Bella

I don't believe the press from any country!, including the U.S.!!
It makes me laugh at people who pull interviews from the press or anything else from the media.
Just think of this.......I myself, have been kick boxing for 10 years......So far I have been beaten 3 times. Once from my instructor, because I got cocky, and twice from a guy who has been doing it for 5 years longer than I have!
If I had a interview, and if I openly admitted my venerabilities on T.V.!.....my opponents would know my weaknesses leaving me open to defeat!!
BUT......I'm not going to tell anyone my venerabilities!!!
Do you think any country in this world would ever tell everyone where they could suffer great defeat???!!! Hell no!!! Do you think Iran will ever tell the world media, "Yah,.....If the U.S. bombed us with F-117's, we would fold like a lawn chair!!", Hell no!! This is nothing but propaganda!!
B.S. on the world stage!! I go off true stats. So far, the only penetration a boat has ever gotten and successfully detonated a bomb was only once in modern times.
During that time, the boat was made to look Innocent and harmless, but was packed full of explosives, and still didn't sink the ship!! This happened in tight quarters when the ship was most venerable. Matter of fact, that naval vessel is still severing!! If speed boats harass the U.S. fleet again, I guarantee you that those little boats would be turned into driftwood.
The world is so obsess on destroying the U.S. and its fleet, it will do anything to accomplish it!! Everyone knows, that going head to head with the U.S. navy is suicide, but people will try anything just to get a sinking!!
Everyone loves the underdog!!
My thoughts...

Thanks!

gunnut

We don't know the details of the scenario. What were the ROE? What did OpFor have? All we were told was BluFor lost 16 major warships as they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. I can easily construction a scenario to destroy a carrier battle group using existing equipment. The problem is the sheer numbers needed and the coordination required to pull it off.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

citanon

PBS Frontline: Battleplan Under Fire said that Gen van Ripper was given the task of commanding the forces of a Middle Eastern country against US forces. The military capability he assumed, unbeknownst to Blue, was ISRAEL.

The sixteen ships were sunk by the first massive wave of cruise missiles. Then the speed boat attack, which may or maynot have been simultaneously conducted, sunk more ships.

One could say that the scenario wasn't exactly fair to Blue, and we don't know the full picture, but I think it shows there are at least situations where a mass speed boat attack augmented by anti-ship missiles could turn out very very badly for the Navy.

Officer of Engineers

I seemed to recall that everyone was PO at Gen Ripper for tossing the exercise out of whack and wasting everybody's time.

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Chimo

omon

lol, you got a point there, but you got to read what is written between the lines, and pay att. to what isn,t written at all.

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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

citanon

LCol,

I've never heard an authoritative account of the details. Do you any more about what happened (that you can share with us on a pub forum)?

BadKharma

I second that request if possible.

Officer of Engineers

Gentlemen,

I am not the authority. It was Stuart Slade and unfortunately, I cannot find his thread on this matter.

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)."

citanon

Thanks! That's quite stunning.

FOG3

Seems as how this scenario requires the speed boats to basically ram the USN ships, how big of a modern USN ship would you pit against the 130 ship (22 warship, 108 converted merchant vessel) Spanish Armada of 1588?

omon

1 iowa, or 1 kirov class should do it, imo. thou it still might be an overkill

gunnut

1 WW2 light cruiser should do. Armored hull with good numbers of 5"/6" guns.

Gun Grape

Something that isn't mentioned here. The simulation model had navy ships disregard local small ship traffic.

If you have ever been a part of one of these, you know what a pain it can be various models require you to perform repetitious acts that are not part of the scenario. SO anything not covered in the playbook was turned off.

The Ripper man took advantage of that. Total BS.

But this is the same G.O. that would have Marines on the roofs of the buildings at Quantico, sweeping the leaves off because Marine 1 was scheduled to fly and the President "Might" fly over the base.

I know first hand that that happened. I was at a school there. During a 7 week period we had instructors on about 5 occasions have to stop what they were doing to perform the act.

Luckily, students were not allowed to participate, because we might fall off and blow the school quota due to injuries

Another of his pet peeves was answering the phone. If for some reason he called your unit and the phone rang more than 2 times the Commanding Officers (all the way up to Regt Cdr) would have to report to him and explain why. Nothing like having a Capt, LtCol and Col stop what they are doing so they can tell the CG that PFC Pogue was grabbing a soda and couldn't get to the phone until the 3d ring.

I know many strange tales about him. Not one of the Corps best.

2DREZQ

I fel a little better now. I still think that the USN should have turned all those Irainian boats into pink mist and wreckage. They don't understand the concept of restraint, BOOM, now that they understand.

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USS North Dakota