Simulator Showdown: I Just Lost the Battle for the South China Sea to China

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

What happened? 

Warfare is tragic and unpredictable. Any difference in training, maintenance or secret capabilities of both navies — things we wouldn’t know until the shooting starts — could have decisively impacted the scenario.

The year is 2016, and two of the U.S. Navy’s latest ships are backing a key ally in the tinderbox of the South China Sea. They’re facing down the Chinese navy halfway across the world with the latest weapons and systems the United States can get its hands on. But is it enough?

(This first appeared several years ago.)

For more than a hundred years, the U.S. Navy has been using naval wargames to test ships, tactics and strategy. Today, thanks to the ability of computers to process massive amounts of data, sharply accurate, procedural “hard” simulations are possible.

One such sim is Command: Modern Naval/Air Operations, a new game that attempts to model modern sea and air warfare as closely as a game for civilians can.

Recommended: The Real Reason China Has Built a Massive Military 

Command is particularly suited for attempting a high-fidelity simulation of modern naval combat — it included an admiral and staff from the U.S. Naval War College in the game’s beta testing — and we’re going to take a page from the Navy and put America’s latest fighting ship to the test.

The result isn’t good — and a harrowing lesson to be cautious about how we equip the U.S. military.

Recommended: North Korea has Thousands of Tons of Chemical Weapons

The post 9/11 ship

Today, we’re sending the Littoral Combat Ship into the fray — a new class of warships developed following the 9/11 attacks.