Very true. I’d rather get my ass handed to me in an exercise and learn from it than get my ass handed to me in actual combat and become a name on a stone wall somewhere.
I remember years ago there was an exercise similar to this at the NTC at Fort Erwin where an Australian infantry company found itself against a US Army battalion.
The Aussies took some losses as they hightailed it to a nice defensive bit of terrain to make what everybody thought would be a last stand.
At the end of it, the spot was nicknamed ‘The Aussie Ashtray’ as it was where you could find the smoking ruins of the battalion.
A lot was learnt on both sides and a lot of beer was drunk by both sides afterwards too.
By the time I made 1st LT, I had been through a number of ARTEPs...platoon/battery level tac evals. I knew how the game was played, I knew what the evaluators were looking for. In essence, you could look like crap the first two days, but as long as you were showing improvement on the last day, you'd pass.
This particular tac eval, I had to wear two hats: Maintenance Officer (my regular job), and XO, as our XO was away at a training class.
First day wasn't too bad, second day was a disaster. One of our platoons was 30 minutes late on their mission time. The platoon leader just looked befuddled when I ripped into him...30 minutes late on your morning mission? That was almost enough to flunk us.
I spent most of the afternoon with my maintenance section. When I returned to the CP, my First Sergeant was distraught...he had 3 tours in Nam as an Infantry First Sergeant, so I knew something was wrong. Boy, was it: my Battery Commander improperly encoded coordinates for a platoon's mission, and the Platoon Leader failed to call him on it. It was such an obvious error, any competent Air Defense Artillery Officer would know it.
From that point on, the BC went catatonic, seeing the end of his career. Me? I just got angry, and let the Platoon Leaders have it in our evening meeting. I took 15 minutes to explain what their platoons would do the next day, down to the driver of their vehicles. It was unreal, I had "ring knockers" (West Pointers) and Airborne Rangers as Platoon Leaders, and they were all in a fog, along with the Battery Commander.
Unbeknownst to me, the chief evaluator heard every word. As I left the CP, he pulled me aside, smiled and said, "that was beautiful, LT." We passed, and for my efforts, I received a lousy efficiency report. I knew before that I wasn't hanging around for 20, so it rolled off my back. I ended up doing 8 years, got out when I was 30.