19 warships, including a Navy aircraft carrier, were “sunk” in 10 minutes

What you need to know: In 2002, a US military simulation game called Millennium Challenge 2002 exposed vulnerabilities in the Navy’s carrier strike groups when retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, playing the enemy, used unorthodox tactics to “sink” 19 US warships, including aircraft carrier. , within a few minutes.

– Van Riper’s creative strategies, such as missile attacks from commercial ships, exposed weaknesses in the US Navy’s response to asymmetric threats. The Navy’s response was to resume the exercises and impose restrictions to limit the “enemy’s” tactics.

– Although the simulation is rarely discussed, it served as an important reminder that traditional defenses may be inadequate against adaptive, non-traditional threats.

Millennium Challenge 2002: How 19 US warships were “sunk” in minutes

On several occasions, fairly “low-tech” diesel-electric submarines have outperformed the US Navy’s most advanced nuclear-powered supercarriers. This happened in 2005, when one of the Swedish Gotland class submarines sank Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) during exercises in the Pacific.

It was an incident that reportedly shocked some US Navy officials; however, this was far from the worst “sea disaster” that the naval service experienced during simulated combat operations.

Three years earlier, the US Navy had seen 19 of its warships, including an aircraft carrier, destroyed and sunk – all within 10 minutes. The US flotilla was attacked and “overwhelmed” by missiles fired from commercial ships and radio-silent aircraft. Unlike the exercise with the Swedish submarine and CVN-76, this unfortunate incident was played out in a simulation.

According to Washington Post Wednesday’s exercise in question was part of a $250 million war game dubbed the 2002 Millennium Challenge and remained secret for two decades, apparently because U.S. officials at the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk didn’t like the outcome. . The document even had to request a mandatory declassification (MDR) to obtain information related to the simulation. It was discovered that out-of-the-box thinking was being used and this did not sit well with management.

“We looked for their weaknesses and countered them with our strengths,” said Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a retired Marine, author of the findings report and commander of enemy forces during the war games. Washington Post.

Playing as the commander of an enemy force, Van Riper managed to destroy a US carrier strike group (CSG), but instead of receiving praise for identifying vulnerabilities, the Joint Forces Command changed the rules. In addition to placing restrictions on the tactics the enemy could use, the sunken vessels were “refloated” and the exercise resumed.

As noted in the document, official final reportwhich was made public ten years ago, called the wargame a “major milestone” and significantly downplayed the loss of CGS, which was described as a “moderate failure.”

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Perhaps someday a film will be made about this incident, but this is unlikely to happen. However, it must be remembered that history is full of forward-thinking military thinkers who do not play by the rules and are punished instead of praised.

This was true of people like the US Army. General Billy Mitchellwho was a supporter of aviation. The old guard of the US Navy didn’t want to hear it. Even though the naval service had adopted aircraft carriers, there was still a belief that battleships would rule the waves and prevail—Pearl Harbor then exposed the vulnerability of battleships to air power.

This point became clear later in the war when US carrier aircraft sank an Imperial Japanese Navy ship. super battleship Yamato.

In more recent history, there have been repeated warnings that a submarine could sink an aircraft carrier, while in the ongoing war in Ukraine we have seen that a country without a navy was able to sink an enemy flagship using land-launched cruise missiles . Moreover, the exercise took place long before air and sea drones became a proven concept.

“The saddest thing,” Van Riper said, “is that some of the things we learned were never disclosed.”

This may be true, but the warning signs are becoming increasingly obvious. Perhaps now the US Navy will listen and realize that it will have to be innovative in its thinking, because General Van Riper is likely not alone.

Experience and knowledge of the author: Peter Suchu

Peter Suchiu is a writer from Michigan. He has contributed in more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites, which have published more than 3,200 articles over a twenty-year career as a journalist. He writes regularly about military technology, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics and international affairs. Peter is also Co-author for Forbes and Registration of works. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can write to the author by email: (email protected).

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