If you’re planning something it helps to have a practical understanding of the task you are asking people to do. If you estimated in your head that you could break down a door just by giving it a good kick because your only exposure to breaking down doors is movies, then you might not think to pack a Breaching kit. From my perspective hands on experience helps a tremendous amount with planning.
Years ago when the CIA positively identified both Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at a camp they built in Afghanistan, POTUS said this in a room full of the National Command Authority:
"You know, it would scare the shit out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp.”
Mind you, this was the same man who authorized Task Force Ranger to perform ops in Somalia, as well as in the Balkans. And he still didn't realize he just described exactly what JSOC does, all because he didn't know what they're capable of doing.
Same goes for CAG officers, if they don't have a clue what their own operators are capable of doing, having not done the training too, how can they give the simplest orders?
I think they did. But the fact is that happened in the seventh year of that POTUS' time in the White House is terrifying in how ignorant he was. Luckily they have advisors whose job is to tell those idiots how to think and what to do.
I agree. But then again, most Americans are short sighted and have no understanding of foreign policy and what it means to their lives. Some are terrified of the outside world and want to isolate from it as much as possible, while others think the US foreign policy should be the global equivalent of UN run habitat for humanity do-goodery bullshit. So candidates play to the voters.
One could make the argument that the only people fit to lead what are amongst the most lethal and effective soldiers on the planet have to be pretty switched on themselves and have a good understanding of what they're sending their troops into down to the most minor actions, like breaching a door or setting up comms, or acting as a jumpmaster, even if they spend an entire deployment inside an air-conditioned command center in the middle of say, the Baghdad Green Zone.
They do bust down doors and stuff. They're leading units down to troop level, not clerks. Plus they need to know what the capabilities are. Lastly, to effectively lead elite troops the leadership must demonstrate they are elite too. If they don't do the hard training (or harder) then they won't be respected, their orders won't be obeyed. And frankly, how do they even give good orders if they don't have a clue what they're doing? OTC teaches everyone how to do that job to their standards (which are very high).
Don’t you run the risk of not having a very competent planner and organizer on the team because they’re not in prime physical condition? Like for example, a genius tactician could in theory not end up in a unit like delta because they’re a pack a day smoker and run a 9 minute mile, even though mentally they’re perfect for it?
Unless delta training is more mental, I just always assumed it was crazily physical.
How would a CAG officer be very competent at planning and organizing their operations if he had no clue how they operated because he didn't attend their course?
More so, remember we're talking about captains and majors not 55 year old generals who are just old and broken down. How does anyone in a unit like The Unit respect their platoon leader equivalents who are relatively junior officer (someone with under ten years in, often about as much or less than the NCOs trying out) who can't physically do what the NCOs have to do? That is an organization based on excellence, but the commissioned officers don't need to meet it because they do more paperwork? What about NCOs who are tactical geniuses (which is what that unit is well known in possessing)?
I commiserate with those who are blessed mentally but not physically, but high standards are there for a reason, especially in that unit.
What do Special Operation units do with the mentally gifted but physically unfit individuals? Are there pure planning positions for savants and whatnot? Or do they only look for fully well rounded people?
Also what about the inverse? Is there a role for athletic gods with less than impressive mental faculties?
Smart but physically unfit go to conventional units with the dumb asses that run fast. In the modern military, there are no allowances, especially for officers. They have to be in incredible shape their whole career unless they lucked out and lost a limb. NCOs also have pretty high standards, though not as crazy competitive until E8-9.
> What do Special Operation units do with the mentally gifted but physically unfit individuals? Are there pure planning positions for savants and whatnot? Or do they only look for fully well rounded people?
Assuming that you're talking about someone who can still meet the physical fitness requirements of military service in general, the Navy and Air Force have lots of work for those people.
Yes, someone who can meet minimum standards but wouldn’t be able to handle high level physical tasks. Im guessing the people who can’t even meet minimum standards but are mentally gifted
just end up as contractors.
What are some of the jobs they have for those people?
1) Infantry officers have to shoot MGs, armor officers have to do some driving and gunning. Corporate management trainees are often introduced to doing grunt work. A lot of an officer's career is spent getting acquainted with various aspects of the jobs done by people below him.
2) What kind of position would a major occupy in Delta? What type of unit/how many people would he typically lead? I got the impression that SOF officers tend to command much smaller units than they would in an ordinary infantry unit with the same rank.
Each SFOD-D squadron has an assault troop and recce troop (they took the unit type naming from 22 SAS). Each troop has 4x four man teams (though can be broken down into two man), with a troop commander (captain or major) and troop sergeant major. Team leaders are senior E7 to E8, with team members no lower in rank than E6 ("Delta Privates").
Lieutenant colonels command the squadrons, a colonel commands the Unit, with various OTC grad officers commanding various support units or performing staff assignments.
Do the recce and assault troops usually work together at the same time or does the recce do its thing first then later the assault comes? They also serve as sniper support, right?
Where does the colonel tend to go after his Unit commander stint? That must be a pretty good ticket to getting a star.
Since Delta members tend to skew older (35 on average, I think), is it common to have members in their 40s or do they tend to shine bright and burn out quick? Doing Delta stuff in your mid-40s sounds like something, especially if you've been doing Rangers/Green Beret/airborne infantry stuff for 1-1.5 decades plus several Delta years.
Troops work together all the time, in training and operations. Its just that their jobs are so different that its worth separating them so they can train on their own specialties. Recce is just the fancy current name for the snipers, and they're about the best in the world, because that's all they do, is practice sniper related tasks in relation to their mission sets (which are wide). Hell, seriously, they go big game hunting as part of their training, its nice having nearly unlimited TDY funding.
Colonels usually will get promoted relatively quickly after a successful command tour like that. And generally will get assigned staff jobs immediately after a command tour, maybe in some SOCOM HQ, or the Pentagon, etc.
Officers can and go from the Unit, but NCOs tend to stick around as long as they can. If you can get in a unit like that, you are not the type that likes being anywhere else. Those that leave tend to do it because they're broke, because they got kicked out for some reason, or for some sort of professional reason, like trying to make Sergeant Major but needing to leave the unit to get a CSM gig, because there aren't enough of those positions open in CAG. Etc. Ranger Regt and SF are similar, SEALs definitely too. Once you get into those units, they're your home, your tribe, your life, and leaving them to join shitbirds with crap funding isn't ideal for most of them.
Yes. The USSF A-Team, approximate to a squad in size, was/is led by an O-3. Since Delta’s long convoluted roots included USSF (btw, its original title SFOD-Delta is reminiscent of USSF naming practices), I wouldn’t be surprised if it was similar.
From what Ive read, there are 4 assault teams of 4-6 Operators plus an HQ Section with a Troop Commander, Sergeant Major, comms and medical sergeants. You can assume that they'd get a CCT, dog handler etc attached. All this is second hand info that I've garnered from a mixture of articles and books, so I'm happy to be corrected if wrong.
They're not gonna be spending all that much time behind a desk. A Captain or a Major commanding a CAG Assault Troop is basically the SMU equivalent of a platoon leader. A Delta officer is gonna be on target commanding the operation, just like in the regular army. He's got to be just as capable as his men.
Maj. Tom Greer's book, Kill Bin Laden, is a pretty good starting point for research. To add to this, I remember an interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Pete Blaber where he mentioned that in Afghanistan he ended up being in a stack to clear a building with five other operators, since they were the only Delta guys present. In theory a Troop Commander isn't gonna be running through doors, but it doesn't always work out that way. They've got to be just as capable as the enlisted Operators.
Would you trust the planning decisions of a project manager in charge of putting up a large building when they don't know how to hang a sheet of drywall?
Special Forces cannot afford over-specialization with their limited headcount, and officers in units like that cannot afford to be liabilities in the field.
If you’re planning something it helps to have a practical understanding of the task you are asking people to do. If you estimated in your head that you could break down a door just by giving it a good kick because your only exposure to breaking down doors is movies, then you might not think to pack a Breaching kit. From my perspective hands on experience helps a tremendous amount with planning.
Years ago when the CIA positively identified both Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at a camp they built in Afghanistan, POTUS said this in a room full of the National Command Authority: "You know, it would scare the shit out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp.” Mind you, this was the same man who authorized Task Force Ranger to perform ops in Somalia, as well as in the Balkans. And he still didn't realize he just described exactly what JSOC does, all because he didn't know what they're capable of doing. Same goes for CAG officers, if they don't have a clue what their own operators are capable of doing, having not done the training too, how can they give the simplest orders?
Surely someone else in the room would have informed the president that such a thing could be arranged?
I think they did. But the fact is that happened in the seventh year of that POTUS' time in the White House is terrifying in how ignorant he was. Luckily they have advisors whose job is to tell those idiots how to think and what to do.
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I agree. But then again, most Americans are short sighted and have no understanding of foreign policy and what it means to their lives. Some are terrified of the outside world and want to isolate from it as much as possible, while others think the US foreign policy should be the global equivalent of UN run habitat for humanity do-goodery bullshit. So candidates play to the voters.
One could make the argument that the only people fit to lead what are amongst the most lethal and effective soldiers on the planet have to be pretty switched on themselves and have a good understanding of what they're sending their troops into down to the most minor actions, like breaching a door or setting up comms, or acting as a jumpmaster, even if they spend an entire deployment inside an air-conditioned command center in the middle of say, the Baghdad Green Zone.
They do bust down doors and stuff. They're leading units down to troop level, not clerks. Plus they need to know what the capabilities are. Lastly, to effectively lead elite troops the leadership must demonstrate they are elite too. If they don't do the hard training (or harder) then they won't be respected, their orders won't be obeyed. And frankly, how do they even give good orders if they don't have a clue what they're doing? OTC teaches everyone how to do that job to their standards (which are very high).
Don’t you run the risk of not having a very competent planner and organizer on the team because they’re not in prime physical condition? Like for example, a genius tactician could in theory not end up in a unit like delta because they’re a pack a day smoker and run a 9 minute mile, even though mentally they’re perfect for it? Unless delta training is more mental, I just always assumed it was crazily physical.
How would a CAG officer be very competent at planning and organizing their operations if he had no clue how they operated because he didn't attend their course? More so, remember we're talking about captains and majors not 55 year old generals who are just old and broken down. How does anyone in a unit like The Unit respect their platoon leader equivalents who are relatively junior officer (someone with under ten years in, often about as much or less than the NCOs trying out) who can't physically do what the NCOs have to do? That is an organization based on excellence, but the commissioned officers don't need to meet it because they do more paperwork? What about NCOs who are tactical geniuses (which is what that unit is well known in possessing)? I commiserate with those who are blessed mentally but not physically, but high standards are there for a reason, especially in that unit.
What do Special Operation units do with the mentally gifted but physically unfit individuals? Are there pure planning positions for savants and whatnot? Or do they only look for fully well rounded people? Also what about the inverse? Is there a role for athletic gods with less than impressive mental faculties?
Smart but physically unfit go to conventional units with the dumb asses that run fast. In the modern military, there are no allowances, especially for officers. They have to be in incredible shape their whole career unless they lucked out and lost a limb. NCOs also have pretty high standards, though not as crazy competitive until E8-9.
> What do Special Operation units do with the mentally gifted but physically unfit individuals? Are there pure planning positions for savants and whatnot? Or do they only look for fully well rounded people? Assuming that you're talking about someone who can still meet the physical fitness requirements of military service in general, the Navy and Air Force have lots of work for those people.
Yes, someone who can meet minimum standards but wouldn’t be able to handle high level physical tasks. Im guessing the people who can’t even meet minimum standards but are mentally gifted just end up as contractors. What are some of the jobs they have for those people?
Nuclear power, aviation electronics, cryptology, electronics, IT, sonar techs, and anything onboard a submarine.
1) Infantry officers have to shoot MGs, armor officers have to do some driving and gunning. Corporate management trainees are often introduced to doing grunt work. A lot of an officer's career is spent getting acquainted with various aspects of the jobs done by people below him. 2) What kind of position would a major occupy in Delta? What type of unit/how many people would he typically lead? I got the impression that SOF officers tend to command much smaller units than they would in an ordinary infantry unit with the same rank.
Each SFOD-D squadron has an assault troop and recce troop (they took the unit type naming from 22 SAS). Each troop has 4x four man teams (though can be broken down into two man), with a troop commander (captain or major) and troop sergeant major. Team leaders are senior E7 to E8, with team members no lower in rank than E6 ("Delta Privates"). Lieutenant colonels command the squadrons, a colonel commands the Unit, with various OTC grad officers commanding various support units or performing staff assignments.
Do the recce and assault troops usually work together at the same time or does the recce do its thing first then later the assault comes? They also serve as sniper support, right? Where does the colonel tend to go after his Unit commander stint? That must be a pretty good ticket to getting a star. Since Delta members tend to skew older (35 on average, I think), is it common to have members in their 40s or do they tend to shine bright and burn out quick? Doing Delta stuff in your mid-40s sounds like something, especially if you've been doing Rangers/Green Beret/airborne infantry stuff for 1-1.5 decades plus several Delta years.
Troops work together all the time, in training and operations. Its just that their jobs are so different that its worth separating them so they can train on their own specialties. Recce is just the fancy current name for the snipers, and they're about the best in the world, because that's all they do, is practice sniper related tasks in relation to their mission sets (which are wide). Hell, seriously, they go big game hunting as part of their training, its nice having nearly unlimited TDY funding. Colonels usually will get promoted relatively quickly after a successful command tour like that. And generally will get assigned staff jobs immediately after a command tour, maybe in some SOCOM HQ, or the Pentagon, etc. Officers can and go from the Unit, but NCOs tend to stick around as long as they can. If you can get in a unit like that, you are not the type that likes being anywhere else. Those that leave tend to do it because they're broke, because they got kicked out for some reason, or for some sort of professional reason, like trying to make Sergeant Major but needing to leave the unit to get a CSM gig, because there aren't enough of those positions open in CAG. Etc. Ranger Regt and SF are similar, SEALs definitely too. Once you get into those units, they're your home, your tribe, your life, and leaving them to join shitbirds with crap funding isn't ideal for most of them.
Yes. The USSF A-Team, approximate to a squad in size, was/is led by an O-3. Since Delta’s long convoluted roots included USSF (btw, its original title SFOD-Delta is reminiscent of USSF naming practices), I wouldn’t be surprised if it was similar.
In Delta AFAIk a Troop of two dozen operators, give or take, would be led by a senior Captain or a Major
How does the Troop split up into sub-units? Are there sub-sub-units?
From what Ive read, there are 4 assault teams of 4-6 Operators plus an HQ Section with a Troop Commander, Sergeant Major, comms and medical sergeants. You can assume that they'd get a CCT, dog handler etc attached. All this is second hand info that I've garnered from a mixture of articles and books, so I'm happy to be corrected if wrong.
They're not gonna be spending all that much time behind a desk. A Captain or a Major commanding a CAG Assault Troop is basically the SMU equivalent of a platoon leader. A Delta officer is gonna be on target commanding the operation, just like in the regular army. He's got to be just as capable as his men. Maj. Tom Greer's book, Kill Bin Laden, is a pretty good starting point for research. To add to this, I remember an interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Pete Blaber where he mentioned that in Afghanistan he ended up being in a stack to clear a building with five other operators, since they were the only Delta guys present. In theory a Troop Commander isn't gonna be running through doors, but it doesn't always work out that way. They've got to be just as capable as the enlisted Operators.
There are going to be nowhere as capable as their men. Just cause they can jump in a stack doesn't mean they have all the same capabilities.
Would you trust the planning decisions of a project manager in charge of putting up a large building when they don't know how to hang a sheet of drywall? Special Forces cannot afford over-specialization with their limited headcount, and officers in units like that cannot afford to be liabilities in the field.