A quick overview of the training techniques behind the US losing war games against smaller nations. Coffee link Https://aerialresupplycoffee.com/disc...
We limit our forces in War Games for several reasons. 1. We don't want to tell the World what our exact capabilities are. 2. It's a training exercise , so we place our forces in "nightmare scenarios" to stress them to identify weaknesses. 3. Giving your allies a win is just good for their morale...let's be blunt , if the American Marines had any more self-confidence it would be a personality disorder.
One of my neighbors is a retired Army officer, who loves playing a tabletop game called "Bolt Action", and played with stacks against him. Like having a smaller army, using only Infantry, using less advanced units, having no Air Support, Mechanized Infantry, or Armored Support, no tanks, etc... BUT SOMEHOW?! Whether be crazy-dumb luck or godly-impressive tactics, he gets a 7/10 win ratio. He taught me this, "If the US military can win with odds one-sidedly stacked against them, then don't even think of fighting them equally."
That's very interesting, I also play that game as well as chain of command, and I am struggling! Could I give you an email address or something I need this mans wisdom
My dad told me a story talking about how his ship (USS ArLeigh Burke) was up against an entire strike group and their whole objective was to take out as many ships planes and whatever as possible so they went completely lights out. They were also going full flank speed and were just taking everything out he said everything 10 seconds they scored a hit on aircraft, ship and anything they could hit. Eventually they were taken out but I always imagine in my mind that he took almost an entire strike group by themselves and forever in that story I idolize my father. I hope you enjoy that very simplified version of my dad’s story.
There is something hilarious about the US military constantly putting themselves in the worst possible position to practice. It’s like if the biggest guy in the gym who had black belts in like 4 different kinds of martial arts said “What if my arms and legs are broken, I have 800lbs of weight on a bar on my chest, and 4 guys with chainsaws come at me.” It’s pure “Why would you ever be in that situation?!” But at the same time, practicing fighting from a losing position is so incredibly important. Soldiers being in the worst SHTF situation of the 21st century US military and saying “eh, I’ve survived worse situations in training, I know how to act.” Is equal parts badass and terrifying. Remember kids, the only way to be good at something is to train until you reach the breaking point, then overcome that breaking point until you find the next. Rinse and repeat until you become not just a menace, but _the_ menace.
I feel like it’s a never ending play on “A man who sleeps with a machete under his pillow is a fool every night except one… unless he forgot that he moved it then he’s only a fool if he doesn’t have his night stand machete, but if his wife borrowed it to take something out of the oven then he’s only a fool if he doesn’t have his baseball bat in the corner”
I worked kitchens for 15 years - it's not the same stress level the military reaches and trains for, but it can be tough conditions for most folks. I've watched people that I thought were more talented and capable than me fold and walk away in tough situations. The skill that I learned fast, is no matter how far in the weeds you are, keep moving with purpose and eventually either you'll get to the point you can bail someone else out, or someone else can bail you out. The more often you end up behind the 8 ball, the better you become at dealing with it.
If you win a wargame, you learn a few things. If you lose a wargame, you learn a lot of things. It's in every military's best inrerest to learn as much about better fighting as possible.
people often cite the wargame of the US blue team losing to the Red team (iran) in an exercise because the commander of red team did a mass attack, so the US changed the rules and won the next round, making them seem salty. But in reality, the next round was the full might of the USA lol every single red team unit's position was known to blue team, and red team had obfuscated numbers on the blue team (a testament to the difference in intelligence gathering/dissemination of both sides). Its one of my favorite "Huh, that was cute. Now, how about this?" moments.
I'll say this regarding the F-22: A few years ago I worked with an aggressor squadron. This squadron had VERY skilled and seasoned pilots flying F-5's. They use Russian tactics, in order to train U.S./Allied pilots in tactics to counteract said tactics. There are also strict ROE to even the playing field. Normally, it's a 2 week training rotation, with lots of scenarios and classroom instruction. The first day is a 10 v 10 dogfight. It usually ends with the unit being trained being wiped out, while the aggressors maybe lose 1-2 aircraft. This makes the training pilots sit up and take notice, and actually take the training seriously. By the end of the rotation, the trainees will be giving as good as they get, or even winning. Against the F-22 our pilots got 1 kill during the entire 2 week rotation. Those planes are amazing.
Necroing this a bit, but is there any argument around learning to fly a lesser aircraft to be “better”? Wondered if flying such an advanced aircraft could perhaps coverup tactical or skill issues. Or is flying one fighter so different from another can’t really use same tactics or flight skills?
On the whole "giving other branches a hard time", 1000% this. I'm ex Navy myself. Making fun of the Army, Marines and Air Force gives me life, and I fully expect members of those branches to do the same to me. But when shit hits the fan, I know they'd have my back just as much as they know I'd have theirs. The military branches are siblings. We don't always get along with each other, we love to make fun of each other, but at the end of the day those are my brothers and sisters on the line out there.
I have a few veterans at work who share stories. Three Army, one Marine. They always poke fun at other branches, but everyone served during some operation where shit hit the fan and they hauled ass to back up their brothers in another branch.
I agree with the squid. We all fight and poke fun at one another but the moment anyone else tries to do the same, there'll be Hell to pay. I believe my old unit's "unofficial" moto sums it up the best "We hate each other, but we hate you more" -Semper Fi
"Losing is not an option" is a phrase that goes well for the U.S. Armed Forces... when sh*t really hits the fan in actual combat, they are well-equipped to handle it because they've handled so many 'no win scenarios' in training.
*loses every war since ww2, excluding a heavily sanctioned flag country that spend 12 years fighting one of the largest attritional wars in history, or some random carabbians country with 0 military Seems too lose a lot
@@conductingintomfoolery9163 Militarily, in the field of battle? You make it sound like the US suffered Kasserine Pass in every fight they engage in. Stop with the fucking delusion. That very thinking is what got Saddam the rope in the first place.
@@conductingintomfoolery9163we beat Iraq both times but yeah, that's about it. And even with Iraq, that was after their military took a beating fighting Iran the first time and after they starved and dealt with disease to the point they were decrepit and falling apart the second time. The US is ABLE to win a lot of conflicts, but the reality is that we lack the ability to stomach the losses of any real major war. Look how badly Vietnam damaged our psyche and that wasn't even 100k dead. If we ever get into a real war again there's a good chance the US will just give up
@@finnl6887 After Iraq lost all of it's expensive troops in a 12-year-long attractional war against iran that already blew up half of their airforce. Then the invasion of iraq which btw, no WMDS, Al qauda is still there, Isis came, and Iran currently control the iraqi government, syria and lebanon. The us can't win wars, it can't stomach loses, an american young men have something called the internet which allows them to see their government doing dogshit things. America would just collapse if china declares war on it
Can confirm! I took part in Red Flags and Northern Edge on several occasions while stationed in Alaska. The only time the German Typhoons actually scored simulated kills was during specific portions of the exercise in which they extremely limited the capabilities of the F-22 by having the pilots retain their external fuel pods (greatly increasing their RCS) as well as limiting BVR capabilities to force a dogfight engagement. While the Germans bragged about killing a Raptor, the reality is, the deck was stacked heavily in their favor. We've done the same thing in the Philippines (see the photo, the F-22 still has external fuel pods) as well as Cope India, Green Dagger, etc. These are typical specific exercises and not the overall exercise. We typically won the vast majority of those exercises while losing specific parts of the exercise.
Setting up mechanical failure scenarios reminds pilots to keep beer in their crew chief's fridge. Treat him good and he might not kill the pilot due to negligence.
Is that one of the "what ifs" that this guy was talking about? As far as what I read the new US doctrines are all about engaging the enemy at a distance integrating every sensor available on the battlefield. From ground radars to AWACS to jet fighters to air and ground drones... Literally just integrating every possible sensor so a whole real-time map of the battlefield can be created and military-grade lock on targets. Given all that it is hard to find a reason why an F-22 which is a key pillar of the BVR engagement would fight in machine-gun-range combat with 2 fuel pods.
@@davout5775 because not every enemy is going to play by our rules, and as we've seen in actual combat, the plan rarely survives first contact with the enemy. Just look at the early years of Vietnam. They thought Dogfighting would be irrelevant due to the advent of missiles. That was until US pilots were getting smoked in close range Dogfights because the enemy knew how to get in close and avoid missile lock. There's a reason we test all scenarios, because war isn't choreographed. And the external pods were meant to increase RCS, allowing Eurofighter pilots to actually track the F-22 for the engagement.
I was stationed in Germany during the bad old days of the mid 1970’s during the Cold War. The exercises we conducted, particularly REFORGER, were conducted exactly as you described. We were training for the worst case scenarios of a Soviet invasion. Our mission was to fight and delay the invasion until follow on forces could arrive to save the day. Whole units would be sacrificed in holding a bridge that allowed other units to evacuate to more defendable positions.
I worked with the US Army in Germany and during one exercise, the evaluators told the entire Brigade HQ that they had been obliterated by a missile strike just to see what the subordinate units would do. Unfortunately, when the simulated missile strike happened, they were holding a command conference, so all the senior officers were gone. At the end of the exercise, a major was commanding the Brigade.
@@MrWWIIBuffIt's something REALLY helpful to try and figure out, because there is that odd chance it does happen, and then what do you have? Just look at the Russians in Ukraine when they lose their officers to enemy fire.
I was in the 2018 massive war games in Poland, the first time we started there were no ground rules. We won in three days against a force equal too our size They then made us return to the starting point and gave us new rules - cannot advance more then 4 miles a day - cannot group in element larger then troop level (we were a cav unit) - must move the HHT (HQ) location everyday (This was because they had a “special forces” unit that was supposed to raid our HQ but couldn’t find it) - all roads are considered fully mined and you cannot cross them We lost.. in 15 days.. cause we couldn’t reach the end point of the exercise… which we found out after was fully surrounded by roads…… lmao 😂
Doubt you learned as much from the three day war as you did from the rest of the fight. Solve for X, do it again one hand behind your back. OK, now blindfolded. Now stand on your head.
Because we don't lose war games. The point of war games, for both countries, is to test out certain scenarios under certain conditions and kind of... see what happens. I know there are fellas out there who can only see through the lens of "winning" or "losing", but that's not the point, boys. It's about learning. Great video, Habitual. Really laid it out nicely.
Listening to this brings back so many memories. It's so true. I was in RCP. Once when our lead truck got hit by one of the larger IEDs in the province up to that point we called for help. We had a medivac heli in 8 min. We had an infantry patrol from a OP 1km away arrive in 10 min. We had our sister platoon with another full RCP and 3 wreckers arrive in 45 min. Another time we were doing a route when we got a call of an infantry patrol egressing under fire. The enemy was pursuing them as they moved toward a wall that ran the length of one of the routes. As an RCP we are a slow-moving, high-value target as such we are pretty well-armed. 7 trucks 4 will be gun trucks including 2 240s, 1 .50, and 1 mk-19. All trucks have AT and 249 backup. We just asked where we needed to be and when we needed to be there. Fastest route clearance I've ever done and we met up with the foot patrol just as they made it to the route. The enemy had broken contact shortly before...maybe they saw us coming.
@@The_Conqueeftador Benghazi only went bad because a POS traitor called off the many units preparing to assist. In less than an hour the guys on the ground could have had JDAM support from F-16's. In less than 4 hours further support would have arrived.
I would also love to believe that the F-22 being "beat" will lure adversaries into a false sense of security. Surprise is still an important element of combat, but with everything online, one of the few sanctuaries for the element of surprise is human psychology. "Underestimate us. I dare you." All the same, love the content. Thanks for the explanation!
And frankly, I wonder if this is one reason the F-22 hasn't really been leveraged that much in the Ukraine war. Once you drop that curtain, and folks (don't) see what the Raptor is capable of, you can't really expect to be able to use it as anything other than a deterrent. In other words, as soon as folks actually see it in action, they'll scatter at the mere mention of it on the playfield. And do we REALLY want Russians and Iranians hiding being human shields?
Any country with a brain knows that we set the games up with the deck stacked against us, it won't stop them from launching a propaganda campaign though to make us look bad. Mostly just to irritate us, but anyone who knows, knows how it works.
@@neohelios77 I t hink thats also a bit of a common myth though. For one, theres no western aircraft flown by Ukraine, and F22/35 would be far too complicated to be used by them. But more importantly, if you dont use a weapon because you want to keep it secretive, then it actually loses the deterrent factor. Who is scared of F-35s if they are never used? Thats why Israel has used F-35s to bomb Iran proxies over Syria, the F-22 has bombed ISIS in Syria, and the B2 bomber has been used in the Iraq war. So its not like those aircraft are not being used. An F-35 really isnt a secret weapo, its a mainline fighter aircraft for heavy use. And some of its systems like the radar arent even top tier technology anymore.
John was my next door neighbor when we were at Bragg. He worked in JSOC as a forward controller. I worked in PSYOP. Took them forever to get his MoH through. It wasn't till they released the second part of the video - where he returned to consciousness after the evacuation, and continued the fight - that it got through. He died in battle on the 4th, but it was the next day in the states and we were prepping for my b-day party when we got the news. John was a great guy - huge NASCAR fan - Mark Martin was his favorite driver. John had the first serious surround speaker system that I ever saw - so that he could hear the doppler effect from the races on TV. Now I live close enough to a NASCAR track that when they have night races, I can hear it running in the distance - and always think of him. It was great seeing Vicky and their girls receive John's MoH from President Trump. I left a dime on his casket at the funeral.
I was on the Live Fire Team at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. I got there in early 1991 just after the end of the First Gulf War. The training units lost most of the battles; they were designed for them to lose. It was great to hear all the Gulf War combat veterans who were coming through talk about how much harder our training environment was than the actual war had been.
I remember a conversation I had during a West Pac deployment. Something was said along the lines of "Most guys don't rise to the occasion when bad things happen. You fall back to the level of your training."
I really love how 40 Commando was incorporated into that exercise. They’re not a main fighting force, they’re special ops. Their whole job is being the Joker in the deck, getting where other forces can’t, sowing chaos, setting up punches. They’re meant to be ghosts stalking the edges of the fight, and that exercise gave them a fantastic opportunity to cut loose in their wheelhouse on a force that would almost effortlessly wipe them off the field if they slipped up. And the Americans get to experience both the dangers of being hunted by such an asset, as well as how to work with it in the event they actually need to fight together. The more I learn about these war games, the more I realize how much it helps everyone on the same team improve, no matter how much it may suck or how “weak” any one nation is compared with another. At the end of the day, NATO has each other’s backs and they will run down anyone who messes with an ally using unholy amounts of firepower.
And that fits the Royal Marine Commando perfectly. They aren't shock infantry like our Marines. They are more akin to Ranger than to our marines. They'd have suffered horrific casualties, while potentially inflicting huge ones as well, but you just threw away a spec ops force.
I was at this exercise. It's extremely funny how the narrative of "40 Commando beat Marines" took off. All we could do was look at each other and say "well, I guess fuck the multiple Marine infantry Bns and MARSOC that made up the majority of the adversary force, then!"
@@Fordragonif MARSOC was involved those Britts must've put in ALL the work they could muster. They were probably the most stressed out group of dudes in the hemisphere at the time haha.
@IDirtyMangoI the funny thing is that MARSOC and 40 Commando were on the same side, in addition to Dutch Marines, UAE special operations forces, and a US Marine Infantry regiment reinforced, all facing off against a Marine infantry regiment. Everything about the post-exercise narrative was wildly inaccurate, to the point that you wonder how it even happened.
I know that my highschool soccer coach had no military experience but he definitely applied that same concept to us. We were a small private school (my graduating class of 34 was the largest class size) but during the season our games were against any and every public school he could schedule. If he couldn't convince the school to play us in a regular game but they were talented enough he'd convince them to scrimmage against us for their soccer practice but it would be one of our regularly scheduled games. Sometimes we'd get our butts kicked hard. Sometimes we did ok. But when playoffs came around for state championship and we got pitted against schools in our league we dominated. Out of the two dozen schools in our state with soccer programs that were twice our size or smaller we only ever lost to one of them and that was annoying a team with an immigrant who went on to play in a European major league team as an adult. But we still beat the team with him on it twice. We just learned to fully embrace the suck so that when real game time came it was easy
Reminds me of a story I heard. A couple soldiers were tasked at a retrans station when they began taking contact from about 15 insurgents. They started going through their radio contacts and couldn't reach anyone until they reached the last frequency, which was scratch out and marked do not use. They made contact and were desperate for help and explained their situation, gave their location and the location of the contacts. It took a few minutes but they radio was able to confirm who they were and decided to assist out of their volition, then informed them that one salvo was already in the air and another will follow in one minute with an expected eta of two minutes. Turn out the retrans operators got in contact with a Guided Missile Destroyer, which then promptly obliterated the hillside they were engaged from.
On the one hand, I can see why it was marked do not use. On the other hand, yeah that sounds about right. Expensive? Oh yeah. Lives saved? Priceless. (For everything else, there's Congress.)
I think we all realize that no military is perfect, even ours. The most important thing about these training excercises is that all the troops learn from the experience. Even if we "lose" we still win because our troops are getting extremely valuable experience during those war games.
Well the thing is wargaming with allies lets you find out things that never occurred to you. Years ago, and Australian sub sank the flagship carrier for the US by acting like a whale. Now if Australia thought of it, chances are extremely high a real enemy could as well. So better to discover the trick now, and work out how to defend against it before you have to for real.
@@glenchapman3899 it’s also to help American troops And your allies Think of shit LiKE the whales It’s basically throwing. A bunch of your soldiers in the field Where they’re gonna be stimulated to think of shit And then letting them try shit out I think it’s hard for Americans to figure out why they lose war games Cause they hear the word war And think of its like a war between standing armies Whereas war games are rally just battle simulations And while it’s genuinely hard to imagine another country beating America in a full out war anytime soon Clearly msot countirs could beat america in a battle And lots of them could beat america in lots of battles
@ShmuckCanuck your idea that we are confused why we lose war games is false. We know we throw them against us. It's everyone else who doesn't seem to get it. You obviously have a pretty low opinion of us lol.
The whole point of war games is to find deficiencies. The scenarios get set up more and more in favor of enemy victory so we can see what we need to fix or work on. If we always won we wouldn't have any progress. No most fighters aren't taking out F-22 or F-35s easily. And for instance, SE Asia, saying we'd lose two carriers is after everything already went t**s up and was already assuming a full assault. Funny how super carriers don't just easily sink, right? The funny thing is, these military planners from certain authoritarian Dickpotato states think that's us "trying our best" and not severely hamstringing ourselves.
And if the F-22 and F-35 pilots go in expecting a close fight, and instead they have an easy day in reality, then great. their training got them in the right mindset and kept them from being cocky.
As a civilian that was medically disqualified from being able to join, I’d gladly fight by my troops side any given day. It was my dream to be a corpsman and help, best thing I can do now is be a good citizen to my country. Thank you all for your service and sacrifice.
One thing I'll also elaborate on that I think you touched on with the F22 is that exercises aren't meant to be "all of my guys vs all of your guys" slugfests. They're meant to test specific systems and specific points of failure under specific circumstances. The best example for this were the infamous Bradley Wars. Colonel James Burton famously wanted the Bradley subjected to destruction tests under real-world conditions, and was angered at decisions like, for example, taking the fuel out of the tanks and replacing it with water. The IFV wouldn't burn down then- what was the point? The point was that you needed to see where the shrapnel was going, and you couldn't do that if the vehicle was a burned-out wreck. They weren't testing whether or not the Bradley would burn when hit, they were testing which bits were most likely to be hit, and incorporating that into the final design. They were fucking with the real-world conditions so they could actually learn something. With the F-22, it was likely the same. Even though it didn't win, having it fight with drop tanks attached means that the US air force now knows; -How easy it is to detect in South-East Asian climatic conditions during long-range sorties -How long it takes the F-22 to detect that *it* has been detected -How the pilot reacts when facing these sorts of conditions -And how a potential adversary might seek to exploit these conditions should they arise This is all _incredibly_ valuable information that you would never have gained by just throwing the F-22 against a bunch of Rafales. You're not stressing the airframe itself because you know how it works- you're stressing the ability of the pilot and support crew to keep that $120 million platform alive in the worst possible scenario. And, speaking of those Rafales, it also teaches them what they might need to do in order to catch an opposing 5th-gen fighter with its pants down. Thanks for the video, was super interesting to listen to!
I know a few war game losses for the US are how Swedish and French Submarines sunk a US Carrier and Finland beating the US Marines. Now im not say we lost those on purpose or not, but i wonder if there were conditions that were in place to make it easier for them to win.
I’m guessing some of the gear or equipment or tactical support the Marines had was at least a bit different from how it would be in a war. Just a shift in tech support that US Marines would usually have might make them have to adapt and adjust to the new game parameters, which was probably part of the war games scenario. That’s just my guess.
short answer is in training, the US military basically ties both hands behind their back, blindfolded and one ear is deaf, in order to give the edge to the opfor in training, so the US knows how to counter all sorts of things and learn the weaknesses and all that
Huge drawback of diesel subs is range and underwater endurance, and especially those trading off against speed. Make the carrier operate in a confined area near the sub's base without the benefit of anti sub assets outside the task force and suddenly that's less surprising. Assuming those exercises would've been taking place in the sea immediately north of Europe, close to those sub's bases and with all the bad weather that often entails.
@@FireStormOOO_ yea I don't know where it took place. But they somehow slipped into the strike group unnoticed and got close enough to torpedo the carrier
Can confirm. In the Navy, one of the General Quarter Drill's we would run is to keep simulating damage to the ship until all of the damage control parties were overwhelmed just to see what would happen and how the crew reacts.
your a natural when it comes to teaching..the way you paint the picture so people can understand what your putting down is perfect..keep it up..I like these segments you do as much as the planes..
We got licked at JRTC but my PL was the lone survivor. I was walking wounded and provided aid to other wounded. I built a squad sized element and provided return fire to the "enemy" until the tank rolled up on our position and clapped my group at point blank. The OC. Was like yeah you're all dead now. But we were a big enough distraction that my PL was able to smoke the tank with a LAW. Good training!
I'm reminded of that one meme clip where a trooper is on the ground and the DI comes up to him with a surprise: DI: "SNAP! You entire platoon's legs are blown off, what's your response?" Trooper: *Screams like someone with their legs blown off*
Way back in the day, I was a sergeant in a gaming clan focussed on realism which emulated the setup of the U.S. Army in WW2. One of the issues we had was hotshot squad leaders who would charge ahead/scout/etc., then get taken out, leaving their squad headless, helpless, hopeless, and worthless. To combat this, I created the 'Wounded Officer Scenario'. Each WO was limited to a walking pace, could only use one hand for a weapon--mostly pistols and grenades--and squad members had to stay within 20m. They were tasked with getting to an extraction point while losing as few men as possible. An opposing squad or two--which didn't know the exact starting or ending points--had free reign to move around as they wished. It was *hilarious* how quickly the hotshots wised up and learned to think tactically when their squad had been slaughtered for the third run in a row in an ambush because the WO didn't set the squad up for covering all angles at all times. I had each member of the squad cycle through playing the WO and all agreed that playing as 1 squad of 8 was _MUCH_ more effective than 8 squads of 1. :savagegrin: (Yes, this about a video game, but the lessons learned work just as well in real life, as explained in this most _excellent_ video.)
its funny how games can sometimes hand you lessons in how to fight despite however much they're separated from reality a roblox RTS game taught me that IFVs cannot be pushed into areas without infantry screens, and should nearly always be in cover lest you suddenly take antitank rounds to the ambush.
I'm 1-week new to this channel and have been watching a LOT of your Vids since. Gotta say thank you Sir! Your content is massive! Cheers from a former Canadian living in "Little European Texas" - PL!
you're reminding me of the time, just on a lark, I decided to boresight both the APFSDS and HEAT sights in the GAS to give my new loader some additional experience at his role in boresighting the tank. That afternoon, during our platoon table we had an electrical fault that knocked out the GPS and power handles. We continued to fight the tank using the manual handles and the GAS until we successfully finished troubleshooting the problem.
I only did a handful of joint exercises with foreign forces; Egypt and Jordan before Desert Storm and South Korean and Japan. What he said is absolutely correct. I worked in the intelligence shop and we would have various units and HQs located way early in the exercise and were forbidden to send anything their direction. Or simply tell us that we missed. As a young soldier, it would freak me out at first because they wouldn't explain that we actually hit them. So, I'd go back over my analysis and try to figure out where I went wrong.
Did a training op here stateside and there were only 3 of us playing opfor, we wrecked the opposing squad of 13 but of course we had to die for the sake of training. We were pissed at first, but it was comical when they did dead checks and they were searching for more people.
Thank you for covering this, being a veteran, a lot of work friends ask me questions and I try to explain it, I am going to send this video to them. They do not understand that we do not play to win in training, we play to learn as rare as it can be, we must ALWAYS be ready for everything because we want to preserve our soldiers life’s more then the others.
You do What literally everyone else does in training But when you lose war games agaisnt enemy nations Which you don’t always do It’s cause they beat you Not cause you lost on purpose lol
@@WowCreativeUsername what am I coping over I’m Canadian We fought two wars against America Won both Have never lost a war; ever Have an amazing military record We do have a fairly small standing military but we’re also surrounded by oceans which kind of provide the bulk of our protection (also yours) Anywho what exactly do you think I’m coping for The marines use our camouflage for uniforms Well your entire military does You use our LAVS We use the same rifles except ours are manufactured to a slightly higher quality And almsot everyone we do We do jointly
@@WowCreativeUsername Canada also; loses war games dude Every cluntry does If your country never loses at war games It just means you never participate in actual war games you just run rigged excersise for propaganda purposes
As a former Sailor, I can tell you from first hand experience, the Army needed us and we were deployed with the Triple duce 10th Mountain in 2010 at Camp Alamo. It doesn't matter if you're a sister branch or coalition ally if you are in contact we are joining the fight.
USN. We were in a foreign port I can’t specify, and a soldier got into trouble in a bar (it wasn’t an Islamic country, nor were they really an “ally”). I called for sailors to come help since I spotted several crew mates. Half the bar stood up. Then an obvious marine asked if they could help, and the rest of the bar stood up. We smuggled that soldier onto the docks and our CO covered for us by calling the soldiers CO and thanking him for the help his soldier had provided in getting one of our sick crew back aboard, and apologizing for the bump he took on the head carrying the sailor down the hatch (almost exactly the opposite of what really happened). We took him back to base the next day - no one received any punishment (except for the guys who started it, but they weren’t servicemen and so weren’t our business).
Without having seen this video yet and without ever being in the military, I would think it's because it's like training with weights on, you intentionally limit what you can do and put yourself in what would be a worst case scenario so that in a real fight you aren't reliant on your fancy toys and have actual experience against another real human
First, I had to pause, fetch my kids and rewatch the "ad read"! Second, the engagement where MSGT Chapman earned the MoH was on "Roberts Ridge". I bought book with the same title and appreciated the sacrifices made (I can't say that I "enjoyed" the book...but it was a great read). I loaned it to a co-worker...then got laid off before it was returned. However, both Roberts and my coworker were PJs...so I'm happy with this. Finally, keep the great videos coming, please!
It reminds me of my old MechWarrior unit that had a break down because when it came time to choice which faction our unit was fighting for that month several wanted to ally with faction A because all the skilled units were joining that side. While some of us including our lead trainer wanted to join faction B which would be fighting the skilled players a lot. To quote the training officer during one of the arguments. "You don't become a skilled fighter by clubbing baby seals."
Reminds me of the time that our clan started a second group that was aligned to the IS. Then we would set up private maches to test each other out. And when we met in actual missions we went full out, was great fun.
Greetings from Finland! While you approach this from a US Army perspective, there is indeed value in learning from losses in training in any branch and military: it is like a small wake-up call that war is always chaos: something could really go wrong the day you get to the fight and you find yourself on the back foot, so you remember what happened in a similar training exercise and react accordingly, preferably with aggression!
It is what it is and your right but 90% of the time the US won't be playing fair and will often have more outside help then possibly needed. Like have you ever watched those sniper competitions? A good bit of the time you could just replace it with a drone strike, overkill is underated and if the US needs something moved it's often done with heavy equipment. (Just kinda thought of this but everyone laughing when Russian news suggested the US attacked the Kremlin with drones and barely left a scratch comes to mind)
Was having a conversation about your F22 vid with some buddies last night (we're all fans of this channel) and I noted that you were spot on in that, citing that the way we train is to be prepared for the worst-case scenario...that very real non-zero chance that Murphy will walk up and start dunking on everyone. Also, to add on to the nations that train like the US does is Korea (Operation Foal Eagle is an annual FTX with the US Army and ROK Army). I strongly suspect that Japan does similar training as well...though that may be more Navy side.
Respect for (almost) naming your program the Kobayashi Maru. You definitely understood the point of the assignment and your guys and gals will be all the tougher for it.
I was professional OPFOR in Hohenfels, Germany. 1-4 infantry. We ruled the Box. No one ever beat us. The units got put in the worst position at all times. We knew where the units were going to be and thier misson because we were told by the Controlers or "redhats". The point was to be as big of a danger as possible. To simulate Most Dangerous Course of Action. I was taught as an NCO to always plan for MDCA first then MLCA and only then make your own plan incorpating the outcomes of both inital estimations. Now im called pesimistic by these civies....they have never had to live Murphys law though
@@cryptoashesphxrise2044very much so. We worked with units from all over Europe and with a lot of our guys. Airborne insertions, mechanized, light, all of it was done. It was invaluable to me as an infantryman to fight and think from the other side. I miss it alot. I've been to Irwin for NTC and Polk for JRTC for rotations and at Hohenfels we liked to think we were the hardest place to train. We didn't fuck around. Ain't nobody sleeping at night or getting to eat unharrased....it was ridiculously fun
When I went to Hohenfels (right after Iraq) My platoon and the Scout Platoon were the only platoons able to beat OPFOR. The rest of the brigade failed miserably.
Pausing @5:22 to say I watched your ENTIRE commercial just so you get credit for the extra work you put into it. Wanna get paid, EARN IT.....and you did good sir! Thanks and back to the show
It makes me feel -safer- as a non-military American when I see headlines like that. When you lose, you gain experience. When you win, you gain nothing but arrogance. It's the whole point of the Kobayashi Maru exercise in Star Trek. It's a great civilian explanation to your point and I had laugh that you brought it up.
My dad was in the army and one of the best pieces of advice he gave me as a child was never to be afraid of failure because I can learn much more from failure than success. Now I know where he got that from.
Reminds me of what we teach our scouts in BSA. To learn from failure. Things never go as planned. I remember on an outing one of the patrols ended without meals since the scout in charge forgot the food. We were miles away from civilization. So the other patrols and leaders cobbled together enough food so that had some food in them but not enough to feel full. After that they changed the outing checklist to make sure someone else doubled check to make sure nothing critical was missing before going on the outing. It was only a couple days and if they did not have a full belly no one was going to get hurt. But they learned from the experience and changed their procedures.
It is very true about them stacking things against us in war games. When I was deployed, we conducted several air battles a week. And I still remember one where right as they kicked it off, the ones running it said that because of bad weather, none of the Navy or Air Force fighters would be engaging. And that made it hell for us because they were actually the first line of defense against cruise missiles. Suddenly, instead of having to deal with the ballistic missiles and the 10-15% "leakers" of the cruise missiles that slipped past the Navy and Air Force, we had to try to shoot down all of the inbound cruise missiles also. That was the first air battle we "lost", but we still protected most of our assets even though we lost about half of our equipment. But war games are almost always stacked against us. I even saw that in the 1980s when I was in the Marines. Us on Active Duty having to play "bad guys" against the Reservists, and in almost every engagement getting wiped out. Because the purpose of that game was not to test us, we were an Active Duty Infantry Regiment. It was to give training and experience to the Reservists who only did it a couple of weeks a year.
I did Red Flag ops a few times in the Navy. There are many reasons why we set up war games to put our troops at a major disadvantage, and give wins to our allies. In real life, (short answer) our greatest failures have occurred because the guys on the ground 'knew' they were superior in all regards giving them a false sense of security and ability leading to abject failure. Our allied forces are great and stand by our sides... but, it hasn't always been that way. A lot of times we were left standing alone to hold the line because their troops 'knew' we were the best and they were 'inferior' and had previous historical experience where their government used them as cannon fodder. Much like Rick gives Jerry a 'win' to build his self confidence, we let them win.... except sometimes when they do legitimately win.....and those are the games the big brass goes over everything 60 times to find those lessons to pound into the troops.
Something else to remember is that if a war starts with little to no warning - the forces in theater will be outmatched for the 1-2 months it takes a ship to cross the ocean with the equipment any reinforcing units need. There are two reasons we train to fight while outnumbered. The first one is named 'Pacific' and the second one 'Atlantic.
I remember seeing an article about some marines taking on a Finnish unit in an exercise last year. Lot of people were joking how they got their ass kicked and that somehow shows they (marines) were incompetent. Turned out it was a 1 on 1 balanced engagement, the location of the training was in middle to norther Scandinavia in the middle of winter against a Finnish unit normally stationed in northern Finland. Yeah at that point no shit they lost, that deck was really stacked against those marines.
During anaconda, the 101st was in kandahar. When 10th mountain was in the hornets nest, we were on a plane headed to Bagram within an hour. I remember very little of what we were told other than brothers were in trouble. I for one was biting at the bit to help those in need. It was also the first time the war seemed real. It's amazing remembering every word the chaplain said that night some 21 years later.
Enemy grunt: "Sir we have surrounded the Americans we shall soo-" Enemy commander: "You what!?" Both: *Look up to see a US carrier being airlifted to their position with Army and Marines repelling from it*
The guy who was talking about the F22 getting shot down was me. Thank you for explaining it. (It wasnt in a comment section though it was one of your livestreams)
That idea of being in a helpless position and attacking back at your attackers is something I learned first hand the hard way. I was bullied constantly all the way through school, but especially in elementary (K-6) school. I was among the smallest kids, in fact the smallest in 6th grade at 4'6" and 65lbs, and a mostly shy and quiet type, so I was the favored target of just about every bully in my general vicinity. I tried everything in line with the rules to protect myself. The rules said I couldn't fight back, so I didn't, and I hurt for it. The authority figures (teachers, principal, preachers, my own parents, etc) did NOTHING to stop it. In fact, I have many occasions when my teachers would be laughing right along with the bullies when they'd verbally abuse me in class. I learned there is NO WAY to get someone to stop attacking you without going on offense. So, I learned to just ignore the rules on that matter and do what I needed to do. Granted, it took me until high school to learn this, for a variety of reasons, but in fairly short order, when I started hitting back, bullies started leaving me alone. It really is the only way.
SrA Jason D Cunningham, a PJ from Moody AFB, was killed during Anaconda. He was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross. His fiancée tried lobbying to get it upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Read his citation.
Lmfao I love the ad Segway bro that shit had me rolling. I’ll have to try this coffee you speak so highly of and frankly I’m pretty sure if anyone knows good coffee you do.
21:00 One of the most perfect examples of this that I remember was the clinch drill at osut. Drill sergeant gets ufc gloves and will throw punches. The private has to close the distance and get the drill sergeant in one of the 3 "clinch" positions while getting hit in the face and is under no circumstances allowed to hit back. Like HLC said, we train at a noted disadvantage to learn, in this case, that you can absolutely get hit in the face and continue the fight. Pretty much the mission statement for us mil doctrine.
15:19 something for you to consider here is this in 2019 the United States had “leaked” documents that showed that internally they’d downgraded the British armed forces from a tier 1 army to tier 2. Basically publicly shaming them as unreliable (ive never served in any army but I’ve never heard someone who has describe the British army as unreliable) this created a furore in the public and I remember speaking to an Australian soldier at the time and he said “I guarantee some generals looked at their budget thought nope that’s not it, so they contacted their contacts in the American military to leak a document that says the Brit’s are useless so they can go to their government and say we are now considered an encumbrance to our biggest allies you need to fund us” I reckon he was pretty close to the mark. So I’d say headlines like the one you’re reading is there show the British government and people that all the extra funding has worked, and possibly also to maybe get the Americans a little extra funding. Another thing to consider is that while the United States like to fight with a 3-1 advantage. Countries like Australia can never hope to deploy that kind of power, so it helps for national security confidence if we can read reports that says 10,000 Australian soldiers obliterated 50,000 Americans in a war games. Over all I wouldn’t read the headline and say that they’re printing misinformation or lying, I’d say they’re working an angle and more often than not allied nations will benefit from it.
The Americans are correct, as a british person it's completely true. Our military is amazing but we just do not have enough to be effective in many situations
@@suprdez3617 Yea weird SASR were the best in Vietnam and were most feared and taught navy seals over 1200 missions and only 1 died in combat and 3 other's in training. 1 looked a bit Asian from a distance and was shot by his own men. operation Anaconda Afghanistan SASR again proved their Vietnam specialties by successfully completing their mission while Devgru unit failed doing similar. KSK failed. SASR also saved US Seals and marines 2 SASR were inbedded with. USA and Brits have egotistical problems since beginnng of time and would not believe them. Sometimes other countries SF can do better but USA hogs the good missions then just say they are the best. Another point is USA tier1 do not even hold top 2 longest sniper shots. Canada and Australia do, SGT Paul Cale nickname killer commando Aus 2nd Commando unit teaches Devgru close quarters combat and Devgru leader said he is atleast 10 years ahead of anyone in this field. Killer Commando had to strangle a HVT in Afghanistan by hand during a close quarters fight and after realised close quarters combat training was inadequate and deisgned his own tactics and now teaches SF of many countries.
@nedkelly9688 what you've said is either extremely dishonest or entirely incorrect. By what metric are you labeling the SASR the best and most feared in Vietnam? What official ranking list is accepted or agreed upon by those nations that took part? Don't get me wrong, the SASR were very good. But as far as most feared and the best goes, both Australian and US Special Operations in Vietnam earned that title from their adversaries. Fast forward to Operation Anaconda. What mission did the SASR have that their US counterparts didn't? I recommend you read the book Relentless Strike, Anaconda was an overall Coalition success. The US-led operation forced the Taliban to withdraw, having suffered nearly 500-800 casualties. I'd love to know which mission you claim to have succeeded at that DEVGRU or the KSK couldn't? Provide a source, please. I also doubt that the SASR saved anyone, seeing as how I have photos of US Pararescue pulling your wounded soldiers out of a hot zone. It's ironic that you call the US and UK egotistical while coming in here, claiming you're number one, and even going as far as intentionally spreading misinformation to back it up. Come on, kid. Those of us who actually served in the military know you're full of it, so stop while you can. You don't hold the longest confirmed kill either. The Ukrainians just achieved that the other day, making the top two confirmed kills Canadian and Ukrainian, respectively. Yet if you look at the top ten longest confirmed kills, almost half of them are American. It's called consistency. As far as Paul Cale goes, not a single member of DEVGRU has said he is "10 years ahead of everyone else." You literally made that sh*t up. He has instructed, though, at least you got that part right. But then again, so has the US Marshal Service. The US Military pulls in outside instructors to help bolster its foundation. We want the best training, both at home and abroad. You can learn from your allies just as easily as you can learn from yourself and your enemies. I have several DVIDS released videos of US instructors teaching Australian soldiers.
“If you aren’t on the verge of shitting your pants is it even real coffee” As someone who comes for a state that’s globally ranked for its coffee, I approve this message.
I just had a flashback of me wanting to drink the mud coffee while on the flight line, and realizing how long it's gonna take to get to the latrine. That's a no go.
As a former Navy guy. The most training I saw us receive was just with other US Navy forces, never really with other nations. May have been because I got lucky. Or because I was so low on the pole no one bothered to make mention that we were doing exercises with other nations Navies. But as a normal person several years out of the Navy now I can say. But it always felt like we were being given exercises that seemed fairly balanced and intended to make sure us seamen knew enough to keep the ship afloat. Rather then actually fighting back. Which don't get me wrong. Super fucking important. But I never really got to see or learn how good or bad we did. Just constant repetition, repetition, repetition of 'This is how you put out a fire in this area.' 'This is how you stop a flood here.' I could not see myself being a ground pounder or a pilot and constantly being shot down and losing over and over with nothing really to show other than 'hey you lost, here is how you sucked and how you need to improve' over and over. And not having that feeling of being inferior to allied forces. I mean sure, if we did get into a real battle I'd jump to my station to save the ship so we can continue fighting. But I'd feel like trash if I kept being told 'you're shit' over and over by those supposedly our allies. But then again, why I was just a lowly seamen and not somewhere important. I am glad to at least have someone explain that 'yes, these exercises where we lose, is on purpose to teach us' because I would not be able to understand it on my own unless someone made it explained it.
This kind of repetition will save your life. In flight training we drill engine failure so much I just assumed I'd lose power on every approach and most takeoffs. IP would just cut power like it was fun for him. When I lost power for real, it was no big deal. My eyes and hands just moved automatically to achieve best glide, locate a place to land and restart the engine. Repetitive training is key to surviving situations where thinking is too slow. BTW, I didn't even start shaking until 30 minutes after landing.
Everything you said is facts. I had one rotation at JRTC that during the second week of being in the box we attacked a town that we supposedly had 3:1 over and within the first 30 minutes after the first shot, I went from from team leader to first sergeant. The odds were 3:1 alright, but not in our favor. Even though we did eventually take the town, Geronimo put a serious hurting on us. But as you stated in the video, that’s expected at JRTC. We found out in the AAR after the exercise that all of our leadership was purposefully killed off on that mission because prior to that our operations were “too successful” and they wanted to see if we could complete the mission without any leadership higher than sergeants on the enlisted side and 2nd lieutenants on the officer side. One lieutenant survived and I was the most senior E5 of three that were left (3 including me).
The squad you trained that beat your kobayashi maru test did so in the most star trek canonically correct way. I hope somebody earned the nickname or callsign kirk. That's a beautifully hilarious story and I hope you get to properly tell it some day.
The Battle of Kamdesh with SSG Romesha and SPC Carter was such an unbelievable read with the stacked odds, incredible feats, and absolutely unwavering bravery that make the Marvel superhero movies seem more believable at times. I was so happy to see the movie/documentary about it actually do the men of 3-61 some serious justice and offer their actual perspective.
Watching this I'm reminded of something my uncle in the army told me, a quote from a marine he served with I think. "We're surrounded. I guess that makes it easy then." And another one was "A soldiers job isn't to die for their country, but rather to make the enemy die for theirs."
Very cool information, and reminds me of stories my dad would tell me as a kid. He was on a Boomer Sub, and most of their war games was them hiding from attack subs, destroyers and Sonar planes. Obviously he never went into detail, but said he couldn't remember winning, but their time to be killed always got longer and longer.
I've "killed" the compassman on a patrol *I was leading* , because I wanted to lake sure my squad could roll with the punches. Then I "killed" myself, to force my new Corporal leading my Alfa Team to take over. No, I wasn't a lanewalker - this was hip pocket training during a company exercise. We still completed the mission. And my new minted NCO ended up with more confidence, my soldiers had more confidence in the new NCO, and the PV2 who was the backup compassman gained confidence.
This reminds me of how we trained on the ship for deployments. Every scenario we would take a casualty. Things would go sideways. We would practice damage control. This worst case scenario is exactly what we trained for. During RIMPAC we got the chance to play the "bad guys" and do unconventional stuff. We learned what to look for because we did some tricky stuff. It changes doctrine not only for us, but for our allies. Thanks for the explanation for those who did not know how/why we train.
I am active duty in the Navy, and one of the cool things is that we train everyone on the ship to do damage control and be an industrial fire fighter and a first responder. So like I am an admin type, but my damage control role was usually a team leader actually taking my hose team into a space to fight a fire, or failing that I would get assigned as a utilityman where I would kit out the teams or be dispatched to run a piece or augment a given team for whatever reason. To the other Navy reading, I was fully Investigator qualified, just on our ship we preferred to leave that role during drills to the DCs, MRs, or people training up. Anyways, the peak of that is typically to end up on the training teams to develop the scenarios. And while there is certainly merit to running some the generics to just build basic proficiency, on my last ship we definitely had WAY too much of that and not enough "What if." The manuals are pretty good about like, "handhelds are down, switch to net. Net is down, switch to sound-powered. Sound-powered is down, send runners" but I never felt like we trained enough on the last two. At any rate, I started pissing people off because I got onto the medical training team, and I was super into the "what if." It really bothered me that we were ok with just "run this fire drill, also run a casualty" but the casualty was on the other side of the ship. I would write the scenario to be someone dropping IN the fire, or the stretcher team breaking limbs when a simulated missile hit during another part of a GQ drill, so that they would have to figure out splinting the rescue team and then still getting the casualty to the battle dressing station two decks higher up ladders with half their team unable to lift. I figured that was the source of glee when the AT training team would be told that I was up in the rotation to be the simulated active shooter hahahaha (meaning they got to neutralize and/or tackle me for "training.")
This is why the joke about sending 1,000 marines on leave and just sending 1,000 vs 100,000 Hezbollah fighters is not actually a joke. 2,000 Marines would be unfair against 100,000 Hezbollah because they would bring two full-sized carriers to the fight with them.
Way back in the 80's when I was in "the crotch", I still remember the first time that we used MILES gear. Up to that point, exercises were basically just running all over the battlefield and not really thinking about cover and concealment. Maybe an evaluator would grab one or two Marines and say that they were dead (usually a radio man), but that was it. With MILES gear, we learned very quickly how fast you could become a casualty on the battlefield. Within a few seconds of contact with the enemy, you were dead or wounded. We had entire platoons wiped out in the blink of an eye. I learned more about cover and concealment during that exercise than I ever did before.
When I went to JRTC in 2020, my unit was testing some new NVGs (which are now pretty much standard issue) leading to the Geronimo commander stating during the AAR that we were the most aggressive night fighting unit they had come up against up to that point. It made us really proud to hear that coming from the opfor leadership
Fun fact - during operation anaconda Canadian infantry providing overwatch and force security for the Americans set and then broke the worlds sniping record several times
Nobody gives a fvck. This is about the U.S. not Canada. Stop begging for attention and panting "what about me what about me I'm great too!" Nobody is gonna give you your headpats. Settle down like a good dog and let the U.S. brag about being the most powerful military force in history, because we are. Get the fvck over it. You absolute buffoon.
Well, their trick is the team. The Sniper, the spotter, and the 2 guys to brush the air in front of the bullet! Jokes aside, Canadian forces are one group I'd love to wargame against with the CAF not having a Geneva convention list to listen to.
@@ShmuckCanuck That may be the public story, but a lot of them got kicked out as recently as 3 years ago because they refused to follow covid restrictions (ie. wearing masks) you are looking at 50+ combined years of special operations experience discharged because they wouldnt wear a mask, and now new JTF2 candidates will have to learn from guys with little to no combat experience. I HIGHLY recommend the Dallas Alexander interview (Former JTF2 sniper with 10+ years in special ops, one of the guys kicked out for not wearing a mask, co-record holder for the worlds longest sniper kill) on the Sean Ryan Show.
As a corpsman I love the way we train and do exercises at a disadvantage. I can say from first hand experience it literally forces you to think. It induces creativity and forces us to rely on ourselves instead of the massive us military support system. Understanding you and the people around you capabilites as well as how too operate out of said disadvantage. Builds confidence and makes us not just sit back in our comfort zone. If you included airforce planes, naval planes, army choppers, tanks, ifv, artillery etc we'd just get complacent. The objective is to get good. I mean I hate 29 palms more than anyone but I would replace that time training before deploying infantry for not a dang thing.
Listening to this my mind wondered back to high school and my old Army Instructor 1Sgt Lytle. He was a master teacher, teaching us SO much about life and HOW to think. "If you can handle the worst case scenario you can handle anything" became a core principle of my thought process and it has saved my life and others on more than one occasion. I know you are in the middle of your military carrier and it might seem a bit premature to think of post service life but I hope you give serious consideration to becoming an Army Instructor at some JROTC unit. Good teachers are rare and master teachers are few and far between. I was blessed with five but Top was the most profound. I truly believe you could have a lasting impact in the classroom someday. In a world where everyone is telling young people what to think at a point in their lives they think they know everything, nobody is telling them how to think. You do it without telling anyone your doing it and that is impressive.
People don't realise that the US has permanent opposition forces probably as large as many nations entire Army enabling brigade size manuevering. So the US offers large maneuver training to its smaller allies for the same experience. There is no training benefit to killing anybody off quickly
Marine here, thanks for addressing the garbage news spin on a routine exercise. I like to explain to civilian friends that our wargames are like turning skulls on in Halo. The objective is to adapt to previously unknown or unforseen obstacles and problem solve your way into victory if possible. It also highlights which capabilities in our arsenal are truly critical to success and we can tailor security or TTPs accordingly. We don't just test our gear on the fly. By the time bombs are dropping the guy flipping the switch has already done it 1000 times and knows how to troubleshoot if you get a click with no bang.
We HAVE to stop prefacing war games with a winner and loser. that is not the point. the entire point is training. Both sides receive valuable training in conducting operations under weirdly specific time and equipment conditions.
Some fucking dumbass Filipinos screaming pinoy pride: no we won you loser muricans. For context, some dumbass filipinos are such an embarrassment to us because how stupid, prideful and ignorant they are on why the US let it win. It really grinds other Filipino gears.
It's incredibly important to know who wins and loses, because if we lose we can examine why so that in a real war we don't lose in those situations. If we win then we know that in that scenario that we already have counter measures even if they can be improved upon, It's all valuable intel.
I mean you don’t preface it, but people do win and lose Honesty smeifxans just have to stop losing trhere minds When they lose warfames Your soldiers arnt better There’s more of them So yes you will lose wargsmes Like im cansidan In war games and limited scenarios are militsry can mop the floor withh Americans in lots of areas In an actual war You’d outnumber us to such a ridiculous extent we’d just have to disband and launch a guerilla campaign immediately The best way to think of war games is they’re actually a war They’re a battle ; maybe a limited campaign They’re not a war tho So a good way to think about and alllt what does a war game mean To how our counties would fair in an actual war Is for example see how many simultaneous war games you could run Cause likel the us might lose ten wargsmes in a row against say the uk And then that’s it The uk has no more troops for additional warfames Meanwhile the us is running 80 unnapposed and so they win Cause war isn’t about being better It’s about winning
You sound like you're one of those people who believe in participation trophies. 🙄 This is the US military training for WAR, not your son's 2nd grade soccer game. In war there are definitely winners and losers and that competitive drive to win is CRUCIAL when our troops are in the field. It not only keeps them alive in tough situations (as the OP describes in Operation anaconda) but it also drives them to continue to pursue victory despite unfavotable odds
You don’t know me specifically but you know my unit-the opfor at ft Polk aka “f’ing geronimo”. I’m one of roughly 250 Geronimos that were the first to deploy from Americas first combat paratrooper battalion since WW2. Like what you’re doing, keep it up. We have mutual friends in the industry that have my contact info if you ever want to touch base. From my perspective you made the right call popping smoke despite how close you were to retirement. Keep up the good work. You are on to something.
In the business world, this is called stress testing. Companies that succeed and thrive throw wrenches into the process on purpose to see what outcomes look like. They learn from the failures and put guardrails in place to ensure future success. This is what HL is talking about.
The problem is that people hear the word "game" and treat the whole thing like it's sports match, where the winner gets a shiny cup. But it's training exercise and the goal is that must learn something from this exercise. And when you are quite possibly the most advanced and powerful fighting force on the planet, hamstringing yourself for the exercise is pretty much the only way you can learn something.
