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View Full Version : Millenium Challenge in the Persian Gulf Could Have Been as Bad as Pearl Harbor



Conley
11-08-2011, 09:15 AM
During the summer of 2002, in the run-up to President Bush's invasion of Iraq, the US military staged the most elaborate and expensive war games ever conceived. Operation Millennium Challenge, as it was called, cost some $250 million, and required two years of planning. The mock war was not aimed at Iraq, at least, not overtly. But it was set in the Persian Gulf, and simulated a conflict with a hypothetical rogue state. The "war" involved heavy use of computers, and was also played out in the field by 13,500 US troops, at 17 different locations and 9 live-force training sites. All of the services participated under a single joint command, known as JOINTFOR. The US forces were designated as "Force Blue," and the enemy as OPFOR, or "Force Red." The "war" lasted three weeks and ended with the overthrow of the dictatorial regime on August 15.

At any rate, that was the official outcome. What actually happened was quite different, and ought to serve up a warning about the grave peril the world will face if the US should become embroiled in a widening conflict in the region.

As the war games were about to commence on July 18 2002, Gen. William "Buck" Kernan, head of the Joint Forces Command, told the press that the operation would test a series of new war-fighting concepts recently developed by the Pentagon, concepts like "rapid decisive operations, effects-based operations, operational net assessments," and the like. Later, at the conclusion of the games, Gen. Kernan insisted that the new concepts had been proved effective. At which point, JOINTFOR drafted recommendations to Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on the experiment's satisfactory results in such areas as doctrine, training and procurement.

But not everyone shared Gen. Kernan's rosy assessment. It was sharply criticized by the straight-talking Marine commander who had been brought out of retirement to lead Force Red. His name was Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, and he had played the role of the crazed but cunning leader of the hypothetical rogue state. Gen. Van Riper dismissed the new military concepts as empty sloganeering, and he had reason to be skeptical. In the first days of the "war," Van Riper's Force Red sent most of the US fleet to the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm

I was reading about this last night. Amazing tactics employed by Van Riper, and it seems the military discounted it all. I hope that some lessons were learned from it. It is a great story if you have time for it.

MMC
11-08-2011, 10:32 AM
Yes.....yes.....also included was looking at not having a massive amphibious assualt. As that may be obsolete when engaging in future wars. Althought knowing the environment and using the lay of the land does help. If a population will not submit. Then casulties for both sides will be very high. http://politirant.com/Smileys/oldrant/icon_salut.gif http://politirant.com/Smileys/oldrant/harrr.jpg

Conley
11-08-2011, 11:03 AM
Van Riper didn't last long afterwards. His techniques are basically a "how to" defeat the U.S. Navy.

Speedboats are a big, big problem.

Also like I posted in the Iran Endgame thread, they can just spawn mines all over the Persian Gulf and everything will come to a crashing halt.

MMC
11-08-2011, 11:17 AM
Van Riper didn't last long afterwards. His techniques are basically a "how to" defeat the U.S. Navy.

Speedboats are a big, big problem.

Also like I posted in the Iran Endgame thread, they can just spawn mines all over the Persian Gulf and everything will come to a crashing halt.


Heres the kicker.....Iran will take a play out of the Nazis books. They will use Torpedo Subs. The Nazis had Military prisoners that they made attacks on ships being attached to torpedoes. Course nowadays one can thank robotics. Wherein people do not need to be used. onced moved into postion. Such can be detonated.

I agree about the Speedboats. Which will present a real danger to our Destroyers. Which protect a fleet. Well one part anyways.

Conley
11-08-2011, 11:21 AM
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lt. General Paul K. Van Riper, used old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World War II light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

Due to his concerns about the scripted nature of the new exercise, Van Riper resigned his position in the midst of the war game. Van Riper later expressed concern that the wargame's purpose had shifted to reinforce existing doctrine and notions of infallibility within the U.S. military rather than serve as a learning experience. He was quoted in the ZDF–New York Times documentary The Perfect War[4] as saying that what he saw in MC02 echoed the same view promoted by the Department of Defense under Robert McNamara before and during the Vietnam War, namely that the U.S. military could not and would not be defeated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Conventional tactics that would have decimated our forces at the time.

MMC
11-08-2011, 11:24 AM
:o McNamara.....Spits! >:(

Conley
11-08-2011, 11:27 AM
You know what they say about not learning from past mistakes :-[

Van Riper sank an aircraft carrier with those tactics, think Iran could do the same?

MMC
11-08-2011, 12:03 PM
You know what they say about not learning from past mistakes :-[

Van Riper sank an aircraft carrier with those tactics, think Iran could do the same?


Especially with models. Submersibles.

Peter1469
11-13-2011, 09:49 AM
I remember when these games happened. I don't think the military had another free and open war game after that. The concept of war gaming helped make the US military the best the world has ever seen. But it also fails to think outside of the box and to punish those who do.

Peter1469
11-13-2011, 09:51 AM
And those small boat swarming tactics is exactly what will happen in the Persian Gulf is Israel bombs Iran's nuke sites. Iran can close the straits to commerce. Hello global depression.

Conley
11-13-2011, 09:53 AM
And those small boat swarming tactics is exactly what will happen in the Persian Gulf is Israel bombs Iran's nuke sites. Iran can close the straits to commerce. Hello global depression.


Exactly. They will mine the f out of it...which is also why I think oil and gold still have room to grow.

MMC
11-13-2011, 09:55 AM
Moreover there are other Bedoiun tribes outside the Berbers that will go after the pipeline that links thru Egypt not for just Oil but Water too.

Looks like we will strengthen Kuwait. Note we also have a submarine base In the Maldives.

jgreer
11-13-2011, 11:47 AM
Looks like another reason to chose peace with Iran

MMC
11-14-2011, 01:02 AM
Looks like another reason to chose peace with Iran


So simple eh JG.....if such was the case. Then all Iran had to do is say to the World that Israel has the right to exist. Iran could have stepped up and stated that they would not allow the Sunni to Suppress anybody in the ME. Nor committ genocide on anybody.

See how simple that would be.....would have told the World that Iran, the Shia stood with Israel. Forcing the rest of the world to look closely at the Sunni and scrutinize them even more closely.

Yet all keep talking about Iran getting Nukes. Which all do not say that this is a good thing. Not even close. Most countries around the world do not view it as such. But to be fair.....I, myself, get tired of hearing the Saudis cry about them wanting a Nuke every single time the Iranians make a speech. None of them should have be given our technology. None of them!

Peter1469
11-14-2011, 05:50 PM
The problem with making peace with Iran is that Iran has to play along.