Hevach
Senior Member.
As mentioned above, 1600 is pretty much nothing, the US regularly has 20,000+ involved in exercises, and we don't even go that big compared to some countries. Foal Eagle, an annual exercise held between the US and North Korea, regularly has well over 200,000 participants.If this whole thing is 1200 troops, why are CTers making such a big deal about it? Is it so rare to have >1200 troops participate in exercises in the US?
The why of it comes down to just not understanding how military power works. They know 1600 US soldiers is a pretty powerful force and commands a substantial amount of firepower, they probably have a fair idea of how much damage those 1600 soldiers could do in an attack (but vastly underestimate just how much ammunition they would expend doing it), but, be it from Hollywood or video games or what, they have no understanding of how much and what kind of power it takes to control an area, only what it takes to wreck the place first.