Millennium Challenge 2002

A major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces under United States Joint Forces Command in mid-2002, running from 24 July to 15 August. The exercise involved both live exercises and computer simulations, costing US$250 million (equivalent to about $448M in 2025), the most expensive war game in US military history.[1] MC02 was set in 2007, intended to be a test of future military "transformation"—a transition towards new technologies that enabled network-centric warfare, and providing a more effective command and control of current and future weaponry and tactics. The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as "Blue", and a fictitious state in the Persian Gulf, "Red", often characterized as Iran or Iraq.

Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, simulating using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper simulated using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications in the model.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

Such defeat can be attributed to various shortfall in simulation capabilities and design that significantly hindered Blue Force fighting and command capabilities. Examples include: a time lag in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information being forwarded to the Blue Force by the simulation master, various glitches that limited Blue ships point-defense capabilities and error in the simulation which placed ships unrealistically close to Red assets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

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