Millennium Challenge--Boy, this is sure boosting my confidence in the US military

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, maybe this is old news to y’all but I recently heard about a training exercise that the US military ran last year called Millennium Challenge. It was basically supposed to be a wargame showing the higher up’s in the military how to incorporate all the new weapon’s systems we’re getting into one strategic plan to we can kick the living bejesus outta people who piss us off; the dumbass rear-echelon types who set this whole thing up call this ‘conducting effects-based operations’ (you can read this and all sorts of other nonsensical lingo on the official website here. It cost about 200 billion dollars.
The powers-that-be chose a Marine Lt. General named Paul Van Riper to command the ‘Red Force’ (the bad guys–in this case an un-named Middle Eastern dictator/asshole) and a budding genius by the name of Gen. Kernan to command the good guys. Using a combination of live exercises (I think some elements of the 82nd Airborne raided an airfield in the SW as part of this) and computer simulations, Gen. Kernan and his band of highly trained REMF’s proceeded to take out their obviously inferior foes. Right? Actually, wrong. Take a look here and here.
To summarize: the Bad Guys kicked the living shit out of us, sinking a good chunk of our naval force. And how did these Pentagon assholes respond? Why, by waving their magical ‘Fleet Resurrection Wand’ ™ and bringing all of our boys–and their ships–back to life! Wow, what a nifty resource!
Now I have to say this isn’t a rant about the war in Iraq; I’ve got no problems with that as long as it’s sanctioned by the Security Council. And as an ex-Serviceman (well, pseudo-Service I guess as I was in the Reserves for 3 yrs. as Light Infantry and the Guard 3 yrs. as Mechanized Infantry) this isn’t a slam on the military. What I DO have a problem with is some air-headed, full of shit bureaucrat trying to see war as a goddamn PowerPoint presentation! Jesus fucking Christ on a goddamn pogo stick–what are these idiots going to do if Saddam actually manages to put up a fight? Magically re-create destroyed equipment and use computer simulations to bring our soldiers back to life?! Here’s a thought, revolutionary I know to these pointy-headed fucks: how’s about seeing how Van Riper (who resigned after this exercise in mass delusion) won and developing tactics to counter these sorts of attacks? How’s about training our Marines how to land in a hot LZ instead of magically turning off the OPFOR’s air defenses? How goddamn likely is it that an Iraqi force–assuming it’s willing to fight–is going to ‘forget’ to open fire on an invading force?! How about having some real training rather than putting together some grabasstick exercise in doublespeak and ‘paradigm shifting’? How’s about it you incompetent assholes? I saw idiots like this when we went on maneuvers: all spit-and-polish and quoting reg’s like a goddamn parrot in barracks and then, once we got into the field, they got themselves and a good chunk of their men killed every FREAKIN time by pulling some fucked up excuse for an assault. I am so pissed right now I can’t even think straight. I hope hope hope that Saddam gives in quietly or that his troops don’t put up much resistance because at this point I have zero confidence that these knuckleheads could competently lead troops against a gaggle of drunken rabbits, much less another army. I don’t doubt that we’ll win a war, if there’s a war: I just praying (and I’m not especially religious) that these empty-headed fuckwads realize at some point that war isn’t a goddamn fucking GAME and that they shouldn’t rely on the enemy to do what they expect them too. They should plan for the opposite, in fact. And I hope we don’t have to lose too many of our men (and women) before that little snippet of information sinks in.
Christ–I thought they drummed this “war’s can be won by the excess use of statistics and computer-generated reports!” style of thinking out of the military after Vietnam. Guess some dumbasses never learn… :frowning:

Here’s a good critique of our military mindset: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002207

2

Previous BBQ Pit thread for reference: U.S. Military cheats at war games. Surprise, surprise.

3

Garr–searched for Millennium Challenge and all the other terms I could think of and came up with nothing.

I’m just a little slow on on the uptake I guess… ;0

4

Not unlike some American Generals it seems.
-Don’t kill yourself over it. :smiley:

5

As I recall, somebody at the Pentagon explained the “reset button” option by saying (paraphrased), “Well, we wanted to explore other scenarios.”

It occurred to me that maybe we should go back and explore the scenario where the enemy was kicking our ass, so we could learn how to counter it, just in case a real enemy is ornery enough to fight back hard. Then we might not have so many boys coming home in body bags. Of course, I’m just a civilian.

6

Don’t worry, just press the reset button and it’ll all go back to the way it was before. :wink:

So what do these guys plan to do in a real war if one of our ships is sunk? Shout “hey, no fair! Do over!”?

7

It also proves we have 1 really bad general and one really good one.

8

This reminds me of Carl Sagan’s retelling of Enrico Fermi’s reaction to being told of a Great General:

9

Not any more–Van Riper resigned. I don’t doubt that we’ve got lots of talented officers but, unfortunately, this exercise shows to me that they’re going to have a hard time getting into positions of authority. I think we’re seeing the last of the Vietnam era generals (who saw the effects of this type of thinking in the field) and the rise of an officer corp that hasn’t seen a real war. The result is horseshit like this.

We had a First Lieut. like this in our unit (HQ hero-type) who managed to get an entire platoon of Bradley’s and an armored recovery vehicle stuck because he thought it would be a good idea to try to ‘sneak’ (in a 30 ton armored vehicle no less) through a swamp. What kind of idiocy is that?! I mean I don’t consider myself a strategic genius or anything but even I was questioning where the stealth and anti-gravity equipment that we would need to accomplish this mission was. Of course we all got butchered shortly thereafter; if that had happened in a real war, 36 men would have died or been wounded because of this dumbass. The last I’d heard he’d made captain and was in charge of an entire company. He did make outstanding presentations though and always kept his uniform in A-1 shape. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in charge of a brigade or even a division in the next few years. And if that unit gets into a real conflict, unfortunately I wouldn’t be surprised if it got wiped out.

Now if I could only find the ‘Reset’ button for my life, Sublight… :wink: