"Operation Green Dagger" Topic

Royal Marines Commandos force US Marine Corps troops to surrender in training exercise:

link

Was just reading this article. Isn't this one of the reasons to hold these exercises? To see issues in training play out when put into practice and fix them so it doesn't happen in wartime?

Kudos to the Royal Marine (and Dutch and Canadian) Commandos, but I don't see this as some kind of humiliating defeat. (Real lives lost is humiliating defeat).

Was discussed here too … TMP link

Isn't this one of the reasons to hold these exercises? To see issues in training play out when put into practice and fix them so it doesn't happen in wartime?

Very much so … but no one can talk followed by a number of media articles.

But yes you have to train to prep, etc., for combat. E.g. We got our butts handed to us at the NTC. But we did learn a number of lessons … Even if there were a few embarrassing moments.

Regardless, based on my experience, etc., the USMC, UK RMC, Dutch and Canadians are all generally pretty good soldiers.

The article title is biased as in addition to RM there was also Dutch, Canadian, UAE and other US forces.

It's like saying 1st Czech Armoured Brigade defeated the Nazis in France whilst ignoring everyone else there.

There's no context, no discussion of force compositions, scenario design, force restrictions etc etc.

Stuff like Sky, Fox and Daily Mail are garbage sources of intel.

Was just reading this article. Isn't this one of the reasons to hold these exercises? To see issues in training play out when put into practice and fix them so it doesn't happen in wartime?

A lot of exercises are fundamentally flawed.

I will copy what I posed in USMC thread:

Very often Red Forces are deliberately hamstrung. The Red Force may not be allowed to use realistic tactics, engage offensively or have poor composition. The Navy once got "sunk" in an exercise against a force that used actual Iranian tactics in an offensive manner. The Navy was pi$$ed because the red commander was under orders to not use these tactics but instead play a passive game.

Sometimes there isn't even a Red Force. Eg latest Marine exercises to test new concepts – the Marines flew in missiles aboard a C-130, landed without issues, "fired" missiles and took off. There was no enemy Red Force to counter this – not even so much as a patrol boat!

At times even Blue Forces have daft restrictions. I remember reading of one exercises where F-22s weren't allowed to use their superior BVR capabilities and the Germans sent Eurofighters stripped right down so they could beat the F-22s in visual range combat.

Often the force composition is unrealistic too. Again Marines operate as combined arms – did they have access to tactical air power (AV-8, F/A-18, F-35) It only mentions gunships. Did they have aerial reconnaissance ala long endurance drones or supporting USAF assets such as E-8 JSTARS which provide superb battlefield tactical awareness or US Army RC-12 SIGINT/ELINT/ISTAR aircraft?*

The other thing is most electronic systems don't operate at full spectrum either even in allied exercises. This is due to highly classified nature of EW (and it can also have massive impacts on local civilian infrastructure).

These days it gets even worse with many units being "virtual" ie in a computer. Latest USN global exercise had a lot of virtual units, but very few real actual units.

I do not care about this as a competitive exercise like a football match. Typical for these tabloid sources, always a spin to blame someone and stir up the masses for ratings.

But I am interested in how this stuff works and what we learn. Which I get here! Instead of watching…well, never mind.

So our NATO allies are excellent soldiers, and we have some work to do.

we have some work to do

Who the hell knows. It is all dependent on those questions we asked before (force compositions, objectives, parameters/restrictions etc).

Could well be the scenario was unrealistic or the USMC was meant to lose.

It reminds me of the story where, supposedly, a US Marine asked "so, what does RM stand for?". The reply was "Real Marine".

😮😁