Fortunately, unlike Marine generals we can depend on the Iranians to follow the rules. You put me in mind of the lessons learned from an earlier wargame.
On February 1, 1932, the United States began its annual Grand Joint Army and Navy Exercises. This year the goal was to test the defenses of Hawaii.
The Blue attackers, with the Navy’s two new carriers, USS Saratoga and Lexington were ordered to land a combined Army-Marine assault force on Oahu, Hawaii. The Black defenders, equally well supplied with battleships and cruisers and submarines, were supposed to stop them.
As the joint exercises got under way, the Blue force sent its two carriers and four destroyers ranging ahead of its battleships and cruisers, under the command of Rear Adm. Harry E. Yarnell.
At nightfall on February 6, 1932, Yarnel’s Blue task force was plowing through heavy seas 60 miles northeast of Oahu. The ships were running with no lights, under absolute radio silence. In the predawn murk on Sunday February 7, in heavy seas, Yarnell launched 152 planes from Saratoga and Lexington.
Yarnell’s fighters “strafed” lines of planes parked on runways, while his dive-bombers dumped 20 tons of theoretical explosives on airfields, ships in the anchorage, and Army headquarters at Fort Shafter. Not a single fighter rose to oppose them.
The New York Times correspondent covering the Grand Exercises reported that the Blue planes “made the attack unopposed by the defense, which was caught virtually napping, and [they] escaped to the mother ships without the slightest damage being inflicted on them.” He also noted that the Black defenders had yet to locate the Blue fleet 24 hours after the attack.
The Black commanders put up a vigorous defense-after the fact. They persuaded the umpires to rule that 45 of Yarnell’s planes had been hit by antiaircraft fire. They also pointed out that their battleships were at sea when Yarnell attacked and insisted that in a real war they would have soon caught up with his carriers and massacred them with their long-range guns.
A few air-minded admirals, including the outspoken Yarnell, argued that his Blue attackers had won a stunning victory that demanded a re-evaluation of American naval tactics. But the battleship admirals quickly voted them down.
In the end, the final report of the Grand Exercises’ umpires made no reference whatsoever to Yarnell’s Sunday-morning raid. On the contrary, the umpires concluded: “it is doubtful if air attacks can be launched against Oahu in the face of strong defensive aviation without subjecting the attacking carriers to the danger of material damage and consequent great losses in the attack air force.”
Yet another similar exercise was conducted in 1938. The end results and conclusions drawn were much the same.
>>> Second, do you honestly think they learned nothing if the carrier was in full combat configuration for these games?
We won’t really know that unless and until there is war with Iran in the Gulf. But if history is a guide, the most important military lessons are learned by the decision makers only after a lot of people die.
Reading the thread overall, I find myself much more understanding of Riper’s “Robert McNamara” comment.
I guess you are right...
We should have just surrendered to Van Riper’s superior operational skill... cancelled the rest of the experiment and reported that the waging of any campaign in the Persian Gulf would be impossible because the Iranians could cleverly leverage our technology against us by aggressively forcing us to reduce even our normal self defense posture.
If, in the future, the Navy chooses to enter the Persian Gulf unprepared for combat then the lessons of MC 2002, like the lessons you cite regarding lack of awareness to the potential Japanese threat demonstrated in the 1930’s exercises, will be the same...
The apt quote is Forrest Gump... “Stupid is as stupid does.”