#1
I was thinking about this great moment in history today and wanted to share it again with all of you:

Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States armed forces in mid-2002. The exercise, which ran from July 24 to August 15 and cost $250 million, involved both live exercises and computer simulations. MC02 was meant to be a test of future military "transformation"—a transition toward new technologies that enable network-centric warfare and provide more effective command and control of current and future weaponry and tactics. The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as "Blue", and an unknown adversary in the Middle East, "Red", with many lines of evidence pointing at Iran being the Red side.

...

Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using 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-style 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.

At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.

After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore. Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, 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.

This led to accusations that the war game had turned from an honest, open, free playtest of America's war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise intended to end in an overwhelming American victory, alleging that "$250 million was wasted".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
#2
The millennium challange 2002
#3
[account deactivated]
#4
I accept the millennium challange 2002. Who will face me?
#5
i forgot about this. still great
#6
[account deactivated]
#7
i remember bringing this up in D&D way back when and their consensus was Van Riper was cheating by trying to win
#8
It turns out operation jade helm was handily won by "a series of roads, paths, and traveled ways which troops were unable to navigate"
#9
My personal responsibility has capped out at 25 million and with the death of "super projects" for the time being it will likely remain that way... Got to say I have nothing but love and respect for the 250 mil bad boys of the govt... Just another benefit to being federal I guess.