

Millennium Challenge 2002 - military simulation - mike_esspe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

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542458
The Wikipedia article doesn't really communicate what happened very well IMHO.
This experiment was never designed to examine the combat capabilities of the
US Navy. It was designed to test concepts related to a new concept called Net-
centric warfare. It was a new concept to handle information and the sharing of
information. In order to test this concept under different conditions, things
had to be scripted so that those conditions would occur and the information
dissemination concept could be examined. _What this Van Riper did is similar
to helping somebody practice football kick returns, but instead of helping,
just repeatedly running regular offensive formations._

I'm not necessarily saying Riper was wrong, but I just wanted to point out
that the motivation for the reset runs deeper than "the games were designed to
let blue win".

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bcoates
I get Van Riper's point, but at the same time he was given an impossibly
powerful position -- a military force with the sole objective of military
victory without any underlying political objective.

If this were a real war, with an underlying political situation, and Red sank
an Blue aircraft carrier and killed 20,000 sailors in a day in a preemptive
strike, Blue would respond with rules of engagement that would redefine the
term "atrocity". This wouldn't make for a useful military exercise, and I
don't think anyone wants to see the US military practicing simulated genocide
just to maintain realism.

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shin_lao
Exactly. If red were a real country, it would fear nuclear retaliation.
There's a limit to asymmetric warfare.

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polymatter
If I am a self-obsessed evil dictator who is threatened with certain defeat,
you think I am going to hold off on that master plan to take out a Blue
carrier on the basis that Blue might nuke me?

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shin_lao
There are too many if's. If you're threatened by certain defeat, I think your
immediate concern is saving your own skin or avoid being back-stabbed. But
this is a thought experiment. You could come up with a scenario where it's
untrue, but that would only be a scenario.

Additionally, if you're faced with certain defeat, this means you've lost
significant deterrence. If not, it would be more intelligent to exhibit your
capabilities to negotiate a truce.

War is a power struggle.

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polymatter
I was trying to illustrate a situation where the nuclear deterrent definitely
doesn't apply.

I'll remove some conditions then.

In a war situation, Red will take out a Blue carrier regardless of Blue's
nuclear deterrent because they are at war. The nuclear deterrent makes Red
reluctant to get to the point of war. Once at war, Red will either surrender
under the threat (and hence not be a threat), or call Blue's bluff.

Edit: Also, the position that "they wouldn't dare take out my carrier because
of the atrocity I'd do to them in return" is not a sensible military strategy
during war.

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bd_at_rivenhill
Use of nuclear weapons against primary (i.e. military) targets that are
isolated from civilian populations would not be an atrocity in this case. If
e.g. Iran were to manage to sink a US aircraft carrier, I have no doubt that
they would see the business end of some W80s, and justifiably so.

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ucee054
_and justifiably so_

Yeah! How dare they defend their own country! </sarcasm>

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rangibaby
Basically, the low-tech commander "hacked" the wargame by using his forces
effectively in unexpected ways. The USA invasion force cheated by bringing
dead forces back to life (respawning?!) and forcing the enemy to do what they
were "meant to".

If only it were that easy in real life.

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randallsquared
I've read that many of the operations Red "performed" worked only by fiat.
Motorcycle messengers delivered messages without fail and instantaneously,
cruise missiles were mounted on boats which in real life would be arguably too
small to support them, etc.

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kaoD
The point here is that he was successful recognizing valuable vectors of
attack. Red did a great job using his most valuable resources.

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talmand
But the comment suggests that some of the vectors of attack were essentially
impossible. One could dream up several possible ways to attack a superior
force but that doesn't mean they would all actually work.

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kaoD
Who cares? It's an abstraction. Blue should've used his best bets just like in
real life. Both were aware of the rules.

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talmand
Well, if we're allowed to use methods that are essentially impossible; then in
my fabricated arsenal for our simulation I have a weapon that destroys all
resources of the opposing force and places all their personnel in a location
of my choosing with the push of a big, red button.

After all, who cares if our simulation attempts to simulate realistic
conditions?

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kaoD
You're implying Red controlled the simulation. He didn't. Red just took
advantage of it (just like we take advantage of real life mechanics).

The one who's to blame is whoever built the simulation, not Red for using it.

Are atomic bombs cheating? Because they're ridiculously powerful. They must be
a bug in simulation, right? :P

> I have a weapon that destroys all resources of the opposing force

That's the atomic bomb.

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talmand
Regardless of who controlled the simulation, if it aims to simulate reality
then you simply cannot use unrealistic tactics as that destroys the purpose of
the simulation. The blame belongs to the person who was in control of the
simulation and didn't enforce basic rules established by reality. If we're not
enforcing reality in this type of simulation then the outcome of said
simulation is pointless and indicates nothing about military readiness nor
doctrine.

Use of nuclear weapons would not be considered cheating in this case simply
because they exist. The discussion about nuclear weapons was whether they
would prove to be a deterrence or not, not whether they could be used.

And since you left out the second part of my fabricated weapon spec, I have to
point out I wasn't speaking of nuclear weapons as they don't magically
relocate the enemy personnel to a location of my choosing. But you knew that
right?

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kaoD
Okay, you win, rigging the outcome is a better simulation.

~~~
talmand
Okay, you win, enforcing reality will now be known as rigging the outcome.

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jessriedel
I've heard this story before and don't necessarily doubt it, but it does seem
a bit romantic. Fits too easily in with everyone's favorite criticism of the
military. Does anyone have a version not based on Riper's account?

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Chico75
Despite the lack of sources, some people on reddit provided a more realistic
analysis of this story :
[http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/18tsda/til_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/18tsda/til_that_in_2002_a_retired_marine_corps_general/c8hyv61)

~~~
jessriedel
Yea, this is the type of criticism I expect, but it's pretty useless so long
as the source is "another reddit thread I read and can only partially
remember".

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alan_cx
Initially I was full of thoughts and comments to do with low tech and olde
skool methods easily taking on big political, policing and military forces,
etc. Often this comes to mind when I hear the authorities talking about
terrorists using the internet and cell phones for communicating, and getting
caught. What's wrong the the old dead drop, human courier, etc, I think. And
MC02 is another great example. But I bet we all think that. So... boring!!!!

However, having read this, the comments here and particularly the article in
exile.ru, Im wondering about the problem of the aircraft carrier. As I
understand it, the point of these things is to plonk a use-able base near or
in the theatre of operations. "Projecting power" is the phrase, I believe.
Anyway, these operations, and other examples, talk about being 100 miles off
shore, or something similar, and there for being vulnerable to small mass
attacks, one of operations, or what ever. The conclusion seems to be that
aircraft carriers are vulnerable sitting ducks, and there for useless.
Further, carrier owners are some how wrong for wanting, using or advocating
them. I disagree.

If one is going to engage in this sort of war, a base near where the war is to
be fought is essential. The US (China, Russia, etc) cant do war in the middle
east (or anywhere not close to the people doing war) with out some thing like
a carrier, unless suddenly the locals get friendly and allow huge US bases on
their land. Yes, deals were, are and will be done, but its not comprehensive
or ideal. If it were, heh, why war? Oops, tangent...

Anyway, point being, the carrier is as vital as it is vulnerable. What needs
to be sorted out is how you get them in place, then defend them. But IMHO,
they are certainly not worthless, useless, or even slightly redundant. They
are literally a part of the country that can be manoeuvred to different
places. If you can't do that, you can easily do major war 1000's of miles
away.

Edit: Or, I read too much Tom Clancy....

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venus
From the wikipedia links, I thought this was a good analysis:
[http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&...](http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&IBLOCK_ID=35&PAGE=1)

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mjs
What is real and what is simulated in war games such as this? It apparently
cost US$250m, so you'd think some of it would be real but for example were
real motorcycle messengers used to transmit messages to real front-line
troops? Were ships actually moved? Were cruise missiles actually fired?

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adestefan
It's mostly simulated. The cost is in the simulation plus the tons of people
it takes to create and run a game of this massive scale.

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larrydag
So basically its just a QuakeCon?

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nawitus
There's also been some criticism about Riper's claims, that the simulation was
completely unrealistic. That said, it's not very constructive to use
simulations to prove points about war strategy, because simulations are pretty
much always rigged to let one side win.

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stcredzero
Are there any RTS games which could be used to play out Red vs. Blue? Seems
like Iran paid attention, and they've been developing doctrine and hardware
based on Millenium Challenge. If I were the US, I would be developing weapons
and tactics against Van Riper's. (Like stealth drones that can target
motorcycle messengers.)

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bjhoops1
Malcolm Gladwell has a chapter on this in his book Blink. Really interesting
read about how frequently instinctual, snap decisions (Red team) based off of
limited information result in better results than overly analyzed decisions
based off of loads and loads of information (Blue team).

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Sumaso
An old story but a good one.

Reminds me of the documentary "The Fog of War".

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LiamMcCalloway
A good watch before The Gatekeepers, both on its on terms and as on of the
inspirations for the The Gatekeepers' director Dror Moreh.

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saurabh
The documentary "The Perfect War" mentioned in the article seems unavailable
on the interwebs.

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blablabla123
This sounds completely insane ;)

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vrta
I expected to read that Van Riper died of natural causes later that year.

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RobotCaleb
Is that really what you expected?

