I read it on Wikipedia some time ago, it was a wargame staged fairly recently where a US commander took Red (Iran) and embarrassed Blue (US and allies) so badly they started over and prevented Red from doing the same tactics so Blue could win.
What was the name of it?
I bet you’re thinking of this:
I have no idea, but these kinds of sgtories pop up nbow and then. Usually the player of the scrappy underdog (who happens to be tyrannical megalomaniacal dictatorship of EVIL!) tries some absurdly farcical tactic to avoid a curb stomp battle, and the judges will say, “Umm… no,” and reset things back a few turns.
Since the purpose of wargames is to see how how in practice events can occur and to familiarize commanders with the issues in a specific military/political context, this makes a lot of sense. Wargames are, in the end, no more detailed or sensible than Warhammer 40K (often less), which means that there are a lot of oddities and exploits in the rules.
That’s it, how can I forget a name like Paul K Van Riper.
Thanks.
Take it from someone who’s participated in war games: The good guys always lose. They stack the deck that way so that the brass can see how far the blue guys can get. Last time I was in a war game, on the last day of the exercise, they "spawned"out of nowhere something like twelve attack helicopter wings to fight a brigade. I ‘died’ within the hour.
So when you hear that the U.S. lost a war game, don’t think anything of it.
Read the wiki cite, the opposite happened. With minimal rules the US lost, but the game was then reset with the rules changed to ensure a US victory.