Everything to Know About SOCOM in Our Constant State of War
War is a complex beast, and war is now our constant state. It may be that Leon Trotsky said it best (there is doubt about that), "You may not be interested in war, but war is most certainly interested in you." We have been involved in multiple wars for more than a decade and a half now, which is a part of the problem. War has become our new normal, and as such, it is now just a part of the background. Did you hear about the roughly 200 civilians who may have perished in U.S. airstrikes in Mosul last week?
Much of what makes the news are actions involving just a few units. Understanding those units therefore makes sense. That being said, there is only enough space here to hit the wave-tops. We won't go into the details of all the various units that together constitute our "Special Operations Forces," nor even all the different headquarters that control these troops. But this basic primer should help you maintain your own situational awareness. Save it for future reference when there is breaking news.
SOCOM
This is "Special Operations Command," which is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. For decades, each of the different services had their own elite units, and as institutions are wont to do, they competed with each other for missions and rarely worked together. Theirs was not a healthy competition, and that was highlighted by the failure of Operation Eagle Claw (the Iranian hostage rescue mission attempt). In the wake of that debacle, Congress, in a rare moment of competence, passed what is known as the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986. This effectively dictated joint commands and training and assignments. One year later, SOCOM stood up. This is the controlling element that weaves all the elite units of the Services together. Commanded by a four-star general or admiral, this is without a doubt the most active headquarters in the military. They are responsible for the employment (but not the recruitment or training) of the different Service units.
ARMY
The Army has the largest component of the forces assigned to SOCOM, and as such, they naturally have their own subordinate command, known as US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), which is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There are four major elements of USASOC, not counting the training establishments that support each of them.
RANGER REGIMENT
The three battalions of the Ranger Regiment constitute the absolute "tip of the spear" when you are thinking about shock troops. These units specialize in the ability to crack open, violently, the most difficult objectives. Trained to arrive by parachute, in small boats, on foot or (as recently seen in Syria) even in armored Stryker vehicles (that was abnormal, by the way). This infantry unit is optimized for short-duration, hard-hitting, unsubtle assault missions.
That very first Afghan airport seized by an airborne assault near Kandahar right at the beginning of things in October 2001? That was a Ranger mission. Tom Hanks' character in Saving Private Ryan showed, pretty accurately, one of the historical missions of the Rangers on D-Day in WWII. Blackhawk Down did much the same in a more modern context showing one Ranger unit in Mogadishu. Patrick Tillman was a Ranger when he died in Afghanistan. They usually operate at the "Company" or "Battalion" level, meaning they go in with 150-500 men, depending upon the mission, though they can do smaller-scale missions as well.
SPECIAL FORCES
Not to be confused with "Special Operations Forces" (that term applies to all of the units described here), these are the storied Green Berets. The original "Quiet Professionals," you usually do not hear much about them, and that is the way that they like it. Due to their unique mission set, they have a correspondingly unique structure. The basic unit is known as an "A Team" (yes, like the TV show) and it consists of one junior officer, usually a Captain, one warrant officer, and 10 sergeants, each one of whom has a unique skill set, but all of whom must also be cross-trained in one of the other skill sets. Six of these teams make up a typical SF "Company," commanded by a Major, while three companies equals one battalion (not counting support companies) and four battalions is one "Group." There are seven Groups overall (two are National Guard) and each one specializes in a geographic region. (This is reflected in the in-depth language and cultural training all the members of the Group go through as a matter of course.) Their five basic missions include Unconventional Warfare (training indigenous rebels how to fight, with each A Team nominally capable of training up to 1,000 fighters), Foreign Internal Defense (FID, which is training government troops how to defeat guerillas), Special Reconnaissance (watching and reporting from deep, way deep, behind enemy lines), Direct Action (conducting small-scale raids against very important targets), and more recently the catch-all mission of "Counter Terrorism."
DELTA FORCE
Technically known as "Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta" this unit was, for a long time, so hush-hush that it was officially "off the books" for all intents and purposes. Largely recruited from among men who are already either Rangers or SF, but also open to volunteers from the Army at large and even from the other Services, these are the elite of the elite. Not counting the support side of the unit there are only a few hundred men who are considered "operators." Their missions are similarly classified, but they generically focus on things like hostage rescue, hitting "high value" targets, and the collection of intelligence.
TF 160
The "Night Stalkers" are the most badass helicopter pilots on the planet. Flying a wide assortment of aircraft, each optimized for operations conducted almost exclusively at night, this unit makes airshow stunt flyers gasp in horror at the things that they can do … in the dark. When the Rangers, or SF, or Delta Force, need to get somewhere that no one else can go, this is the unit that provides the lift.
NAVY
When you are talking about the Navy, it really only comes down to the SEALs. Drawing their lineage to the Underwater Demolition Teams of WWII, the SEALs (it stands for Sea, Air, Land) get all of their volunteers from the Department of the Navy (which includes the US Marine Corps). Like Delta Force, they specialize in raids and hostage rescue operations against particularly difficult targets. Originally designed to operate from the sea, but also with the option of arriving by parachute or helo, they have been changed by the past decade and a half of war. As with the other elements of SOCOM, they now take as one of their primary missions the somewhat catch-all mission set of "counter-terrorism," and in many ways, due to the nature of the fight, they have largely abandoned their prior exclusive specialization of maritime operations. (After all, Abbottabad, where SEAL Team Six put an end to Osama bin Laden, is a long way from the ocean. As is Afghanistan, and Iraq for that matter.) Their two major home-bases (one on each coast) are at Little Creek, Virginia (just to the NE of Norfolk), and Coronado, California.
USMC
In truth, for the better part of a decade, the USMC could not figure out how they might fit within the SOCOM equation, or even if they wanted to be a part of it. After all, that would mean giving up some degree of the much-treasured Marine Corps autonomy to a headquarters which was, gasp, "not Marines." Their elites were always the battalions of what was known as "Force Recon," but in the early 'aughts, there was increasing pressure from both the outside and inside to buckle under. Eventually, about a decade ago, they somewhat half-heartedly signed up, but it was not until more recently that they more fully integrated with SOCOM, even going so far as to re-designate their elements as "Marine Raiders," harkening back to the WWII "Raider" Battalions that fought in the Pacific under a heretical Marine Corps officer named Carlson. The Marine Raiders do just that, raid, as their specialty. Much as with the Army Rangers, this is a generally "Light" (meaning they come without armor or heavy equipment and rely upon surprise and shock to give them a temporary battlefield advantage) unit that operates on a larger scale than much of the rest of SOCOM.
USAF
The assets dedicated to the SOCOM mission from the USAF essentially consist of two types of troops who complement rather than replace any of the other forces. These are Pararescuemen (PJs, or "Parajumpers") who specialize in dropping in via helo or parachute deep behind enemy lines to rescue downed pilots from any service, and Combat Controllers, who operate in small 1-4 man detachments added on to any of the larger SOCOM units and who have as their raison d'etre the calling in and directing of airpower (strafing or bombing missions) from the vast array of different types of aircraft that can be called upon to support any SOCOM mission.
Save this primer for future reference when there is breaking news.
As always, I can be reached at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com.
This post has been updated for clarification on unit breakdowns.
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