In real life, the grunts would have blown the small craft out of the sky. Remember when grunts took down a civilian Iranian airliner by mistake?
One reason US troops are better in tactics than Arabs is that low rank individuals are allowed to think...Which is why, in every war since the revolution, the "generals" who are good on paper are quickly fired and replaced with officers good at war.
I've been on "war games". Our unit was wiped out an hour before the games started. The next year, one of my med techs (a 89 lb female) wiped out the enemy trying to infiltrate the medical unit. War games are to learn, and learn you do, despite this naive article.
The reason for no freeper comment is that we figure this is anti american propaganda.
Heck, if even a lowly ex national guard soldier like myself can figure that out, imagine freepers who actually are soldiers.
There is nothing inherently anti-American about this article. Strategic and tactical gaming have existed for centuries. "Real life" is never exactly the same as the gaming but lessons learned from both can be valuable.
Garrison soldiers and combat soldiers are different breeds, as you correctly point out, but both serve a purpose, contrary to popular opinion. Your misplaced belief that you speak for all FReepers is only exceeded by your confident arrogance pertaining to your understanding of the nature of reality.
I think the operative is "were" allowed to think. Since Vietnam the perfumed princes like to run the war from Washington. We had Osama in our sights but the OHV operator could only watch him drive away as permission to shoot was being decided on the other side of the planet. The "Princes will all line up to be the boss for the day, and one by one they get get their chance. The only problem is that war has changed. It took years to take out Europe in World War II. But this is not 1945 anymore, it is 2005 and wars are won in days or even hours.
Last time we played D-Day with Sadam. Our Patriot batteries hit the incoming missiles, which still followed their terminal balistic or non fueled trajectory and still exploded on impact. The missiles were intercepted, the war heads still hit their targets. We called it victory! Tell that to Tel Aviv who had to rebuild blocks and blocks of blown up apartment buildings.
Now that Sadam has nukes, if we play D-Day again it will be death day. We must fight an unconventional war differently. For one, why are we going to wait till he nukes us before we nuke him? That not only is stupid, but it will kill a whole lot more people on both sides. As 2sheep later in this post pointed out Henery Gruver prophcied this very battle we are going into well over 5 years ago, while we were glorying in our victory over ole Insane. At the time we never thought we were going back, Gruver said we were and that Sadam would draw us in intentionaly. At the time everybody laughed at Gruver because why would Sadam want more of the same?
I am a military game junkie, Avalon hill was my life growing up and this battle is going to be a very fun one. Just imagine the setup, a weak side with nuclear weapons fighting a strong conventional force without, due to PC Princes abhorance to a first strike. It is a no brainer that Sadam gets a free first strike, how would you play it?
Give me two nukes and the Promise that America attacks with 60 year old tatics and the American Army is toast. First I wait till you bring the carriers into the gulf and start your move. Then I pop one nuke on the sea floor next to the shore on the far side, far from your ships, and pop the other nuke, a very dirty one, (add cobolt, who cares if nobody can go there for 100,000 years, Qutar is a traitor), right over your rear base, the heck with your main fighting force. Once you have landed them, you are committed. The first nuke should make about a 500 foot tidal wave that will roll your small ships (no big deal) and your carrier (big deal, carriers are to large and will break up) You now have no close air support and your small ships are silkworm fodder. You have to pull back out of shore based anti-ship range or loose them, and you have nothing to take them out with as fighter bombers are short range planes.
Now your front line troops are trapped on the beach. Secondly you have no supply line as your rear is poisoned and rubber suits dont stop gamma rays. You cannot resupply a quarter of a million men with parachutes and you cannot support them by sea (come to my silk worms) or by land (due to radiation.) The front line will spend its last day with fuel driving closer to my army and then be stranded in the desert. Your troops, looking like walking supply depots will be easy to find, just follow the trail of abandoned junk into the desert. You, without water and fuel should last 5 days before you die. I think I will take a week to get there, first I will have a nap and then drink a tall glass of water for you...
This is where the Perfumed Princes throw a hissy and nuke My cities. So? I have won, you are dead and I have lost half of my useless eaters in my population. My armys are dug in, my cities no longer need feeding and my warriors are in a fine bloodlust. When they get done stripping the dead American army they will have fine weapons and they will all volunteer as suicide warriors to avenge thier useless familys. I will be the new Moslem Hero and all of Arabia will line up to kiss my rear-end. I will have a fine dedicated to the death military to enforce my rule and Russia will see you weakened and will gladly attack you on your home shore as you no longer have an army to denfend the home front. Who are you going to buy fuel from now? So I loose Iraq. Big deal, I gained Arabia!
This is in short what Gruver saw in a vision, and he is not a war gamer.
The very point of this exersise is that a conventional assualt will not work against a non defined target. We have never mounted an assualt before against a nuclear foe, we can wait to learn that it does not work and "fire the prince" or we can learn from this brilliant general now. The lives of a quarter million men and 75% of our forward force projection ability hangs in the balance. We do not have 20 armys to spend on Perfumed Princes, we have one.
..Which is why, in every war since the revolution, the "generals" who are good on paper are quickly fired and replaced with officers good at war.
You get one shot, we got one army. The process of elimination is a costly one.