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Do you prefer the extended summer thread format? This poll is closed. |
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| I'm Scottish |
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Presumably blue force were also allowed to edit rules.ini Red force (under Van Riper) basically 'won' by exploiting both loopholes in the computer-based simulated bits of the exercise and the operational constraints of the real-world bits of the exercise, plus some extremely lax oversight by the observers. Due to it not being a real war the USN amphibious landing forces couldn't block civilian shipping lanes with a continuous back-and-forth flow of landing vessels and hovercraft, so the landing ships were placed inshore of the lanes, right in the visual sight of Red Force and within range of their low-tech shore-based missiles, and inside the minimum effective range for the Blue ships' anti-missile systems. In a real conflict all the USN ships would have been many miles way over the horizon. Van Riper's use of motorcycle couriers was unrealistic - he just declared to the observers that he was sending all his orders by courier so there would be no radio traffic to detect or intercept...but continued to send and receive messages at the same rate, speed and reliability as if he was still using radio. The computer simulation let Van Riper mount powerful anti-ship missiles on tiny RHIBs that were, in reality, not physically capable of carrying the missile and its launcher, let alone the targetting and other support equipment. The computer simulation also couldn't cope with the fact that the Blue Force ships were right off Red's coastline - in effect they were seen as occupying the same gridsquare, so the attack boats (with their impossible missile armament) appeared instantaneously amongst the Blue fleet, with no need to cover any distance to approach them and no chance for any close-in weapons to be deployed. It basically made that entire engagement come down to the simulation's outcome dice-roll which (because Van Riper was using an impossible number of impossibly fast boats carrying impossible missiles) ended in disaster for Blue. The 're-setting' of the war game and the re-floating of the sunk fleet is normal - war games aren't mock battles, fought from beginning to end. They're to explore strategies, test ideas and equipment and train units. If the primary purpose of the 14-day exercise is to stage the land-based phase of an amphibious landing against an opposing force and the secondary purpose is to test and train the maritime elements in continued support and supply of the landing force in the days and weeks after the initial landing, that's all rendered pointless if Red Force manages to sink the entire Blue Force on Day 1. They don't just tell the guys on the 'sunk' ships "you're dead now, just chill for the next two weeks". They either 'refloat' the sunk ships or restart the entire exercise taking lessons learnt into account. In the case of MC2002, it was that Red Force was, if not exactly cheating, not playing the part of a useful opposition in the context of the exercise. What a boring post for the top of the page: the Type 83 destroyer is the designation for the Royal Navy's next destroyer class. Presumably it is 1.86 times bigger, better and more British than the the Type 45. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jun 24, 2021 |
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Jun 24, 2021 14:22
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It's funny because when you play wargame red dragon that's also the way you win, because the reds have the bloody sovremenny class which is basically impervious to anything nato can throw at it, except half a dozen lovely little missile boats all firing at the same time which can basically one shot it. But the actual destroyer and frigate sized craft are designed for sustained missile bombardment which is basically useless against the top end red CIWS. So you spend the first half of every naval battle trying to save up enough points to buy a massive blob of missile choppers or boats, and then dump them all at once into the enemy destroyer so you can actually go near them without getting melted. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jun 24, 2021 |
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Jun 24, 2021 14:27
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haakman posted:Tanks firing attack dogs...! And when the dogs bark they fire bees at you. Shyrka posted:There was some space battles one back in the day where people would build these lovingly made space battleships with all kinds of bells and whistles, then someone rocked up spending all their points on a horde of tiny guns with engines that eviscerated everything. Is this a table top thing? Sounds like it could be Battlefleet Gothic, one of the 40k naval games. BizarroAzrael fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Jun 24, 2021 |
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Jun 24, 2021 14:29
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Shyrka posted:I always love stories of war game/simulations happening across some absurdly effective strat that gets banned because no one can figure out a counter. I'm not sure how true this is, but I remember once reading that because of the nature of the wargame, Riper's tactics involved him making up stuff his side didn't actually have to thwart the other side's tactics. So for example when he used "motorcycle messengers" to circumvent his transmissions being blocked, what he was actually doing was sending the orders electronically and just saying "pretend I used motorcycle messengers to send these", because Red hadn't actually been given any motorcycle messengers for the exercise. Which meant that he was sending his orders in real time and without any of the risks you actually get from using motorcycle messengers (and Blue had zero intelligence that Red actually had things like motorcycle messengers, because they didn't until Riper just said he did). Similarly with the small boats he used to sink the blue ships, that the ships could have bombs on them wasn't accounted for in the exercise, so Red could put huge "bombs" on small boats and not have to worry about, say, the boats being slowed by that weight and becoming easier to hit. One of the arguments made afterward was that Riper's tactics were not actually unbeatable, and had the wargame been a test of "US Military vs Guerilla warfare" he'd have been given the tools he used, and the Blue team would have been equipped to respond to them, but since the point of wargame was actually a test of "US Military vs conventional army", the red team deciding to turn a guerilla warfare campaign doesn't actually tell you anything about how the US military would perform against a conventional army. Of course this is all from the Blue side of things after the fact (and so almost certainly sour grapes at least in part), but I guess if you are making up units, Blue can just go "OK, we nuke you." and win by default, so.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:36
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ronya posted:A well-known one: One notable example in this specific situation - the US believed torpedo attacks against moored ships in Pearl Harbor to be impossible due to the shallow depth of the harbour. The Japanese could only do it through modifying their aerial torpedoes with wooden caps and fins and maniacal training to get the timing right on the drop, neither of which the US anticipated.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:40
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haakman posted:Tanks firing attack dogs...! Every unit is a tesla coil Just imagining Van Riper sitting there eating an apple with a poo poo eating grin on his face.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:41
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ronya posted:
 Not "Asians lacked sufficient technology and training to engage in that kind of precision bombing", straight up Asians have less visual awareness. Presumably, due to, you know  tfw you're too racist to predict Pearl Harbor  BizarroAzrael posted:Is this a table top thing? Sounds like it could be Battlefleet Gothic, one of the 40k naval games.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:44
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Shyrka posted:I always love stories of war game/simulations happening across some absurdly effective strat that gets banned because no one can figure out a counter. There was a Warhammer 40k game in a tournament where a guy lost before he could deploy any of his army, before turn 1. Normally you both set up your armies at the same time, so you can both see the other. He decided not to deploy any. But one army or tactic had the ability to hold off part of his army upto ALL of it until his turn. So the enemy army deployed 1 inch from his side, in a line, all up and down the deployment side. This prevented him from deploying as you couldn't do so so close to the enemy. Dude thought he was smart, got owned back and lost the tourny.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:45
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I mean it's sort of a thing in real life, people were still theorizing that the battleship was going to be a key element of naval combat right up until the fights in the pacific in WW2 basically demonstrated that no, actually a big pile of planes launched from carriers was going to be the deciding factor and the battleships are actually not very helpful most of the time.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:47
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BizarroAzrael posted:Is this a table top thing? Sounds like it could be Battlefleet Gothic, one of the 40k naval games. It wasn't 40k, it was some absurdly complex grognard game back in the 80s. I remember reading about it on these forums but I'm having trouble googling for the specifics. People would play it at big convention tournaments with really grandiose and well balanced battleship fleets until someone came in with the swarm of tiny guns which couldn't be beaten and got banned.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:49
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Just imagining Van Riper sitting there eating an apple with a poo poo eating grin on his face. He failed - badly - at the job he was given during MC2002, which was to play the role of a conventional opposing force, and his behaviour afterwards was...less than mature. But the reason why he went all Kirk-on-the-Kobayashi-Maru-Test on the exercise was because he felt it was a waste of time. The script (and wargames pretty much are fully plotted-out performances rather than dynamic scenarios, hence why, at a top-end level at least, you're not supposed to play them 'properly') called for Red Force to play the part of a large conventional military with technology and tactics typical of a large Middle Eastern country. Van Riper's point was that the US was never going to fight such a war and that future conflicts involving US ground forces were almost certainly going to be hugely asymmetric but against irregular, unconventional forces that played 'sneaky'. That doesn't excuse him abdicated his role once he assigned it, or rule-lawyering the game to play it the way he thought it should be played and to make his point in public, but by all accounts he didn't do it just for shits and giggles. Guavanaut posted:Lmao When the American Volunteer Group was searching for pilots to go and fight the Japanese in China and Burma (before the US entered WW2 - this was 1940) some of the pilots were told by recruiters that it would be a complete doddle because all Japanese pilots wore spectacles, couldn't fly proper aerobatics due to an inherent lack of inner-ear balance and they couldn't fly at night because they had no night vision. This was the Japanese Army Air Force which had torn through the Chinese Air Force and the Soviet Volunteer Group in eastern China, had firebombed most of the large Chinese cities and was forcing the Chinese government to keep moving its capital city further and further west with a sustained and devastating air campaign.
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Jun 24, 2021 14:57
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Well yeah, but that was against Chinese pilots and AA gunners, who presumably by the logic of the time kept shooting at their own feet or something.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:01
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happyhippy posted:There was a Warhammer 40k game in a tournament where a guy lost before he could deploy any of his army, before turn 1. The full story. The photograph really makes it. 
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Jun 24, 2021 15:04
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https://twitter.com/DreamSuiteSFM/status/1407808862305009664 https://twitter.com/DreamSuiteSFM/status/1407852532471418881
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Jun 24, 2021 15:16
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Van Riper is a perfect name for a US general. I'm feeling a bit let down to find out his first name is Paul though.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:20
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Baron Von Ripers tactical approach seems less "Army vs Guerrilla" than "Army vs Army that's allowed to do things you hadn't anticipated". Like being a conventional army doesn't mean you wholly abdicate the element of surprise, and some of the post-hoc objections are pathetic - an army can access guys on motorbikes pretty easily, that's not exactly a stretch. Anyway, there's enough Real World Evidence of USA being constantly owned in asymmetric conflicts that it's barely even worth evaluating. Also, the Chapo episode about this exercise featuring the War Nerd guy was good
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Jun 24, 2021 15:29
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Why can't all military history be this interesting? There should be a military history podcast which is just dunking on dumb battles. Hell of a way to die is kind of like this but it tends to be more focused on minutiae and gear.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:32
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Why can't all military history be this interesting? Most of it actually is. Time Commanders the TV show gave life to Roman or such battles, giving the info and background behind them. Actually, that would be a cool Twitch or YT channel to do.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:35
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MikeCrotch posted:One notable example in this specific situation - the US believed torpedo attacks against moored ships in Pearl Harbor to be impossible due to the shallow depth of the harbour. The Japanese could only do it through modifying their aerial torpedoes with wooden caps and fins and maniacal training to get the timing right on the drop, neither of which the US anticipated. And to be fair at the time of the exercise it probably was impossible due to the limits of the armanents and planes at the time. The Japanese only decided it was actually a possible strategy against the Americans at Pearl Harbour after the british used aerial torpedos to sink part of the Italian fleet at anchor during the battle of Taranto in November 1940.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:38
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Shyrka posted:It wasn't 40k, it was some absurdly complex grognard game back in the 80s. I remember reading about it on these forums but I'm having trouble googling for the specifics. People would play it at big convention tournaments with really grandiose and well balanced battleship fleets until someone came in with the swarm of tiny guns which couldn't be beaten and got banned. It was Traveller.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:39
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Why can't all military history be this interesting? I think that's basically what the aforementioned War Nerd podcast does but haven't really checked out
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Jun 24, 2021 15:39
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happyhippy posted:Most of it actually is. Time Commanders the TV show gave life to Roman or such battles, giving the info and background behind them.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:40
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Why can't all military history be this interesting? Lions Led By Donkeys is good for this.
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Jun 24, 2021 15:55
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Was time commanders the one that used the total war engine? That was cool. Yeah, it was great. The teams gave their orders and then an offscreen nerd played TW for a bit. Basically an audience participation Let's Play on primetime TV.
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Jun 24, 2021 16:04
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ForkBanger posted:It was Traveller. Oh man I forgot it was a loving computer program that came onto the strat, that just makes it better. Thanks for the link!
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Jun 24, 2021 16:07
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Shyrka posted:Oh man I forgot it was a loving computer program that came onto the strat, that just makes it better. Thanks for the link! Next year, the rules were changed to prevent the same thing happening, so the AI added a new tactic: if any of its ships were damaged, they would self-destruct to prevent them from lowering the fleet's overall effectiveness. It won again. The third year, the organisers said they would cancel the tournament if Eurisko's programmer entered again. So he didn't. I think he won a moral victory, though.
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Jun 24, 2021 16:21
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Why can't all military history be this interesting? I have a book somewhere "On the Pyschology of Military Incompetence" that I think is basically this. I'll dig it next time i@m at my mums house and see if it has some good excerpts.
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Jun 24, 2021 16:35
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Why can't all military history be this interesting? If you want some truly shamefully stupid military history, The Battle of May Island is way up there. The Battle of May Island: There Is Always More And It Is Always Dumber.
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Jun 24, 2021 16:49
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Never forget Australia lost the Emu War 
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Jun 24, 2021 16:52
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kecske posted:Never forget Australia lost the Emu War  
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Jun 24, 2021 17:03
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apparently some of them took multiple bullets and kept charging which is both but also 
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Jun 24, 2021 17:11
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Failed Imagineer posted:I think that's basically what the aforementioned War Nerd podcast does but haven't really checked out Radio War Nerd is more about deep dives into lesser known bits of mostly military history, with a sprinkling of discussion about contemporary international relations from an anti-imperialist perspective. I'll take any opportunity to recommend it enthusiastically because the breadth alone is amazing, plus they get really good guests. like in the last few months they've had episodes on the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, Tang Dynasty invasion of Korea, irregular warfare in Chad, the history of the CIA propaganda division the NED, Maori wars of resistance... it's well worth the subscription imo.
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Jun 24, 2021 17:13
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To be fair to Van Riper America has yet to win a war against unconventional forces. Their only victories were a bunch of small invasions and defeating Saddam Hussein for a bullshit "War on Terror" only to cause global terrorism to exponentially rise. If anything he kinda proved how America comes in flopping its dick only to get owned by a bunch of poo poo it hadn't planned for, whether it's Chinese reinforcements in Korea, the concept of trees in Vietnam or that training a bunch of fundamentalist religious fighters to kill their perceived invaders might one day have your own country seen as the invader.
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Jun 24, 2021 17:13
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kecske posted:Never forget Australia lost the Emu War https://twitter.com/pixelsmixel/status/1405168100152995843
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Jun 24, 2021 17:15
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Tesseraction posted:Their only victories were a bunch of small invasions and defeating Saddam Hussein for a bullshit "War on Terror" only to cause global terrorism to exponentially rise. 
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Jun 24, 2021 17:39
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If your war games don't have the right outcome, you can always tell off the enemy CO and make them play by the rules next time. Emus will offer no such latitude. Never fight a land bird. Anywhere.
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Jun 24, 2021 17:43
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Gorn Myson posted:Van Riper is a perfect name for a US general. I'm feeling a bit let down to find out his first name is Paul though. United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper is commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, which houses the 843rd Bomb Wing, flying B-52 bombers armed with hydrogen bombs. The planes are now on airborne alert two hours from their targets inside the USSR. (1964 Film: Dr Strangelove - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) EE and O2 both reintroduce roaming charges in EU: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ee-roaming-charges-brexit-mobile-b1872027.html Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jun 24, 2021 |
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Jun 24, 2021 18:01
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Least the roaming charges fees seem to be staying gone between UK-NI-ROI. If they brought that back there'd be some very testy farmers in the border counties
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Jun 24, 2021 18:54
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Failed Imagineer posted:Least the roaming charges fees seem to be staying gone between UK-NI-ROI. If they brought that back there'd be some very testy farmers in the border counties That was fun, going over the border in the late 2000s. Bing new text. "You are on UK Vodaphone" Bing new text. "You are on IE Vodaphone" Bing new text. "You are on UK Vodaphone" Bing new text. "You are on IE Vodaphone" Bing new text. "You are on UK Vodaphone" Bing new text. "You are on IE Vodaphone" ...infinity.
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Jun 24, 2021 19:07
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If you keep driving northeast, you end up on Orange.
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Jun 24, 2021 19:16
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