Originally Posted by Transient

I saved what he said.

"Oh dear. This has to be one of the most misrepresented stories around. It's significant that it first came out in The Guardian.

The truth of the matter is quite different. The exercise in question was one of a series that were intended to explore different tactical options and concepts. As such, it was a combination of pre-scripted situations (to create the scenario being explored). What Riper did was arbitrarily add large numbers of additional assets to his force levels and disregard any contrary actions. For example, if a missile battery had been bombed and taken out, he'd simply recreate it.

As a result, he completely destroyed the exercise. In the end, he was cut off from further participation and the damage that his invented assets had inflicted was reversed. It wasn't an ideal situation but the alternative was to go back and start again and the expense would have been onerous.

Unfortunately, the whole situation has now entered the realms of urban legend (aided by a lot of highly dishonest self-promotion by Riper.) "



"That is indeed so, however that doesn't really touch on what Riper was doing. As an example, one of the actions carried out by the "American" forces was a series of pre-emptive strikes on missile batteries along the coast in question followed by surveillance of those sites to make sure they had been destroyed. Riper simply ignored that and carried on using the batteries as if nothing had happened. Another example is that he "created" a fleet of mosquito missile craft by fitting P-15 Styx missiles onto Boston Whalers and then using them over a hundred miles from the coast (he wasn't even transiting them from coastal harbors and anchorages - he just positioned them in an ideal spot and stated they were opening fire. Using our chess analogy, he wasn't just putting a queen on the board every time he felt like it, he was putting that queen straight into a checkmate position)."