MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE '02: IN MOCK PERSIAN GULF CONFLICT, USA LOSSES SURPRISING, BUT FORCES VICTORIOUS!
Posted on 08/19/2002 8:07:37 PM PDT by SunStar
RESULTS: 22-Day, $250 million operation that involved 13,500 military and civilian personnel battling in 9 live exercise ranges across the United States... In simulation of Persian Gulf conflict, American forces suffered unexpected losses from a sneak attack early in fighting -- but then emerged victorious... Developing...
Just as the OpFor at NTC was a far better unit than any actual Soviet MRR, the "insurgents" at JRTC are far better at what they do than any ragbag collection of camel jockeys.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A retired general who commanded "enemy" forces in a recently concluded $250 million U.S. war game says the exercise was rigged so that it appeared to validate new war-fighting concepts it was supposed to test.
Paul Van Riper, who headed the Marine Corps Combat Development Command when he retired in 1997 as a three-star general, said he became so frustrated with undue constraints on his command of "enemy" forces that he quit the role midway through Millennium Challenge 2002, which ended Aug. 15.
His complaints were reported Friday by the Army Times, a private newspaper that covers Army issues. The Times obtained a copy of an e-mail Van Riper sent to colleagues explaining why he had quit.
"It was in actuality an exercise that was almost entirely scripted to ensure a Blue (friendly forces) `win,'" he wrote. Van Riper was in command of the Red force, meant to simulate the enemy.
Navy Capt. John Carman, chief spokesman at Joint Forces Command at Norfolk, Va., which sponsored the war game, said Friday that there is no record of Van Riper having quit his role as "enemy" commander. He said the retired general is "held in high regard" and entitled to his opinions.
"We don't agree with his conclusions," Carman said.
Van Riper, who participated as a TRW contract employee, said he was concerned that the military would implement new war-fighting concepts on the basis of what he considers to be false conclusions from the three-week exercise.
Carman said the results of the war game were being evaluated and that some concepts will require further experimentation.
Millennium Challenge 2002 was two years in the making and involved a wide range of U.S. military commands across the country linked by computer networks to simulated troops, air and sea units with 13,500 actual military personnel fighting a classified war scenario.
Van Riper said exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against the Blue, or friendly, forces, and on several occasions the Red forces were directed not to use certain weapons against Blue.
Robert Oakley, a retired ambassador who played the role of civilian leader of the Red force, told the Times that Van Riper was outthinking the Blue force. He said, for example, that in the computer simulations, Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders, negating the Blue forces' high-tech eavesdropping capabilities. When the Blue naval forces sailed into the Persian Gulf early in the experiment, Van Riper's forces surrounded the ships with small boats and planes.
Much of the Blue force's ships ended up at the bottom of the ocean. Oakley said Joint Forces Command officials had to stop the exercise and "refloat" the fleet in order to continue.
Vice Adm. Marty Mayer, the deputy commander of Joint Forces Command, defended the exercise.
"I want to disabuse anybody of any notion that somehow the books were cooked," Mayer told the Times. He said, however, that "certain things are scripted" in any large war game. "You have to execute in a certain way or you'll never be able to bring it all together," he said.
Mayer said that in some parts of the exercise Van Riper was constrained "in order to facilitate the conduct of the experiment."
Is this guy any relation to General Jack Ripper--who took on the whole US Military from his USAF base?
We had about two weeks of jungle training in Fort Lewis, WA. We always lost, too. Of course that was because we were a supply company that always seemed to get wiped out very quickly by an infantry company. The infantry guys would come charging down on our poorly defended position, yelling and whooping it up. We'd say, "bang-bang, boo-hoo," put our toe tags on and have the rest of the afternoon off. It was psychological training for the infantry guys. They got their real combat training once they got to Vietnam.
I hope the guys going over to the middle east get some more realistic training.
"We must protect the purity and essence of precious bodily fluids". Ripper wouldn't drink flouridated water only 100% Grain Alcohol.
Nah. The rainwater might be forged. Who knows how much fluoride is in the stuff they seed the clouds with.
Ripper would never fall for a dumb ploy like that.
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