Russia and China Are Crushing the U.S. Military in War Games | Hacker News Reader

Russia and China Are Crushing the U.S. Military in War Games

nationalinterest.org

12 pointsspking9 comments

Having had direct involvement with military exercises over 16 years I would be far more concerned with a story title that claimed the opposite.

One of the purposes of military exercises is to stretch soldiers/sailors/Airmen, their platform capabilities, their interoperability, and their leadership(Command/control).

Lose in exercises, learn from it, and adapt to discovered vulnerabilities.

If the “good guys” win every military exercise and every firefight or contact within them, the likelihood of complacency rises and retained learning is much lower.

Humbling defeats in training can lead to quiet high knowledge acquisition and retention.

Being involced in military innovation across multiple 5 Eyes militaries, there is great value in applying both real and theoretical extensions and recombination to enemy capability to help friendly forces adapt and respond in real time.

"In these simulated fights, an aggressor force obliterates US stealth fighters on the runway, sinks US warships, destroys US bases, and takes out critical US military systems."

Uhh is this assuming that the US is just sitting still? Scrambling of fighter jets can vary and much is just speculation on how fast they can scramble, wonder which time they went with in this think-tank . Found an interesting discussion on how fast an F-22 can scramble [0]

In general I would be interested in how these "simulated wargames" are being created.

[0] "How fast can an F-22 scramble?" https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9703/how-fast-c...

> In general I would be interested in how these "simulated wargames" are being created

I don't know about now, but from what I've read about the wargames of the past, they had a lot in common with recreational tabletop wargames. Hexagonal grids, figurines, rule systems. I too would be curious about how these are done now.

My understanding of wargames is that its like a recreational tabletop game to determine the results of combat.

But the movement of troops, and their positioning, is determined by the soldiers in the exercise. So its like playing Axis and Allies (the generals roll dice to see who "lives and dies" in the game), except that the soldiers move in real-time (the soldiers on the board move to Hex-location X only when the REAL soldiers in the exercise get to that location).

Practicing the issuance of commands itself is important: not only for the generals, but for all the soldiers down the line. Communication is a skill that is only built up with practice. Even if combat itself is fake, there's a lot of benefit to the exercise.

> Uhh is this assuming that the US is just sitting still? Scrambling of fighter jets can vary and much is just speculation on how fast they can scramble

Even if they can scramble, it's still an issue if they don't have bases to fly back to to refuel and rearm.

I think it's interesting that the Swedes confronted this same issue, and responded by designing their air force to disperse into small, distributed bases in the event of a major conflict:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_90

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen#Usability_a...

I think it also depends on what base we are talking about that the enemy has destroyed. Is this a base the farthest away from neighboring base? Are the KC-135s refiller planes destroyed as well? Where is the nearest carrier located? Like I said would really like to see how the simulation was executed.

Sounds like another missile gap to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap

I wonder where these exercises are simulated to take place, probably near China/Russia's home turf where their A2/AD capabilities are greatest.

The core issues seem to be: Lack of medium/long range missiles, complicated aircraft the require large airbases, and unsecured communication/sensor networks.

$24 billion to fix? Doesn't seem like a lot.

Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/us-gets-its-ass-handed-t...

> Work was less worried about the near-term risk — he thinks China and Russia aren’t eager to try anything right now — and more about what happens 10 to 20 years from now. But, he said, “sure, $24 billion a year for the next five years would be a good expenditure.

Sounds like the Military Industrial Complex wants to lock in their profits before the next presidential election.

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