Posted on Mar 26, 2016
The Importance of Special Operations Forces Today and Going Forward - 2015 Index of U.S. Military...
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In an age where our government worries about civilian casualties and the ever increasing cost of war, we're hearing more and more about these teams in the news. They are highly trained and highly focused individuals.
The attached article discusses who they are in the sense of what their backgrounds are like, where they're best used, organizational structure, the types of operations they engage in, core activities, how they are force multipliers, the different commands: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and JSOC, and SOF Truths.
SOF Truth #1: Humans are more important than hardware. People—not equipment—make the critical difference in the success or failure of a mission. The right people, highly trained and working as a team, will accomplish the mission with the equipment available. On the other hand, the best equipment in the world cannot compensate for a lack of the right people.
SOF Truth #2: Quality is better than quantity. A small number of people, carefully selected, well-trained, and well-led, is preferable to larger numbers of troops, some of whom may not be up to the task.
SOF Truth #3: Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced. It takes years to train operational units to the level of proficiency needed to accomplish difficult and specialized SOF missions. Intense training, both in SOF schools and in units, is required to integrate competent individuals into fully capable units. This process cannot be hastened without degrading ultimate capability.
SOF Truth #4: Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur. Creation of competent, fully mission-capable units takes time. Employment of fully capable special operations capability on short notice requires highly trained and constantly available SOF units in peacetime.
SOF Truth #5: Most special operations require non-SOF assistance. The operational effectiveness of deployed forces cannot be, and never has been, achieved without being enabled by all the joint service partners. The Air Force, Army, Marine and Navy engineers, technicians, intelligence analysts, and numerous other professions that contribute to SOF have substantially increased SOF capabilities and effectiveness throughout the world.
The attached article discusses who they are in the sense of what their backgrounds are like, where they're best used, organizational structure, the types of operations they engage in, core activities, how they are force multipliers, the different commands: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and JSOC, and SOF Truths.
SOF Truth #1: Humans are more important than hardware. People—not equipment—make the critical difference in the success or failure of a mission. The right people, highly trained and working as a team, will accomplish the mission with the equipment available. On the other hand, the best equipment in the world cannot compensate for a lack of the right people.
SOF Truth #2: Quality is better than quantity. A small number of people, carefully selected, well-trained, and well-led, is preferable to larger numbers of troops, some of whom may not be up to the task.
SOF Truth #3: Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced. It takes years to train operational units to the level of proficiency needed to accomplish difficult and specialized SOF missions. Intense training, both in SOF schools and in units, is required to integrate competent individuals into fully capable units. This process cannot be hastened without degrading ultimate capability.
SOF Truth #4: Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur. Creation of competent, fully mission-capable units takes time. Employment of fully capable special operations capability on short notice requires highly trained and constantly available SOF units in peacetime.
SOF Truth #5: Most special operations require non-SOF assistance. The operational effectiveness of deployed forces cannot be, and never has been, achieved without being enabled by all the joint service partners. The Air Force, Army, Marine and Navy engineers, technicians, intelligence analysts, and numerous other professions that contribute to SOF have substantially increased SOF capabilities and effectiveness throughout the world.
The Importance of Special Operations Forces Today and Going Forward - 2015 Index of U.S. Military...
Posted from index.heritage.org
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Navy Seabee community has always supported SOF, and sense 2001 has increased in RFF's all over the world. The CA missions are enabled supported by Engineers and HUMINT because the locals will always be around and help while constructing schools, water wells, roads all the Engineer stuff. We had HUMINT team we worked with in a DR mission in Pakistan and they also were used in missions in South America, PI and Africa. This is the premises of the Navy NECC command to support all these operations around the world. The SOF guy's need regular forces to do their mission Fact # 5
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CPT (Join to see) thanks for posting, this is an informative thread about their backgrounds and many missions these forces are involved in.
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That's a solid, short and to the point write up of SOF throughout the services. It gives short descriptions of roles, responsibilities and the overlap between the different entities. Definitely a good read for anyone who never served within the SOF community and/or doesn't know much about US SOF.
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LTC (Join to see)
On a side note - the SOF truths and SOF Imperatives are drilled into the heads of SF/CA/MISO candidates as they venture through their respective Q-courses and I'm assuming it's drilled into the other entities of Army SOF (Rangers, 160th and anyone else within the community).
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