Alex Hollings

How long will it really be before we see special operators in Iron Man suits?

Given the spectacular special effects on display in Marvel’s “Iron Man” movies and the Defense Department’s clever allusions to the popular hero throughout the development of programs like their TALOS armored exoskeleton, you could be forgiven for thinking mankind is on the cusp of fielding some real-life superheroes. Many media outlets have been happy to latch on to reports of progress made on the Pentagon’s exosuit efforts, running headlines suggesting special operators will soon be tooling around in super-strong, bulletproof power-armor suits that will completely change the way combat operations are conducted.

It’s an exciting prospect, but realistically speaking, these reports of special operators fielding Iron Man-style suits on near-future battlefields are almost as fictional as the comics in which Iron Man can be found.

“When we get the exoskeleton here in a few months, we will have the best exoskeleton in the Department of Defense,” explained SOCOM Acquisition Executive James Smith earlier this week. “It will not be something our operators will feel comfortable putting on in a close [combat] environment today. So, moving, shooting, communicating in the face of enemy fire—not quite there yet.”

For the sake of emphasis, let’s revisit that last sentence one more time: “So, moving, shooting, communicating in the face of enemy fire—not quite there yet.”

The TALOS suit may not be the only exosuit under development in the Pentagon’s varied tool box, but it is, by most accounts, the most advanced and combat-centric. Back in 2013, the Defense Department even released this hype video that—it’s fair to say—could compete with the Kremlin’s work in terms of propagandized claims of “near-future” capabilities.

Now, however—six years of development later—the TALOS suit still lacks the ability to move, shoot, or communicate. What gives?

The truth is, as simple as Tony Stark makes it look, developing a truly functional combat exosuit is an extraordinary undertaking. Not only does it require developing new and advanced technologies, but it also requires those technologies to mature to a sufficient extent as to make them extremely reliable. It isn’t enough to build a TALOS suit that can survive a single engagement. To make the concept truly feasible, the suit has to be resilient enough to survive the extreme operational tempo of today’s special operations community. The suit needs to fire up and function day in and day out for months on end, in the most extreme and dangerous circumstances imaginable.

The very concept of the suit invites some difficult questions. In the minds of most ballistics experts, bulletproof isn’t a real thing; only bullet resistant is achievable. That differentiation is important when building equipment for combat operations: Even the mighty M1 Abrams tank isn’t considered bulletproof. It would just take one hell of a projectile to puncture the 600mm of armor adorning the front of it. Truly bulletproof armor plating of the thickness employed by Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit simply doesn’t exist, so systems like TALOS need to rely on a trade off between ballistic protection and maneuverability. Put simply, if you cover the suit in enough armor to stand and eat rounds, it becomes extremely heavy and immobile. If you build it to be able to move quickly and with enough agility to do things like dive behind cover, it will require either less armor or more power.

Lockheed Martin’s ONYX exosuit skips the idea of armor altogether, focusing instead on increasing endurance. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

That need for power is a serious issue for these endeavors. It takes a lot of energy to move a giant armored suit around at all, forcing the suit to rely on either a huge store of batteries (which increases load and adds to the power requirement) or a fuel-powered generator that would compromise any form of stealth the suit would offer. Just imagine preparing to breach during a nighttime raid when the gas generator on your exosuit kicks on. So much for the element of surprise.

So in order to make these suits feasible, the Pentagon needs a small but potent power source, or far better batteries than we may be capable of producing currently. The suit needs to offer more agility than existing technology allows, and it needs to do so while demonstrating better reliability than a Toyota Camry, despite being used in only the worst and most dangerous conditions on the planet.

So how long will it be before we start seeing the 160th’s Little Birds being retired in favor of JSOC teams running in while dressed like War Machine? Optimistically, you could say years. Realistically, we may really be looking at decades.

Feature image courtesy of Marvel/Disney

USASOC apologizes after nighttime raid on abandoned North Carolina hotel stirs controversy among locals

The unique challenges posed by urban warfare can be extremely difficult to train for in a realistic way. American military installations that lend themselves to dynamic training tend to be set in expansive stretches of open territory, allowing for all sorts of live fire and simulated training events without worrying about the effect these drills may have on nearby civilian populations. The problem is, modern warfare doesn’t always take place in open fields, and among the only ways to develop real technical competency when it comes to urban combat operations is to train in urban environments.

Residents of Raleigh, North Carolina, witnessed just such a training event recently, when members of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command conducted a raid on the vacant Capital Plaza Hotel. It upset nearby residents, many of whom were initially unsure if what they were seeing was a real combat operation or an exercise.

Gates locked up once again at the old Capital Plaza Hotel after an overnight military exercise. Folks in nearby Brentwood neighborhood of Raleigh are annoyed, says “it was full on war games.” #ABC11 pic.twitter.com/xi3o6FrbzZ
— Elaina Athans (@AthansABC11) March 29, 2019

“The exercise turned out to be louder and more disruptive to the nearby neighborhood than the city anticipated,” City Manager Ruffin Hall said in a prepared statement approved by the Raleigh City Council. “Upon review and lessons learned, I would not approve an exercise of this scale and disruption adjacent to a neighborhood in the future.”

Notifying the public about these training events is a difficult predicament for the U.S. military that hopes to achieve a realistic parallel to how a real operation would unfold. If the notification approach is too effective, it can result in crowds gathering around the training site hoping to watch the spectacle. This is not only counter-productive for the concept of the training, it potentially puts civilians at risk (as there is an inherent risk to any and all military training). However, if notifications aren’t effective enough, public outcry from concerned citizens can also become quite troublesome.

An MH-60 Black Hawk inserts an International Special Operations Forces team onto a barge using fast roping in Tampa, Florida, on May 21, 2014. Fast roping is used when a helicopter cannot touch down. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Tori Schultz)

“One of the neighbor’s daughters is eight months pregnant with her first pregnancy, and she was having trouble breathing. We were afraid she was going to go into premature labor,” said a woman who identified herself only as Dana to local news outlet WRAL-TV. “One of the neighbors had his guns out. It was crazy.”

The raid, which was conducted sometime between midnight and 2 a.m., included special operations helicopters flying low throughout the area for insertion and extraction of special operators, as well as simulated gunfire and a number of loud bangs reported by local residents that were likely flash-bangs or other types of explosives used for breaching. The overall size of the drill, it seems, proved to be the issue and as a result, the Army’s Special Operations Command has issued a statement saying that drills of that scale will not be conducted again in buildings located so close to the city’s occupied neighborhoods.

“U.S. Army Special Operations Command is grateful for the support we receive from multiple community leaders around the United States in order to routinely conduct training in a variety of urban settings,” Lt. Col. Loren Bymer said on behalf of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command. “These types of training events are necessary to maintain the readiness for the Army Special Operations soldiers.”

Feature image: MH-60 Black Hawk and MH-47 Chinook helicopters with the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joseph Pick)

The birth of SOCOM: How America’s Special Operations Command was born of tragedy

Trying to trace America’s special operations units back to their roots can be a daunting task, in part because of how we perceive the missions these elite war-fighters carry out. Unconventional warfare may sound like a term describing a manner of fighting that lies outside the traditional methodology employed by the United States military, but the fact of the matter is our nation was forged on battlefields where American patriots employed non-traditional methodologies and mindsets in order to snatch victory from a foe with superior numbers and equipment. In many ways, unconventional warfare has long been an American convention; we simply provided the tactic with a formal organizational structure and began tailoring training to that end in an official capacity in the early 1940s.

On June 8th, 1942, William Orlando Darby was given command of the 1st Ranger Battalion, a group that would soon come to be known as Darby’s Rangers. His team, along with Frank Merrill’s Marauders (formally known as the 5307th Composite Unit) and other specialized groups tasked with using guerrilla-style tactics during World War II would establish the groundwork for the coming 70-plus years of special operations units. Some five years later, the Air Force would authorize its first special operations-style pararescue teams.

The Marine Corps first began fielding Force Recon teams in 1957, with Navy SEALs following soon thereafter in 1962. Delta Force would join in on the fun in 1977 and the 160th SOAR followed suit in 1981, but America’s Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, wouldn’t make the scene and begin institution inter-service coordination until 1983. Although special operations have a long and illustrious history in American war-fighting, the formation of SOCOM represented an important shift in how our nation employed its special operations units. Unfortunately, that shift only came as the result of a tragedy.

On April 24th, 1980, a combination of deteriorating funding for special operations troops and a post-Vietnam decline in the capability set employed by our elite operators resulted in a failed attempt to rescue 53 American hostages from a desolate location in Iran known as “Desert One.” Eight men died that day, and the hostages would not see freedom for months. America’s failure at Desert One was an embarrassing blemish on the otherwise legendary reputation American special operators had earned on the battlefield. Within the defense community, it served as a wake up call: America could do better, and it was time that they set about doing so.

A photo of the “Desert One” landing site, a piece of desert in Iran used by U.S. forces as a refueling point in an attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. (WikiMedia Commons)

“That crushing failure at Desert One and its consequences told everyone, despite the enormous talent we had, we hadn’t put it together right and something had to be done,” said retired Lt. Gen. Sam Wilson in a statement given in April of 2017. Wilson’s varied career had led to him serving as a CIA field case officer, a Special Forces group commander, and as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“That conclusion was reinforced by the superficially successful operation in Grenada. Once again, our service components could not talk with each other, the forces had not lived together, trained together, nor did we share the same doctrine. The operation was like a pick-up basketball game. Desert One and Grenada were the two main events telling us something must be done,” Wilson said.

By 1983, a growing sense that reform in the special operations community was necessary had begun to take hold in the U.S. government, leading to the formation of the Joint Special Operations Agency on January 1, 1984. The agency, which served as a sort of precursor to SOCOM, was hindered from the very outset, however, due to it lacking any form of operational or command authority over actual special operations units. Congress had initiated its inception with the distinct purpose of fixing the systemic issues found in America’s SOF units, but failed to enact any real or meaningful changes. The hunt for a valid way to restructure the special operations community continued.

The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) now falls under USSOCOM

In 1986, two separate bills were discussed on the House floor, with many former SOF commanders appearing before lawmakers to discuss the potential benefits of a new organizational structure. They called for a four-star-level SOF command, providing the elite units with the military clout they would need to secure adequate funding and enact changes as appropriate. Although many offered important recommendations and analysis, the testimony provided by Army Major General Richard Scholtes is widely regarded as the most influential.

“Gen. Scholtes has a reputation for integrity and principle. He would tell it like it was. That was important to the (Armed Services Committee) members,” said former Sen. William Cohen, who also served as Secretary of Defense from 1997 to 2001. “The Pentagon was waging a frontal and rear assault in opposition to the creation of a special operations command. Without his testimony, USSOCOM might not have happened, or we might have created a command with only two or three stars.”

U.S. Army Major General Richard A. Scholtes

Securing the authority of a four-star-level command was paramount in the minds of lawmakers like Cohen because it would provide SOCOM’s leaders with the ability to interact with the command structure of other branches on a peer level.

“There were fundamental flaws in how we were operating and we needed a four-star in charge of the command to deal with his counterparts,” said Cohen. “SOCOM’s profile needed to be raised to get the money, the appropriations, and the authority to start the command in a way that it would be significant.”

Both bills presented to the House and Senate were ultimately passed before going to a conference committee for reconciliation. Although the House had hoped to retain the civilian oversight allotted by the Joint Special Operations Agency, they ultimately conceded the point, and the final bill to establish SOCOM was attached as a rider to the 1987 Defense Authorization Act, where it was ultimately passed.

President Ronald Reagan approved the establishment of the new command on April 13th, 1987, and the Department of Defense activated it just days later, on April 16th.

SOCOM was established to bring the disparate elements of America’s special operations apparatus under the same roof, where they could not only work to combine skill sets into the most versatile and functionally capable combat force on the planet, but to establish a joint culture that prized cooperation over all else but mission accomplishment. Prior to SOCOM’s establishment, America’s special operators had done the best they could with what they had available to them. As SOCOM matured, America’s elite war-fighters found themselves benefiting from new funding streams and the breadth of expertise offered by warriors who hailed from different branches and diverse occupational specialties.

Feature image courtesy of the Dept. of Defense

Tunnel-mapping tech may be the most important special operations gear of the 21st century

Recently, NEWSREP Editor-in-chief Jack Murphy reported on the U.S. military’s standing plan to infiltrate Iranian underground bunkers housing integral elements of the nation’s nuclear apparatus. If war between the United States and Iran were ever to come to fruition, these facilities (commonly referred to as hardened and deeply buried targets, or HDBTs) would be among America’s top priorities. But taking them out of commission would require a more dramatic approach than America’s preferred method of warfare by ballistic missile.

Many of these HDBTs are constructed deep underground, often by tunneling into mountains. The natural barrier provided by 2,000 feet of rock would, in some cases, render even America’s bunker-busting munitions useless. Instead, infiltrating and destroying these facilities would fall to America’s elite counterterrorism unit, the 1^st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force.

Although Delta has been training for these potential underground combat operations in Iran for years, the risks associated with such an operation have grown in tandem with the increasing number of potential enemy states—including North Korea, China, and Russia—all of which maintain (or are rumored to maintain) sizable underground facilities meant to shield against weapons of mass destruction and potentially afford protection to command and control elements from surveillance or engagement.

Soldiers of 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, prepare to clear a corridor during subterranean operations training. (U.S. Army)

As Jack Murphy pointed out in his NITRO ZEUS piece, “Numerous countries have sought to conceal and protect vulnerable military resources underground inside facilities hardened with reinforced concrete, vault doors, internal environmental systems, and more, such as the United States has done at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”

Put simply, fighting in enclosed spaces deep underground, where communications are limited and the stakes are at their highest, isn’t just a tactical nightmare, it may also become a pervasive part of what nation-level warfare looks like in the 21st century.

It’s likely with this concern in mind that America’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has issued a request for information regarding advanced technologies and methodologies that can be employed for the “3D mapping and surveying of underground environments.”

“What makes subterranean areas challenging for precision mapping and surveying, such as lack of GPS, constrained passages, dark or dust-filled air, is similar to what inhibits safe and speedy underground operations for our warfighters,” said DARPA Tactical Technology Office (TTO) Program Manager Timothy Chung. “Building an accurate three-dimensional picture is a key enabler to rapidly and remotely exploring and searching subterranean spaces.”

If you’ve seen the film “Prometheus,” this effort may seem familiar. In the movie, crew members deploy floating drones that use lasers to quickly map out the subterranean cave complex they’re exploring.

It doesn’t seem likely that DARPA’s cave-mapping drones will defy gravity like those depicted in “Prometheus,” but with small drone technology rapidly advancing, a “floating” mapping device doesn’t seem entirely out of the question. Of course, propulsion is far from the only technical hurdle faced in this initiative. Maintaining connectivity to the operator, processing the data captured and rendering it in a usable manner, and even concerns about battery life versus added weight are among the litany of hurdles developers will need to either mitigate or eliminate in order to make such a device a reality.

A soldier assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, provides security during subterranean operations training. (U.S. Army)

In many ways, special operations war-fighters operating in these tunnels will be doing so without any access to external digital or communications infrastructure, meaning the mapping system will need to be entirely self-contained between the probe and the operator’s gear. Cloud computing or outsourcing any of the computational work via any sort of network simply won’t work beneath 2,000 feet of rock

The challenges DARPA faces in this endeavor are not insignificant by any stretch of the imagination, but a breakthrough in this sort of technology could provide American and allied forces with a much-needed advantage in what would be sure to be brutal fighting inside confined spaces. America’s special operations troops may be the best trained in the world, but training doesn’t stop bullets. In tunnel warfare, a defender’s familiarity with the space, the terrain, and any potential hazards can offset a significant training advantage had by the attackers.

Despite not quite garnering the same sort of attention as programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or new hypersonic missiles, tunnel-mapping technology may prove to be the most valuable tech in America’s war-fighting arsenal. After all, fast-moving missiles may help win a conventional war, but the only way to win a nuclear one is to prevent it from starting in the first place.

Feature image courtesy of the U.S. Army

American Special Operations drew their inspiration from these elite warfighting units throughout history

It can be said that the need to band together in groups is intrinsic to what makes us human beings. Long before the dawn of civilization, humans gathered together in like-minded groups in order to offer one another protection, defend resources, and share the mental and physical challenges of survival. Forming a cooperative group, or herd, may have been one of the earliest human advancements that would one day lead to the complex societies we live in today. But like today, whenever groups gather, conflict is never far behind.

Warfare, it would seem, was the inevitable result of humans living in groups. When one group had something another needed (or wanted), they sought to take it by force. What started as small skirmishes between tribes eventually grew into major battles between city-states, religions, and eventually, nations. The drive to fight and win wars led to countless technological developments throughout human history, but new and advanced weapons have never been the only element necessary to secure victory in a tribal spat or global conflict. Instead, finding and training the most capable war-fighters has always been a key element influencing who would go home the victor and who wouldn’t make it home at all.

Although modern special operations are, as the phrase implies, very much modern, the roots of America’s most elite war-fighting institutions can be traced back as far as warfare itself. In the Marine Corps, we would often liken the lessons we learned in combat training to those first established by the Spartans. Though our modern lineage might be more comparable to that of the British Royal Marines, our ideological ancestors hailed from another time entirely. The mindset employed by Spartan warriors, perhaps as much as their tactical expertise, set them apart from other militaries of the day—something many could attribute to the Marine Corps of today as well. Similarly, one could draw historical parallels between SOCOM’s specialized units and some of the most impressive, capable, and downright frightening warriors throughout human history.

Helmet plate depicting a dancing warrior and a bear warrior (Norse berserker)

Viking berserkers, recounted in Norse legend as men who would fight with a fury that seemed inhuman, often chose to forgo the chain mail armor of their day, instead adorning themselves with the pelts of predators such as bears and wolves or, often, wearing nothing at all. The bloodlust demonstrated by berserkers in combat granted them a far-reaching reputation, allowing them to sometimes skip the battle completely and instead simply accept an opponent’s surrender based on nothing more than their presence.

Courtesy of dynamosquito via WikiMedia Commons

The Immortals who fought for the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, depicted in the stylized movie “300,” were the special operations forces of Persia’s multinational military machine. The Immortals were designated as such, according to Herodotus, not only because they were the most fearsome and well-equipped soldiers in King Xerxes’ army, but also because their 10,000-strong unit would immediately field replacements for any Immortal who fell to battle or sickness, ensuring the mighty Immortals retained their 10,000-strong moniker at all times.

Rembrandt chose to illustrate the moment of the oath of the Batavia in the sacred grove, as described by Tacitus, Histories IV, 14. Civilis, with crown and sword. (WikiMedia Commons)

The Batavi were a warrior people who served with the Roman military (when not rebelling against Roman rule). Like modern American Navy SEALs, the Batavi gained a reputation not only for being fearsome and brutally barbaric warriors, but for possessing an incredible strength that allowed them to swim across rivers others saw as impassable, all while wearing their armor and carrying their weapons. This tactic enabled the Batavi to attack enemy armies that had used swift waterways as a natural barrier against attack, taking them utterly by surprise.

The classic cliché of black-adorned ninjas sprinting across rooftops may not have been accurate, but the ninja’s reputation for stealth, reconnaissance gathering, and guerrilla warfare tactics is well deserved. Often disguising themselves to blend in with the civilian populace, ninjas trained with a myriad of weapons and prized adaptability in their training regimens. Ninjas were most effectively employed in specialized missions, not unlike modern special operations units.

All of these elite warriors, and countless others, helped form a common fabric of tactics, strategy, and mindset that would one day be employed by America’s elite special operators. Considering that, to a large extent, one can truly credit the breadth of warfare throughout human history with planting the seeds that would later become our modern special operations infrastructure.

Feature image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

Know a SEAL from a Night Stalker: a breakdown of US Special Operations units

While it could be said that every unit which falls under the “special ops” umbrella is comprised of operators who can move, shoot, and communicate with lethal efficiency, different units developed to address specialized challenges.

As the years wore on, and particularly since the onset of the Global War on Terrorism, lines may have blurred a bit between specialties in many cases, allowing various units to conduct similar operations. But, the specific nature of each continues to inform the internal culture of divisions that fall under the command of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), honoring their heritage as well as the prowess their service experience allots.

Many people who understand America’s special operations apparatus are usually most familiar with the elements of one of SOCOM’s subordinate commands, the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. Officially, JSOC is tasked with studying special operations requirements and techniques in order to ensure the best methods of unit interoperability are employed, while fielding new equipment and conducting special operations exercises, training, and missions in the best interest of our nation. To be succinct, JSOC has the “best of the best.” It might help to think of them as America’s war-fighting All-Star team.

Units of JSOC include:

The Intelligence Support Activity, commonly called “The Activity”
The U.S. Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron
The U.S. Navy’s Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) or the recently popularized SEAL Team Six
The U.S. Army’s 75^th Ranger Regiment: Regimental Reconnaissance Company
The U.S. Army’s 1^st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, commonly known as Delta Force

However, listing these names does little to clear up potential confusion, so allow me to elaborate briefly on three of these four units.

DEVGRU, SEAL Team 6, and whatever their current (and classified) operational title may be are all referring to the same group of elite Navy SEALs. Team 6 recruits from within, choosing only the best of the already elite Navy SEAL community. Delta is often compared to Seal Team 6 in terms of operational capabilities and grueling indoctrination and training, but differs from its sea-based brethren primarily in recruiting tactics: Delta operators may come from any branch, and are sometimes even former SEALs.

The Air Force’s 24^th Special Tactics Squadron (24^th STS) is perhaps the least recognized of the three, which may be because pararescuemen, combat controllers, and Tactical Air Control Parties deployed by the 24^th STS usually serve alongside DEVGRU or Delta teams, rather than fielding complete teams on their own. These airmen synchronize and control elements of air support or provide medical assistance to other special operators in the field.

Beyond the elite units housed within JSOC, SOCOM boasts a number of other special operations teams that may be best addressed by dividing them by their representative military branches.

United States Army Special Operations Command

Know a SEAL from a Night Stalker: a breakdown of US Special Ops units — (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense)

Special Forces (Green Berets)

The term “special forces” is often misattributed to any military personnel working within America’s special operations community. However, the phrase is actually specific to the Army’s elite group of soldiers who specialize in unconventional warfare, reconnaissance, internal foreign defense, anti-terror operations, and direct action combat. Green Berets are considered unique from other special operators for various reasons, most importantly being put to use in times of peace and conflict alike. Their motto, “De Oppresso Liber” translates to “Free the Oppressed.”

The 75^th Ranger Regiment

Like the Navy SEALs, a highly specialized company of Rangers falls under JSOC, but the rest of Ranger Battalion answers to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Rangers are specifically-selected soldiers who must first complete an eight-week long Ranger Assessment and Selection Program—which replaced the Ranger Indoctrination Program, or RIP, in 2010—before reaching their assignment within the regiment. Once there, they must complete the even more arduous Ranger School in order to earn their Ranger Tab.

The 160^th SOAR (Night Stalkers)

The U.S. Army’s Special Operations Regiment (SOAR) provides helicopter aviation support for special operations troops, often flying into extremely hostile territory to deliver and extract elite operators from combat zones. Aviators in the 160^th are among the most highly-trained pilots on the planet, and use the latest in new and modified military aircraft to complete missions often deemed too dangerous for many other aviation units. It was the 160^th that delivered JSOC operators to the compound in Pakistan on May 2^nd, 2011 to kill Osama Bin Laden.

Other units or personnel that fall under SOCOM include skilled civil affairs soldiers, military information support operators, sustainment soldiers, and the training cadre responsible for assessing, training, and educating the Army’s elite war-fighters.

United States Navy Special Warfare Command

SEALs

Navy SEALs are probably the most famous special operations unit in the world. Countless movies have depicted the heroism of SEALs, and even more books recount stories told by individuals who earned the coveted Trident. Unbeknownst to some, SEAL is an acronym that stands for Sea, Air, and Land—acknowledging the heart of the Navy SEALs’ role as a multi-purpose combat force. SEALs conduct operations in any situation or location, from clandestine reconnaissance to direct action missions.

Special Warfare Combatant-craft (SWCC) Crewmen and Enablers

SWCC Crewmen belong to Special Boat Teams often tasked with operating small surface craft for coastal operations and to support special operations missions. Primarily focused on aiding in the infiltration and exfiltration of SEAL teams, these Crewmen work where larger vessels cannot operate, providing close fire support and medical care to special operators on mission. Enablers, like the SWCC Crewmen, offer technical assistance to special operations personnel, including everything from cryptologic support to explosive ordnance disposal.

United States Air Force Special Operations Command

Special Tactics Airmen

Special Tactics Airmen offer a wide variety of operational capabilities derived through diverse areas of training and expertise. Combat controllers are certified air traffic controllers that infiltrate combat zones undetected to simultaneously conduct air traffic control and coordinate air support while also participating in direct action missions. Pararescuemen, or PJs, specialize in both conventional and unconventional recovery operations. The Special Operations Surgical Team offers a rapid deploying and lightweight medical element for trauma life support.

Special Operations Aviators

The men and women assigned to the Air Force’s Special Operations Aviators are considered some of the most exceptional pilots in the military. Flying in specialized aircraft, they conduct operations primarily under cover of darkness, and offer varying levels of support to special operations missions, including reconnaissance, infiltration and exfiltration, and command and control operations.

Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command

Critical Skills Operators/Special Operations Officers

Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) recently reflagged with the historically-consistent moniker of Marine Raiders. They’re the latest addition to the SOCOM organizational structure. For much of the Marine Corps’ history, it operated without any formal association to SOCOM, instead establishing independent Force Recon units in a similar fashion while retaining organizational control. Since MARSOC entered the SOCOM fold, its operators conduct foreign internal defense operations, special reconnaissance, and direct action combat missions.

While this list offers a glimpse into the various facets of special operations units, it’s important to acknowledge that the nuanced differences in culture and conduct exhibited by operators within each can be difficult to quantify.

Each special operations group had to shed aspects of its parent branch in order to better integrate unique skill sets and capabilities with those offered by groups hailing from other branches. However, traditions and culture found within groups such as the SEALs or Marine Raiders remain intrinsically tied to their service birthplaces. There’s always been a fair amount of friendly competition between branches, but once a Soldier, Sailor, Marine, or Airman answers to SOCOM, they must work their way into the new combined culture of the service. SOCOM, in many ways, is an extraordinary beast all its own.

SOCOM operators come from all walks of life, and represent a variety of military occupational specialties established in each of the four branches of American service. Ultimately, these special operators are more than war-fighters: they’re diplomats, problem solvers, and instruments of foreign policy. Only by combining the best and brightest from America’s exceptional military infrastructure can they possibly accomplish so much.

Feature image: Navy SEALs conduct training in the sea, in the air, and on land. (Photo: U.S. Navy Mass Communication Spc. 2nd Class Martin L. Carey)

Former Marine strategist and defense expert calls for disbanding Marine Raiders

Dakota Wood spent 20 years in uniform as a U.S. Marine. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2005 and entered the world of academic defense analysis.Now a senior fellow at the Center for National Defense at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, Wood used his experience in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and as a researcher to field a surprising recommendation for the American defense apparatus: get rid of the Marine Raiders. In a 60-page report released March 21^st, Wood—who once served as a strategist at Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command—said the USMC needs to reevaluate where it spends its money in order to be highly effective in a 21^stcentury conflict. One key area of wasted funding, he claims, is on the Marine Corps’ Special Operations command known as the Marine Raiders, or Marines Special Operations Command (MARSOC).Wood’s report, published by The Heritage Foundation, reads:

MARSOC was established because of a shortage of special operations teams, not because the Marine Corps wanted a special operations force. U.S. Special Operations Command was hard-pressed to meet the operational demand for its capabilities as U.S. global war on terrorism efforts expanded in Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other locations worldwide.Consequently, the 2,700 Marines committed to MARSOC benefit SOCOM, performing special operations tasks in specific locations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. MARSOC has little direct value for the Corps, especially with regard to the Corps’ primary mission as stipulated in 10 U.S. Code and DOD [U.S. Department of Defense] directive.”

Wood contends that Marines already assigned to MARSOC are doing important work for the America’s national security, but counters with concerns about how much of the branch’s resources are devoted to special operations.”The Corps’ commitment to MARSOC, while a boon to SOCOM [United States Special Operations Command] and the good work it does for the country, is an opportunity cost for the Corps and the work that only it can do, as opposed to SOCOM’s role and the contributions long made to its mission by the Army, Navy and Air Force,” he said.The USMC was the most recent branch to add personnel to SOCOM’s stable. MARSOC (later dubbed Raiders) first established approximately 13 years ago. Since then, Marine special operators have proven to be a valuable asset in combat operations the world over. However, Wood posits the resources being allocated to these efforts could be better used improving the USMC’s overall conventional combat capabilities, especially in the face of what has been a high operational tempo and decades’ worth of budget concerns.MARSOC spokesman Maj. Nicholas Mannweiler said in an official statement that the command is aware of Wood’s report, and pointed out his recommendations pertaining to special operations are a part of a bigger issue of which the USMC and the Pentagon are already aware:

The recommendations made in the paper are one aspect of a much broader conversation on Marine Corps and joint operations in response to our evolving national security challenges,” he said. “MARSOC will continue to partner with our fellow Marines in enhancing lethality, interoperability, integration and interdependence as well as with our rich network of [special operations forces] and interagency partners.”

However, former members of the Marine Corps’ special operations community are publicly critical of Wood’s conclusions, saying his assessments are based on a dated concept of warfare that doesn’t accurately reflect the modern landscape of battle.”If there’s a major theater war with China or Iran, it’s not going to look like the Second World War,” Elliot Ackerman, a Marine with five combat deployments, told Military.com. “To say these 2,700 guys will be better suited in [any other] Marine regiment belies a lack of understanding of what Marine Raiders have contributed in the last 10 years.” He’s not the only objector quoted.

This would set us back two decades, if not more,” said Nick Koumalatsos, a former Marine Raider. “It’s not the world we live in anymore. We’re not lining up tanks and we’re not lining up in trenches to fight a conventional battle.”

The debate really boils down to how best to fight a near-peer war in the Pacific. Wood contends that the USMC is allocating too much of its limited money and resources toward fielding a fairly small number of highly-skilled operators. If a conflict with China were to break out, those resources could be better allocated toward the amphibious warfare that the Marines trade on.”Up until 2006, the Marine Corps had pushed back against having an elite force and being a part of the special operations community because they were fully busy doing Navy-Marine [amphibious] sorts of things,” Wood said. “It was only because they were forced to create a special operations service component by then-Secretary of Defense [Donald] Rumsfeld because SOCOM was extraordinarily short on teams.”Yet special operators contend that it’s precisely because of the possibility of a high-end conflict in places like the Pacific that there’s a growing need for Marines in the special operations community.

Feature image courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

Mismanagement Plagues Air Force F-22 Raptor Program

Another excellent article from Alex Hollings over on our parent site NEWSREP was posted the other day on the trials and tribulations of the most lethal superiority fighter in the world, the F-22 Raptor. Hollings wrote that the biggest issues with the fighter have to do from within the U.S., not its enemies.

U.S. congressmen, not thinking forward, stopped funding the program, thinking that the U.S. didn’t need the fighter ten years ago. Now, with a renewed emphasis on a possible conflict with Russia or China on the horizon, those decisions could come back to haunt them. Read on…

America’s first fifth-generation fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, is widely considered to be the best air superiority fighter on the planet. The combination of its low observability and high performance makes it America’s heavyweight contender in the battle for air supremacy, even in the era of the data-fusing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. While the F-35 was intended to serve as a jack-of-most-trades, with a heavy emphasis on air-to-ground power, the F-22 was built with one primary purpose in mind: to hunt down, close with, and destroy enemy fighters.
However, the pricey F-22 program soon saw retreating support among lawmakers that sought to reduce the cost of America’s defense apparatus without reducing the nation’s ongoing obligations in combat. With just 186 F-22s delivered to the U.S. Air Force, the program was cut short in 2009, a decision that has since been criticized as short-sighted. While the United States had no pressing need for an advanced air superiority fighter at the time, the nation now knows it was less than ten years away from a resurgence of concerns about nation-level threats posed by diplomatic competitors like China and Russia.
The Air Force, which also relies heavily on the F-15 for air superiority missions, has since tried its best to make do with its limited quantity of F-22s, which, it’s important to note, are notoriously difficult to maintain. The high cost and level of labor required to keep America’s Raptors operating tends to result in reduced availability for the airframe, but those problems, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), are seriously exacerbated by the branch’s poor management of F-22s and related assets.
According to the GAO report, it was the Air Force’s decision to organize its fleet of F-22s into smaller units than seen in traditional air wings. F-22s are flown out of 18-to-21-aircraft squadrons with only two squadrons per wing. Conversely, other fighters operate out of wings comprised of three squadrons with 24 aircraft in each. These units, the GAO contends, are able to field more fighters, more consistently, thanks to efficiencies created by sharing more equipment and resources in the larger wings.
Those issues are made worse by the Air Force’s habit of deploying F-22 Unit Type Codes (UTCs), or small contingents of jets, with only six or so of a squadron’s aircraft. These UTCs, however, deploy with around half of the squadron’s maintenance personnel and equipment, leaving the remaining jets understaffed and under-equipped when it comes time for maintenance operations. All of this results in drastically reduced aircraft availability rates, which are also worsened by the branch’s reliance on F-22s for domestic air defense missions, operations the GAO contends could easily be conducted using fourth-generation fighters like the F-15.
All of these issues combine for a perfect storm of reduced F-22 availability for combat operations, but potentially worse, reduced availability of these jets for essential training operations.

To read the entire article, click here:

Photo: US Air Force