U.S. Military cheats at war games. Surprise, surprise.

The BBQ Pit
21

Interesting article, but I do have a couple of problems with Van Ripers tactics.

**Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks.

Not for one moment do I beleive that any civilian planes or boats would be allowed to get close enough to any battle group on alert to do any damage. Remember the Iranian jet liner tradgedy? And as far as sending coded messages from mosques, how in the world can anyone in a boat or plane hear that? I’d like to have a set of those speakers.

** Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet’s only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers.

Again I don’t think that any warships or civilian boats will be allowed to come within striking distance. And while I’m no expert on Silkworm-type cruise missiles I don’t think they can be mounted on or launched from “small boats”. During the Gulf War these missiles were ground based. Some were fired, none sunk or hit a warship.

If or when a carrier battle group enters the Persian gulf “ready for action” a piece of drift wood will be destroyed if it floats to close.

Van Riper sounds like one hell of a Marine and like a good Marine he took what he had and kicked the enemys ass. When it comes down to a shooting war its men like him that give me faith that we will win.

As for the rest of the article, the top brass should have let Van Riper proceed. Reset the damn game and learn from what seems to be one of the best.

22

One of the great things about the US Marine Corps is it is very small. I served on active duty only four years and 6 days, but I know the Marine in this story. General Van Riper was the Director of Command and Staff College while I was at Quantico, VA, and his reputation was well in place. If I recall correctly, Then he was on the I MEF staff during Desert Storm, and I briefed him on the Air Defense for 2nd Marine Division, then he took over 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, a half hour from my base at Cherry Point. He had a great reputation for tactical thinking on and off the battlefield, and was smart as a whip.

I never crossed paths with General Pace, but he was Deputy Commander, Marine Forces, Somalia, from Dec 1992 - Feb 1993, where he should have learned a lesson or two about guerilla tactics. His official bio doesn’t say this, but I think he was a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) CO as a Colonel, and google doesn’t see it that way, either. Pretty much mandatory to get a star in infantry officers.

Free Play means just that. On my very first day assigned to my first unit, we were deploying for three weeks in the field, the whole battalion down to typewriters and payroll clerks. I, being the brand new 2ndLt, was given Battery Rear Area Security as an assignment (HAWK missile battalion). I talked to the Army guys down the beach, and talked them into using their big landing craft to stage an amphibious assault on the Battalion HQ. I sent in a team late in the day, guys who did not know the passwords, but bluffed their way into the secure area, and they planted chem lights up in trees on the shoreline to direct the landing craft, and cut the comm wire in several places for the Observation Posts and Listening Posts in that area. At about 9pm, I sent in a “sapper team” with flour bags. My roomie, another 2ndLt, was among the sappers. They walked in the Battalion CP and yelled “SATCHEL CHARGE!” and threw the flour everywhere. Great commotion and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

That was the diversion.

The Assault from the Sea with 40 screaming Marines was timed to land five minutes later and overrun the confused headquarters camp completely, but the flippin Army boats got stuck on a sandbar. They Army Lt swore beforehand the boats would not get stuck. I had my doubts, having grown up in the Sea Islands, but he said he could make it. They didn’t. They called for the second Army boat, so we could still make the assault, just a little later than planned. It got stuck, too. We never did Assault from the Sea. But we killed the LtCol and his staff, who were in a meeting in the CP.

The CO had been a Corpsman in Viet Nam, and we are pretty sure he patched up my Dad at Con Thien. He loved my attack, and was sorry the boat got stuck.

That is Free Play. Van Riper won.

23

Like everyone else, I enjoyed this story immensely but I do have some sympathy for the military’s argument that “that would never happen”.

Assuming the defending army were Iraq, I don’t think Iraq would have enough personnel willing to mount suicide attacks on that kind of scale just in order to protect Saddam’s ass.

Although if the US were to attack Iran or Saudi or some other fundamentalist regime then it could be different.

Now I think about it, if I were the leader of Hamas, I think I would be considering a mass (Sept 11-style) suicide attack against Israel using maybe a dozen light planes packed with explosives. They seem to have no shortage of volunteers, all they would need are the planes.

Of course Israel may shoot some down but some may get through.

24

I don’t quite think you understand. If any of Van Riper’s tactics were used, the heads of military command structures are the least of our concerns. See at that point thousands upon thousands of the men and women of our armed forces would be DEAD. That’s not something that can be rectified by yelling at a few admirals.
On a seperate note, anyone else think of Ender’s Game when reading that article? Odds kept getting stacked against Van Riper, until the military was basically cheating, and he kept on winning anyway. I want Van Riper to play Mazer Rackham in the movie!

25

Then why weren’t the civilian planes shot down and the civilian boats sunk in the exercise, when there would be less political hell to pay? Or are you suggesting that the blue team wasn’t on alert to do any damage?

26

I don’t care if his tactics may or may not happen. I think he’s a cool ass general who did some crazy shit that actually worked. He sunk an entire carrier battle group. I bet he named it Operation Kick Ass or something.

27

Uhh, I hate to point this out to all the big brains that are taking shots at the US Military on this thread, but in case you didn’t notice, the American military beat the American military. Iraq didn’t beat anyone. It was our own people playing against our own people. It was “Free Play” so both sides were playing to win. Yes they changed the rules mid game, but the cash that had been laid out was already spent and, as has been pointed out, they decided to get the most for the money.

Van Piper was an American general ordering Americans that were on his team. Just so happens that he was the coach on the winning team.

I really don’t see how we “lost” anything.

Look at the big picture guys.

28

Stinkpalm: The big picture is this: The Pentagon would rather cover its own ass and try to pretend it isn’t losing to Golden Agers who try crazy shit than actually admit defeat and attempt to save our soldiers’ lives by improving the situation.

Remember what you learned in school: Ignoring the fact that you failed the last test won’t make you learn Algebra any faster, it means that you’d better get your ass in gear so you don’t fail the whole damn class.

29

What a brilliant guy.

30

Thats what I’m saying. Did the blue team fuck up by not blowing up EVERYTHING within 20 miles? Yep, and they got their ass kicked for that mistake. IRL don’t think for one second that anything will get close to ANY battle group coming into a hostile region. Remember the article stated that it was a mix of civilian and military planes/boats. IRL I don’t think Saddass has any planes or boats that aren’t under heavy camo. As as he takes the camo off he can kiss them good bye. Remember when Iran would send out those speed boats to harass our battle ships? It didn’t do any good then and it won’t now. And, unfortunatly, its been proved that civilian aircraft are no match for a battleship.

Derlith, I don’t agree with your big picture. The big picture I see is a bunch of people that either hate President Bush or the U.S. military so much that they will use any amo that may come their way and twist it to meet their agenda.

Now I agree 80% with your Algebra analogy. I just don’t think this should be looked at as a pass/fail or we will loose the war (or fail the class). Should we learn from this? I think thats what the whole point of the operation was. TO LEARN. Its a shame some people ignore this. And the truth of the matter is that if this was real and this did happen we have many more ships and this would be looked at as the opening battle in the war.

31

Yea, and for the thousands of dead Servicemen and Women, what… “oh well?” It sure as hell seems like “pass fail” when you’re fucking DEAD.

Well, than you thought wrong, that’s EXACLTY what happened. The commanders in the simulation aren’t told “now don’t act like this is real or anything”. They are supposed to do things as if it’s REAL that’s the whole point. They DID what they’d DO. As for :

No, precisely the opposite. Van Ripper just PROVED that in the most sophisticated simulation in the history of the US Military.

You don’t seem to get it CLedet. Silkworms can be fired from small boats or it wouldn’t have been available in the simulation. Likewise the range and accuracy is built in, as is the range and accuracy of US defenses, and the number of available small aircraft, etc… What, you think Van Ripper can just make things up?
“now I will launch my fleet of space shuttles with particle lasers…”

32

What I’m still trying to figure out is how Iraq destroyed our Navy

33

Put me in the “I need context” group. I mean I don’t know what the military was trying to do with this exercise. Were they trying to learn their own weaknesses, trying to validate their battle plan or what? Without know what the purpose of these war games I can’t tell what any of this means.
I mean it’s just like that report from that jabbering nitwit Bill O’Reilly I saw once a long time ago. He was bitching about how nuclear power plans would run training exercises for the security people and how badly they did.(IE they’d only stop the terrorists in some “low” amount of situations.) Of course since he’s a hack he never mentioned how well they needed to do to have an acceptable score.(And personally if I was running these exercises I’d make them rediculously hard and make it next to impossible to get perfect scores. I would go to those lengths so the real battle would be a cake walk.)

34

Sgt. J whether you like it or not it was pretend. Now granted from what I read one side didn’t take it as seriously at it should have. Thats a damn shame since the cost was 250 million.

quote:

IRL don’t think for one second that anything will get close to ANY battle group coming into a hostile region.

Well, than you thought wrong, that’s EXACLTY what happened. The commanders in the simulation aren’t told “now don’t act like this is real or anything”. They are supposed to do things as if it’s REAL that’s the whole point. They DID what they’d DO. As for :

No sir. Again this was a simulation, and a real expensive one. Human nature being what it is, the blue team I’m sure was more than a little over confident. And as far as the “REAL” part, sending codes from a mosque speaker to planes and boats in the Persian Gulf was “Real”? I think the parameters were all fucked up for both sides.

quote:

And, unfortunately its been proved that civilian aircraft are no match for a battleship.

No, precisely the opposite. Van Ripper just PROVED that in the most sophisticated simulation in the history of the US Military

Well in real life we shot down an Iranian jumbo jet in peacetime that got to close. We also sank a few Iranian gun boats that got to close. The simulation didn’t prove dick. Do you really think that given the current situation that a battle group would enter the gulf with a mix of civilian/military aircarft/small boats buzzing all around?

What, you think Van Ripper can just make things up?

No, I just think he’s one bad ass Marine. And he’s on the right side. But I do believe that the parameters were tweaked a little (i.e. I can’t find a single sight with an example of Iraq or anyone else launching sikworms from small boats). Pushing the envelope kinda’, and it makes you think out of the box. Thats what most simulations are about.

35

The prospect of “sitting around for 13 of 14 days” is exactly the antonym of practical. A wise choice would have been to restart, with the same rules, and find a way to defend.

36

Yawn.

Look, guys, a military exercise is NOT a video game. Exercises are typically more to practice command and control than they are to test strategy and tactics.

37

Rick, first, why did you feel the need to resurrect this mess?

Second, why did the government need to cheat if that was the case? It would have taught everyone a lot more if they reset the simulation after they’d lost, and accept the fact they had been defeated, instead of saying `Waah! No fair!’ VanRiper followed the only rule of war: He did what he could with what he had. Period. Ignoring the fact that Saddam fights dirty isn’t going to help us in any way, sort, or form.

I mean, chemical weapons aren’t fair. Why train as if they exist?

Third, how do you realistically test an axle seperate from the entire vehicle? How can you think military training can be realistic if we ignored annoying details like logistics and casualties? After all, this isn’t a video game. We don’t have cheat codes to resurrect our dead. Even if they were shot in the backs by a madman.

38

<hijack> Hey! Gen. VanRiper was my Scoutmaster in Boy Scouts when I lived in Camp Lejune! </hijack>

39

so this $250m video game…does it take quarters or tokens?

40

It takes appropriations.