It was a simulation of a war between the USA and Iran, carried out by the USA. The US lost quite badly. I'll add stuff in brackets
Red (Iran in the simulation), commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's (USA) sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue (USA in the simulation), 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: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's 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.
They then proceeded to change all the rules of the simulation to make the USA win lol
Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force (Iran in the simulation) was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and during a combined parachute assault by the 82nd Airborne Division and Marines air assaulting on the then new and still controversial CV-22, Van Riper's forces were ordered not to shoot down any of the approaching aircraft.[5][6] Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force (USA in the simulation), and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.[7]
The Straight of Hormuz has always been a known death-trap for the American surface fleet. It's narrow enough that it could easily be saturated with anti-shipping missiles, mines, or small boats armed with missiles or suicide payloads. The credible threat of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz has been an important factor in imperialist planning since '79.
They then proceeded to change all the rules of the simulation to make the USA win lol
this is the biggest red flag from an organisational perspective just not even remotely interested in improving which since they want to use their powers for evil is a good thing
Yeah it's good that the US empire is run by a bunch of failchildren and retirees, imagine if anyone competent was at the helm. That would be horrifying.
To play the devil's advocate; Setting up a large scale training involves probably tens of thousands of people, millions of dollars, and millions of moving parts. Even if they had wanted to analyze what happened and learn from it that would be something to do in next-years op. They've got a time window to work with, so aside from COPE they probably also reset and went ahead with other trainings because they didn't have time to change the schedule and start over from scratch. The training where the US got it's ass absolutely handed to it would be studied and workshopped and analyzed for future use.
That said, the US did get it's teeth kicked in and the "enemy" have had 20 years to iterate and improve while the US military remains burdened by the fiscal needs of the military industrial complex and it's role as America's leading jobs program.
While everyone dying on a sinking ship is very unlikely in this day and age, the exercise determined thay due to the destruction of so many ships at the same time, losses would indeed be very high and most survivors would likely be captured, depending on proximity to Iran
It revealed the clear weaknesses of the US military against a competent adversary, so the generals re wrote the rules until America won, because the USA can't lose!
Technically they re-wrote the rules because they got everyone out of bed and needed them to actually practice stuff. getting your ass kicked on day one and sending everyone home isn't good use of training dollars. It just so happens that day-one revealed that all the training they were doing was probably pointless twenty years ago, and is even more-so now when America's designated enemies have had 20 years to build improved weapons and tactics while America is still wearing the albatross of the aircraft carrier battle group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
It was a simulation of a war between the USA and Iran, carried out by the USA. The US lost quite badly. I'll add stuff in brackets
They then proceeded to change all the rules of the simulation to make the USA win lol
Huh so forget China vaporizing every carrier battle group within range instantly, Iran could also do this, according to the Pentagon...
Did they use this to ask for more money???
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I edited my original comment now, so you can read that for what they did, they re ran the simulation and changed the rules so America would win.
And then they asked for more money lol.
The Straight of Hormuz has always been a known death-trap for the American surface fleet. It's narrow enough that it could easily be saturated with anti-shipping missiles, mines, or small boats armed with missiles or suicide payloads. The credible threat of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz has been an important factor in imperialist planning since '79.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz#Events
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"Your trial subscription to your iM-16 has expired, please purchase more BulletCoinz™ to continue murdering innocents"
run a war on the blockchain because why the fuck not. All bullets fired must be accompanied with the purchase of a bullet buddies NFT warbond
Yeah, here they just snuck around and overwhelmed all the technology anyways.
this is the biggest red flag from an organisational perspective just not even remotely interested in improving which since they want to use their powers for evil is a good thing
Yeah it's good that the US empire is run by a bunch of failchildren and retirees, imagine if anyone competent was at the helm. That would be horrifying.
yeah as their job is killing loads of people it's good they're so bad at it
To play the devil's advocate; Setting up a large scale training involves probably tens of thousands of people, millions of dollars, and millions of moving parts. Even if they had wanted to analyze what happened and learn from it that would be something to do in next-years op. They've got a time window to work with, so aside from COPE they probably also reset and went ahead with other trainings because they didn't have time to change the schedule and start over from scratch. The training where the US got it's ass absolutely handed to it would be studied and workshopped and analyzed for future use.
That said, the US did get it's teeth kicked in and the "enemy" have had 20 years to iterate and improve while the US military remains burdened by the fiscal needs of the military industrial complex and it's role as America's leading jobs program.
It's the US army that's pocket change for them. Also it's not like they have important things to do
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While everyone dying on a sinking ship is very unlikely in this day and age, the exercise determined thay due to the destruction of so many ships at the same time, losses would indeed be very high and most survivors would likely be captured, depending on proximity to Iran
just realized 2-3 days of Covid kills more Americans than Afghanistan and Iraq combined
how is this not a cringy natsec DnD that the generals got way too salty about?
It revealed the clear weaknesses of the US military against a competent adversary, so the generals re wrote the rules until America won, because the USA can't lose!
Technically they re-wrote the rules because they got everyone out of bed and needed them to actually practice stuff. getting your ass kicked on day one and sending everyone home isn't good use of training dollars. It just so happens that day-one revealed that all the training they were doing was probably pointless twenty years ago, and is even more-so now when America's designated enemies have had 20 years to build improved weapons and tactics while America is still wearing the albatross of the aircraft carrier battle group.