U.S. Special Operations: Personal Opinions

[ODB]

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.

I'm so tired of the who has the biggest d*ck on the block mentality on all sides. When an ODA and BCT get along great things come from it, when they do not we all might as well sit that rotation out. SF feels the same pain of those middle of the night unannounced raids. You'd think with the information highway what it is there would be better communication on all levels.

My thought was to have a BDE per group and focus them regionally. Get the NCO's to language training and send the O's to some SWC course on FID. The benefit is a very large reinforcement of SF very rapidly, a quick bridging of the cultural divide at the lower level, and CONUS geography (pretty close to SWC already, as well as to the CA/PSYOP guys.)

Much easier done by integrating both sides early on. Up until GWOT there was very little if any training/operations done between SOF and conventional forces. We sometimes have to sleep in that bed we have made. Coming SF with 14 years infantry experience I had little to no exposure to SF before hand. This can be remedied in multiple ways. CTC rotations, school house, local training, ones imagination is the limit. I do not believe we need set BCTs dedicated to supporting SF Groups, takes too many out of the fight. Big problems arise when you start dedicating troops to one specfic mission, then they always get held back for that just in case we need them excuse. The good thing coming out of the GWOT is the SOF/conventional integration and the experiences being learned. My fear of being OPCON/TACON to a BCT is much like any other attachment; under utilization and misuse. Many conventional and unconventional commanders forget or do not know how to utilize assests properly. My fear goes the same way for conventional forces being OPCON/TACON to ODAs or Group.

One of my good idea fairies thinks one of the best solutions would be cross pollination so to say. With many younger less experienced soldiers in SF today at some point in their career you kick them back to big Army to be SL/PSG, then they get the feel for conventional ways and nothing wrong with bringing a few SSG/SFC Infantry guys to be an extra bravo on the team. Send SF Majors to conventional staffs and conventional majors to SF staffs. Just a thought and a HRC nightmare but might just get us the most bang for our buck in the long run.

[reed11b]

SOF MP's I think this article is relevant. I am kind of surprised something similar has not been suggested seeing the difficulty we have had in both A-stan and Iraq training competent police forces.
Reed

[jkm_101_fso]

I'm so tired of the who has the biggest d*ck on the block mentality on all sides. When an ODA and BCT get along great things come from it, when they do not we all might as well sit that rotation out. SF feels the same pain of those middle of the night unannounced raids. You'd think with the information highway what it is there would be better communication on all levels.

I'll note some of the same habitual problems as Cavguy; my BN owned an AO in Iraq, but an SF team worked indepedently inside a city in our AO. It wasn't that we had a poor relationship with them, but that we weren't privy to all of the operations and "deals" they made with Iraqi leaders inside the city. When they left the AO, all we heard from the local leaders was "Captain Jimmy (SF TL) said this, Captain Jimmy said that". It was a very frustrating obstacle to try and work through. Additionally, the SF team "hired" their own militia that continued independent ops after the SF team left. They even occupied the SF team safehouse as their HQ. Deconflicting their ops (because they weren't IA) was hard, because they had been empowered by the SF team to do so. I will say that the SF team did a fairly good "battle handover" with us when they left, but it was hasty and we didn't get all the details we should have. Our fault for not asking all the right questions and getting all the info we should have.

One of my good idea fairies thinks one of the best solutions would be cross pollination so to say. With many younger less experienced soldiers in SF today at some point in their career you kick them back to big Army to be SL/PSG, then they get the feel for conventional ways and nothing wrong with bringing a few SSG/SFC Infantry guys to be an extra bravo on the team. Send SF Majors to conventional staffs and conventional majors to SF staffs. Just a thought and a HRC nightmare but might just get us the most bang for our buck in the long run.

Agree with much of this. What would be the willingness of the SF officers and NCOs to "go back on the line"? I'm assuming that they wouldn't prefer that. I guess it could be DA mandated. I think there would be much to gain from putting 18 series guys back into 11 series formations.

In the the field artillery world, we send non-SF majors/post-command CPTs to SF groups to be FSOs. Granted, they are on staff and not with the teams, but still learn from their experiences. I think it's a great program and one that the Army will continue. Of the former SF FSOs that I've seen come out of Group, they are great assets to the FA BNs they go back to, because of what they learned with Group.

I believe (but don't know for sure) that 13F/13A from the Ranger BNs also support Delta missions, but aren't Operators. I assume they bring great knowledge and experience base back to Rgr BN and other FA BNs they eventually go to.

[Cavguy]

I'm so tired of the who has the biggest d*ck on the block mentality on all sides. When an ODA and BCT get along great things come from it, when they do not we all might as well sit that rotation out. SF feels the same pain of those middle of the night unannounced raids. You'd think with the information highway what it is there would be better communication on all levels.

ODB,

We're in violent agreement.