Omens of disaster for successful operations

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cherry blossom

Senior Airman
505
447
Apr 23, 2007
There are famous examples where a wargame predicted disaster, the wargames' result was ignored and disaster occurred. I remembered the famous example of the impassible Ardennes The Blitzkrieg Legend and mentioned it in the coronavirus thread Coronavirus Thread. The Japanese wargame before the Midway operation is also famous although that did not predict how disaster would actually unfold. We have tended to criticise the commanders who went ahead anyway but were there forgotten wargames that predicted disaster before successful operations?
 
The Dutch Staff College used to run a wargame prior to WW2. The plan was to attack Arnhem from the direction of Nijmegen. Anyone who used the "causeway" between the two cities was deemed to have failed, as it was considered too much of a bottleneck and military convoys would be easy targets.
The Dutch Army element in the planning stage of Op Market Garden made the point about their staff exercise, and were duly ignored!
The rest, as they say, is history.
 

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