Remember the US General who beat the US in the US/Iraq war games?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,786992,00.html

Wake-up call

If the US and Iraq do go to war, there can only be one winner, can't there? Maybe not. This summer, in a huge rehearsal of just such a conflict - and with retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper playing Saddam - the US lost. Julian Borger asks the former marine how he did it

Friday September 6, 2002
The Guardian

At the height of the summer, as talk of invading Iraq built in Washington like a dark, billowing storm, the US armed forces staged a rehearsal using over 13,000 troops, countless computers and $250m. Officially, America won and a rogue state was liberated from an evil dictator.

What really happened is quite another story, one that has set alarm bells ringing throughout America's defence establishment and raised questions over the US military's readiness for an Iraqi invasion. In fact, this war game was won by Saddam Hussein, or at least by the retired marine playing the Iraqi dictator's part, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper.

In the first few days of the exercise, using surprise and unorthodox tactics, the wily 64-year-old Vietnam veteran sank most of the US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf, bringing the US assault to a halt.

What happened next will be familiar to anyone who ever played soldiers in the playground. Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in US history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their dead troops back to life and "refloated" the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as their marines performed amphibious landings. Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. Instead, he sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game - grandiosely entitled Millennium Challenge - staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on August 15, with a US "victory".

If the Pentagon thought it could keep its mishap quiet, it underestimated Van Riper. A classic marine - straight-talking and fearless, with a purple heart from Vietnam to prove it - his retirement means he no longer has to put up with the bureaucratic niceties of the defence department. So he blew the whistle.

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[Noordam]

1. NNN0LHI, while I really do not believe Iraq COULD have

pulled that off in real life, IRAN is a different country. It has a very long coast line and THREE SUBs from the Russia. They also have Silkworm anti-ship missles.

To go against IRAN IMHO would get the results that Van Riper first got.....

[NNN0LHI]

3. That was just one aspect of his tactics. We don't know the rest of it

I sure would like to know if during the game the good general turned to true guerrilla warfare tactics before it was over with?

Don

[Noordam]

4. I am sure it did

"retired marine playing the Iraqi dictator's part, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper. "

Had he been AF or Navy probably not, but Army or Marine you could count on it.

[Aidoneus]

13. leaving aside militarily, Iran could be an economic catastrophe

if I was Sayyid Khamanei, first priority in light of any crusader assault on Iran would be to mine the Hormuz straits:--global economy overnight rushes to the shitter, being hit where it hurts with little effort.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

2. i love that story

I remember reading this when it first came out. It's exactly like little kids playing army. It's a shame that such a brilliant mind was frustrated enough to retire because of this, because of doing his job brilliantly. These are exactly the kind of people we need working for us, anticipating enemy moves - instead we drive them to an early retirement because they are a thorn in the side of the status quo

[izzie]

6. Well we all know Nepoleon but who recalls the General that said

You can not take Russia, even if he was right.

[madrchsod]

5. according to a review

published in proceedings magazine several issues ago,if the iraqi army had a decent groundd and air defence ,the us army would have been stalled and in serious trouble in the long desert drive to bagdad. any electronic interference with our communication systems would have devistating to our defence and offensive situtations. otherwise we would have been screwed for days or weeks before we could regain the offensive ability. how many soldiers would we have lost in the defence dept blunder? who knows? the tone of the article has a feeling that we just got by ,the next time we won`t be so lucky.

[papau]

7. In the game Iraq had an Army - but Bush knew that was a lie- so no problem

If Iraq was a evil and strong as Bush pretended, then a war game with that nation would indeed have been interesting.

But they were the Flintstone army - and everyone knew it - so the walk over was a given - and so no reason to stop war game since main reason for game was to lay out the "tourist" route to Baghdad for our tanks. Our Kids were brave - but those at the top were and are liars.

[underpants]

8. We had a SSgt. who got so lost he found an unknown part of a program

It was a very comlex troop movement training tool (we could "fight" troops from anywhere) and one of our dumba** NCO's got so lost that even the computer programmers had never seen the area he was driving in.

Oh yeah and when they fired up the simulator our whole platoon lit up the Lt.'s copter. It was too funny.

[The Magistrate]

9. A Small Historical Tit-Bit, My Friend

The Imperial Japanese Navy Staff war-gamed Midway prior to its execution. The admiral assigned to the U.S. role brought out his carriers early, and by the rules sank half the Japanese carriers in a surprise attack. It was then ruled that such an action would be impossible, and the exercise was repeated to yield the looked for victorious result.

[Yupster]

12. Similar story

Before the Germans attacked Russia, they wargamed it thoroughly.

The final recommendation was that at about the six weeks mark, Armee Gruppes North and South would begin to ask for armored formations to be lent to them from Armee Gruppe Centre. They wargamed the options over and over again and came to the conclusion that it was not to Germany's advantage to divert those troops away from the central attack toward Moscow.

Sure enough when the invasion commenced, the requests came in just about when predicted. After weeks of thought and indecision, Hitler decided to divert the armored forces.

The result was the greatest encirclement in the history of the world as the Germans surrounded and captured over 600,000 Russian soldiers in the Ukraine,

But,

Moscow did not fall.

General Paulus's wargamers were right.

[JM]

10. Here is a GEM...

...

"Millennium Challenge was the biggest war game of all time. It had been planned for two years and involved integrated operations by the army, navy, air force and marines. The exercises were part real, with 13,000 troops spread across the United States, supported by actual planes and warships; and part virtual, generated by sophisticated computer models. It was the same technique used in Hollywood blockbusters such as Gladiator. The soldiers in the foreground were real, the legions behind entirely digital.

The game was theoretically set in 2007 and pitted Blue forces (the US) against a country called Red. Red was a militarily powerful Middle Eastern nation on the Persian Gulf that was home to a crazed but cunning megalomaniac (Van Riper)."

Planning is one thing, but to have planned this *particular* scenario two years ago?

Once (not surrounding the Taliban) is a mistake. Twice (not surrounding Tora Bora) is stupid. Three times (invading from one direction while an entire division is on ships) is a pattern of behavior. This exercise, if true, just shows they are a bunch of "yes men". And by the way, where are the crazed megalomaniacs right now?

Osama - ?
Saddam - ?
Kim Jong Il - Pyongyang
Dubya - Crawford
Dick - ?
Rummy - Arlington

Later,
JM

[maggrwaggr]

11. shoulda been called "Minimum Challenge"

instead of Millenium. The way it worked out.