Raellus, I think you might have misunderstood my point. What I was trying to say sometimes exercises can give a team/unit a false sense of reality. I.e. your point about the Iraqi Army, yes in hindsight we know all what happened, but when I was in the copula, commanding my tank, I could only envision them as the Soviet Army, because that's what I had been trained to fight (their equipment/doctrine/etc.)
But my main point about taking an assumption how things from exercises relate to the real world was like watching the Cleveland Browns beat the New England Patriots in a preseason game, and expecting the same result in the regular season. That was my point. Sorry if it missed you.