Quote Originally Posted by sapperfitz82 View Post
This is pretty much what is going on in theatre in Afghanistan anyway (minus some of the lower level coordination) with SF taking point and GPF providing support. In my experience, the lack of formal relations made for redundent and often conflicting missions. (SF makes contact with a tribe, GPF comes through a week later and does an on-your-face cordon and search.)
As far as who screws up the other's coin efforts - plenty of examples on both sides - I was the recipent of several Black SOF raids gone bad in my sector, where I had to do the consequence management afterwards.

We consistantly violated unity of effort with SF in Iraq until I left in Feb 07. GPF has little SA on SF ODA ops and vice versa. The "Black SOF" is the worst offender, conducting independent raids into sectors and more often than not leaving a mess for the GPF commander to clean up. Plenty of discussion on the consequence management aspect of SOF raids gone wrong over at company command.

I never understood why the ODA in a BCT sector was not OPCON or TACON to the BCT or even vice versa. Both sides stepped on each others' toes constantly in SOIs and missions because of the parallel chains of command. Relations were highly dependent on the SF team leader and BCT/BN commander personalities to work well. I have seen examples of both sides failing to work with the other due to personality issues.