The most deranged military rant I've seen.

[Shroom Man 777]

This is almost as good

[PeZook]

This is almost as good

!!!

Holy shit!

Damn, I'm definitely gonna see it if it's available here. Shit, nazis in space!

It better not take itself seriously, though.

[Shroom Man 777]

It SHOULD! That in itself would be funneh.

Well, depends on the definition of "take seriously".

This is AWESOME stupid serious.

[Stuart]

Broke the rules blatantly and got his ass kicked out the door for it. Then he ran to the media and started whining about how his brilliance was being ignored, and the military just kept right on ignoring him.

Wasn't his problem with the rules in the first place?

Specifically, his problem was with three rules that

a) prevented him teleporting assets within missile range of major US units without warning at times of his own choosing.

b) prevented him adding units wholesale to the order of battle with which he was provided and endowing said added units with unattainable levels of firepower and mobility

c) prevented him from disregarding the destruction of the scheduled assets and simply re-inserting them into the battle as if nothing had happened.

Not precisely a rule break but he also spent a lot of his time thinking up complicated reasons why the people controlling the U.S. Navy units should not be allowed to do routine, sensible things (err, like launching aircraft before dawn to provide cover at dawn). He also brought the exercise to repeated halts by arguing with every single rule that had been laid down in the documentation - usually on specious grounds. He openly admitted that he knew his objections were baseless but if he "argued everything and got five percent of his objections approved he was still ahead" FYI he got zero percent approved and his constant disruption was the primary reason why he was kicked out.

[Ma Deuce]

It better not take itself seriously, though.

Dude, this is made by the same guy who brought us Star Wreck: How seriously do you think it's going to take itself?

[Vendetta]

Specifically, his problem was with three rules that...

So, the problem appeared to be that military exercises are not Calvinball?

[Coyote]

Somewhere, some sci-fi writer is pitching the idea for a story where the US gets caught up in a conflict between the Nazi and Lizard Men inhabiting the Hollow Earth, resulting in a three-way war between the powers. Someday, this writer will pitch an idea for a movie, based on that premise, to Michael Bay. The resulting movie will be crap, but it'll still make money because it has lots of cool gunfights and pretty fireballs in it, and teenagers love gunfights and fireballs.

Someone wants to re-make "Land of the Lost"?

[Darth Wong]

Specifically, his problem was with three rules that

a) prevented him teleporting assets within missile range of major US units without warning at times of his own choosing.

b) prevented him adding units wholesale to the order of battle with which he was provided and endowing said added units with unattainable levels of firepower and mobility

c) prevented him from disregarding the destruction of the scheduled assets and simply re-inserting them into the battle as if nothing had happened.

Not precisely a rule break but he also spent a lot of his time thinking up complicated reasons why the people controlling the U.S. Navy units should not be allowed to do routine, sensible things (err, like launching aircraft before dawn to provide cover at dawn). He also brought the exercise to repeated halts by arguing with every single rule that had been laid down in the documentation - usually on specious grounds. He openly admitted that he knew his objections were baseless but if he "argued everything and got five percent of his objections approved he was still ahead" FYI he got zero percent approved and his constant disruption was the primary reason why he was kicked out.

In other words, he wanted to play in "God mode". Too much time spent playing videogames, perhaps?

[Edward Yee]

So what he came up with wasn't anything like a post-OIF I insurgency??

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So what he came up with wasn't anything like a post-OIF I insurgency??

Considering it involved an entirely naval simulation, what fucking crack-smoker compared it to a land war in the first place?

[Sea Skimmer]

So what he came up with wasn't anything like a post-OIF I insurgency??

Not at all, the exercise was simulating a war against a conventional, abet relatively lightly equipped enemy who had chemical weapons. The naval simulation was but one aspect of the exercise, which IIRC involved around 25,000 men with a large chunk of the entire US as the playing field (abet actual fighting had to take place within the land confines of a couple dozen military bases)

[Edward Yee]

So what he came up with wasn't anything like a post-OIF I insurgency??

Not at all, the exercise was simulating a war against a conventional, abet relatively lightly equipped enemy who had chemical weapons. The naval simulation was but one aspect of the exercise, which IIRC involved around 25,000 men with a large chunk of the entire US as the playing field (abet actual fighting had to take place within the land confines of a couple dozen military bases)

So this take on it is inaccurate?

He'd seen the grim results of such thinking in Vietnam, when leaders trained for nuclear war and in love with systems analysis flailed away fighting guerrillas. Then came "Millennium Challenge '02," the $250 million war game Gladwell examined. As a paid consultant, Van Riper led the forces of a generic Islamic tyrant that sank 16 American ships in what one writer called the "worst naval defeat since Pearl Harbor." But the highly critical report Van Riper wrote afterward was never declassified—an example, he believed, of the groupthink that permeated Rumsfeld's Defense Department and the generals he promoted.

Then again, according to Nova (at least as claimed by Wikipedia) supposedly the enemy was supposed to be Israel... I've heard quite a bit of conflicting stuff about that exercise now.

[Ohma]

Note to self: must see Super Atragon.

preview link

If my memory serves, it doesn't have Nazi lizardmen per se. The crazy underground people are ciphers for imperial Japan more than Nazi Germany. But they do live underground, and are able to attack the surface through a hole in the antarctic, and they have giant flying cylinders, and big...flying...gravity lens things.

Oh and there's a WWII era super sub that's pretty much a lo-tech rip off of Space Battleship Yamato.

[Stuart]

In other words, he wanted to play in "God mode". Too much time spent playing videogames, perhaps?

In a way, that's exactly it although the motivation was rather different. In wargaming (a community with whom I have no patience or empathy by the way) there are basically two groups. One of them sits down with ther ules and try to find the loopholes. Their argument is always "well, the rules don't say that I can't (insert insanity of choice)". The other group are utterly committed to one side and will simply cheat to ensure that their favored side wins. If they are Napoleon at Waterloo, the French always win by 1600; if they are the Israelis in the October War, Damascus falls on the third day, if they are the Germans in Barbarossa, Moscow falls in August 1941.

Riper is unique in that he belongs to both communities.

The sort of things he was doing was that he claimed an LHA was sunk when a missile craft fired four SSN-2s into it. Which, to be fair would have sunk her (the damage control on the LHAs is abysmal). The problem was that there was no missile craft in a position to do that. Riper's argument was that it was hidden in teh fishing fleet.

There wasn't a fishing fleet. Riper's argumentw as that there is always a fishing fleet but the US Navy ignored it.

The US Navy doesn't ignore fishing craft. Riper's response was that they didn't have the manpower to watch.

There was no such craft on the OOB Riper's response was that it was a converted fishing carft

Where did the Iraqis get the missiles from Riper's response was that they bought them on the black market.

An arab fishing boat can't carry four anti-ship missiles. Riper's response was that proved how stuck in the mud and conservative the authorities were.

And so it went on.

Riper's problem was that he was so obsessed with assymetric, "fourth generation warfare" (a non-term if I have ever heard one) that he was determined that the side using it would win regardless of reality. As it was, he pretty much destroyed that exercise, it had to be abandoned. he was never involved in one again.

[Beowulf]

Wasn't another problem with the ASMs from fishing boats that the missiles weighed as much as the boats themselves?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wasn't another problem with the ASMs from fishing boats that the missiles weighed as much as the boats themselves?

That, and that launching four ASMs from a converted fishing boat would probably cause it to sink.

[Ma Deuce]

Riper's problem was that he was so obsessed with assymetric, "fourth generation warfare" (a non-term if I have ever heard one) that he was determined that the side using it would win regardless of reality. As it was, he pretty much destroyed that exercise, it had to be abandoned. he was never involved in one again.

Oh, so he's one of those. Seriously the irony here is so thick you could cut it, because cheating to ensure one's ideas would triumph is exactly what Riper accused the DoD of doing. Why is it that every popular account of MC02 is from Riper's side of the story? (conveniently omitting his own misdeeds, which are almost impossible to find any reference to anywhere)

It's not surprising that Riper would run crying to the media after being booted, but why did the DoD make no effort to correct his mistruths? Did they simply not care?

[Edward Yee]

Riper's problem was that he was so obsessed with assymetric, "fourth generation warfare" (a non-term if I have ever heard one) that he was determined that the side using it would win regardless of reality. As it was, he pretty much destroyed that exercise, it had to be abandoned. he was never involved in one again.

Oh, so he's one of those. Seriously the irony here is so thick you could cut it, because cheating to ensure one's ideas would triumph is exactly what Riper accused the DoD of doing. Why is it that every popular account of MC02 is from Riper's side of the story? (conveniently omitting his own misdeeds, which are almost impossible to find any reference to anywhere)

It's not surprising that Riper would run crying to the media after being booted, but why did the DoD make no effort to correct his mistruths? Did they simply not care?

That's the thing that gets me. I admit that my original views of MC02 are based on these popular accounts and this is the first time I've heard of what really went on at MC02, but what gets me is the allegation (at least in media) that he basically wargamed a (naval) equivalent of an insurgency like what'd happen in OIF and somehow the military and gov't completely ignored this, thus stepping into the "trap."

By the way, I assume that "one of those" refers to him being a "4GW" guy?

[Ma Deuce]

By the way, I assume that "one of those" refers to him being a "4GW" guy?

Yep. I've despised that term since I very first heard it. Seriously, it boggles the mind how anyone, especially a USMC General, could think that asymmetrical warfare is anything new, much less that it makes other forms of warfare obsolete (which is the obvious implication of naming it a new "generation" of warfare).

Basically, military geared to destroying other militaries in set-piece battles may not be optimal for counterinsurgency, but it can still get the job done if deployed correctly. On the other hand, a military optimized for counterinsurgency will not fare well at all in conventional warfare.

[Sidewinder]

Basically, military geared to destroying other militaries in set-piece battles may not be optimal for counterinsurgency, but it can still get the job done if deployed correctly. On the other hand, a military optimized for counterinsurgency will not fare well at all in conventional warfare.

Do you mean that a military optimized for counterinsurgency has NO OPTIONS in a major war OTHER THAN insurgency, i.e., guerilla warfare?

I'm reminded of an argument from a Chinese newspaper, in which a self-proclaimed military expert said the PLA doesn't need high-tech toys like the US military, because "people's warfare" (guerilla warfare) can beat those toys; he cited the Vietnam War as an example. When I saw that, I though, "Didn't the Viet Cong suffer MILLIONS of casualties fighting the Americans?" (Wikipedia states the Viet Cong casualties were 1,176,000 dead/missing, 600,000+ wounded; the US, 58,159 dead, 2,000 missing, 305,000 wounded.) "I don't see how having 20 Chinese soldiers die for each American they kill counts as 'winning.'"

[Ma Deuce]

Do you mean that a military optimized for counterinsurgency has NO OPTIONS in a major war OTHER THAN insurgency, i.e., guerilla warfare?

Exactly, and this would be a sorry state of affairs if an enemy attacked your home soil, since guerrilla warfare is essentially a last-ditch defense, and is only truly effective against enemies who have already conquered part or all of your territory, and takes a rather long time to have any real effect on the invader, especially if that invader is determined to win at any cost.

Imagine how the Great Patriotic War would have played out if the Soviets chose to fight the Germans using only partisan/guerrilla tactics. Of course, there were partisan movements on the eastern front that achieved various levels of success, but in the end, it was the massed conventional forces of the RKKA that crushed the Germans, especially because a guerrilla army would not have been able to counterattack into Germany and capture Berlin. Considering also that the Germans were apparently planning to exterminate most of the native Russian population, by the time a partisan campaign had any effect on them, most or all of the native population in the occupied areas might have been dead.

[Edward Yee]

Yep. I've despised that term since I very first heard it. Seriously, it boggles the mind how anyone, especially a USMC General, could think that asymmetrical warfare is anything new, much less that it makes other forms of warfare obsolete (which is the obvious implication of naming it a new "generation" of warfare).

Thank you for answering my question. In response to your implicit question, I'm reminded of this...

What is it about the US Military that tends to produce sound, pragmatic, and common sense ideas about the concrete present, and tends toward illogic, faddish paradigms and hyperbole when dealing with the abstract future?

[TC Pilot]

I'm reminded of an argument from a Chinese newspaper, in which a self-proclaimed military expert said the PLA doesn't need high-tech toys like the US military, because "people's warfare" (guerilla warfare) can beat those toys; he cited the Vietnam War as an example. When I saw that, I though, "Didn't the Viet Cong suffer MILLIONS of casualties fighting the Americans?" (Wikipedia states the Viet Cong casualties were 1,176,000 dead/missing, 600,000+ wounded; the US, 58,159 dead, 2,000 missing, 305,000 wounded.) "I don't see how having 20 Chinese soldiers die for each American they kill counts as 'winning.'"

Even more than that, during the Vietnam War, it was either General Lin Biao or Chen Yi (I can't remember exactly, unfortunately) that actually wrote a book arguing that the advent of people's warfare like the Chinese insurgency in Japanese-occupied China or the Viet Cong against the U.S. had made conventional military operations obsolete, or at least made it impossible to conquer a country motivated to resist.