack our interests. Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t lose ships, planes, and men.
But in the end, they will not win.
I often wonder if a carrier battle group can handle a massed cruise missle attack.
Exactly. War games are often done to test a specific thing or group of things...depending on the established “rules” in a gamed situation and how people get around the rules.
Iran will also line up ‘friends’... another reason Trump needs to work out deals with Russia and China before wading into these shark infested waters.
And - where's the link?”
Navy warships have never been invincible.
Ever.
But neither is it a given that they will be helpless, either.
Van Ripper? What a convenient name for a Marine general.
Ripper was also the name of the Air Force general in Dr Strange Love who launched the bombers.
I suspect that fighting Iran in a “limited” way would not work well for us. But one of these days we will get back to waging war by obliterating entire cities. That tends to finish things off more decisively. Ask Germany and Japan.
i wonder whose side he would be on in the upcoming CWII?
I suspect that knocking our their only oil refinery, their power plants, power distribution and hydro facilities then walking away would save many American lives. Let the Gulf States fight them.
Ask the Brits how it goes.
They lost the Coventry in the Falklands war, and to conventional bombs as I understand it.
But, we have more advanced defense systems now.
Pay no attention to my link, as I evidently will NEVER learn to post then properly. Sigh.
There was similar exercise done pre WWII using an attack on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. Carrier were involved, but the rules stated they had to stay with the battleships during the attack. The commamder the Saratoga broke off and with one support vessel attacked the canal from the SW and destroyed the Pacific facing facilities effectively shutting down the canal. The navy brass cried foul, the changed the parameters so the defenders prevailed and all was right with the world. The Japanese Admiralty was part of the observing group. One might assume they took away a different lesson than our battleship oriented admirals did.
> But one of these days we will get back to waging war by obliterating entire cities. <
If not now, that will soon be a two-way street. I wouldn’t expect Iran to have the ability to fire an ICBM at the states for decades. But a dirty bomb on a tramp steamer?
The Iranian leadership would be foolish to challenge the U.S. But they would also be foolish not to be developing some sort of minimal “mutual assured destruction” capability.
I was reading an article about that awhile ago. Bush’s invasion of Iraq taught both Iran and North Korea an important - an unintended - lesson. If you don’t want the U.S. to come in and knock you off, you better have some sort of MAD capacity.
Well, sure. There are always things like that in wargames.
In real life, you have to keep those things in mind, but...if you let all those possibilities take your resources and time instead of concentrating on things you probably should, you aren’t going to complete whatever mission you have.
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