War game a devastating lesson on Iran for [US] Navy

[rodeodance]

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080112/WIRE/801120362/1033/NEWS01


War game a devastating lesson on Iran for Navy
2002 exercise showed how swarm of small craft could overwhelm U.S. ships
1/12/08
By THOM SHANKER
NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON -- It was a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a U.S. Navy convoy and left 16 major warships -- an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels -- sunk on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

But that August 2002 war game has given reason for U.S. military officers to express grim concern over last weekend's encounter between several U.S. ships and five Iranian patrol boats.

In the days since the incident in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officers acknowledged they have been studying anew the lessons from the startling war game.

The sheer numbers of attackers overloaded the ability of the ships and their crews, "both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack," said Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps officer who served in the war game as commander of a Red Team force simulating an unnamed Persian Gulf military. "The whole thing was over in five, maybe 10 minutes."

[thunder rising]

1. I think this is baiting. There is no way they would make this public

[DawgHouse]

3. This has been openly discussed for years.

http://www.armytimes.com/legacy/new/0-292925-1060102.php

[NutmegYankee]

4. No, this game is well known.

Its famous because the Military stopped the game and said "that can't happen" and restarted it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. This is a WELL KNOWN exercise, even profiled in the book Blink

go ahead, pick it up and read all about it

[angrycarpenter]

2. It is the same thing with the army

We are set up to fight a conventional war against a uniformed conventional army. Not a semi-organized bunch of suicidal maniacs.

As to a sneak attack against our forces it will not happen. They know bush is sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for iran to screw-up. They may be hotheads but I don't think that they want to commit suicide as a nation.
I would question any incident that triggers military action.

[TheMadMonk]

6. No, but if Bush is stupid/meglomaniacal enough to pull the trigger...

...and all indications are that he is, then Iran could well do this to the US fleets in the Gulf, and possibly elsewhere in the world.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

7. One look at the Straits of Hormuz

and you realize the area could be for us what Trafalgar was for Napoleon. For those playing the home version, the outcome is called "devastating defeat."