I clearly pointed out that the teams are far superior to Mr Snowden, who is also a hero here ar15.com. They also gave china, pakistan, and russia, a helicopter loaded with our latest equipment. And gave Al Shabab a wrist GPS that showed the route they took from their naval insertion point. And thats just the stuff that made news.

My insinuation was that their attention to opsec closely mirrors their attention to pre-mission planning, and thus they might have given their idol FuddHathcock some sort of secret information that shows how amazing they are at all the things.

Because every one of their books is either about a monumental fuck up turned heroic "everyone is dead and everything is classified so no-one can refute it plus medals" or about how tough BUDS was, which is more or less a high speed literary version of a basic training story.

So please, MrBurns. Tell me all about the cool shit. Have you met all ten guys who shot bin laden?

You had forgotten to thank Johnny the POL boy, because he was in the thick of it too, all from the comfort of his armchair.

All that SEAL Hate is gonna burn you up kid.

SEAL HATE

Thanks for your service.  Especially the 40 hours straight part.  Fucking savage.

What kind of severance did you do for the Air Force?

ATW!
-Fox

Because it's not "proof", and even if it were, what the Chief did was not illegal.

Maybe at the operational level, but flight planning is always done by the aircrew, and principally by the pilots/AC. At least it always has been in my Air Force experience.

Good answer.  respond to nothing CWSG has spelled out and instead post a stupid video.

Here's the bottom line...

SEALs generally suck at mission planning, mission coordination, and frequently at mission execution.  They are an insular group that doesn't play well with others and is quick to close ranks to cover up fuck ups (Michael Murphy MOH) and embrellish them to lool like successes (Marcus Luttrel). They lack basic infantry skills since they are largely self taught and don't regularly do interservice schools (eg Ranger) and the majority of their training exercises are set piece rather than true force on force.  IOW they are a self aggrandizing group that fails to live up to their over inflated reputation.

But then again, what do I know.... I was only the CoS of a JSOTF.

38 and a MWD. 30 and the MWD were American.

Hey guys?

Back it up a second.

I'll say that SEAL's have a tendency to go off half-cocked more often than some other units, but I've been noticing a serious problem with operational planning that starts a lot higher up than the guys on the ground. It's not like a team leader decides what mission he's going on; I heard stories about the exact same kinda shit from Recon Marines when we invaded Iraq.

And everyone knows that old saying about how shit always starts up top before running downhill, picking up speed as it goes.

Shouldn't we be looking a lot harder at the guys who plan out these operations before fussing about the guys on the ground? A SEAL is no different than a tank; he excels in his area of expertise, but if you put him in a situation where he is at a disadvantage, he'll get screwed. IE, you wouldn't run tanks through a city with narrow streets and lots of intact buildings without infantry to support them.

ETA: I'm just a schmuck, but I'm blue collar and I can tell you that 90% of my problems come from above my head, mostly those shithead fuckwits who start out making more money than guys who've been busting their asses for 30 years. Y'know, the jackasses who think they know everything and can do no wrong, but blame everyone else when they fuck up?

8 weeks?   No but it would be better than none.

OSUT (16 weeks for me) gets you Blue but living it makes you a grunt.

40 hours straight?  Those Air Force cats sure do have it rough.  I can sleep better at night now knowing hard dicks like John stand ready to pump gas so I don't have to.


I am curious, though, where in the Air Force POL training doctrine one can find a POI on helo insertions, patrolling in general, conducting recon, proper use of an LP/OP, or literally any of the other things John seems to know so much about.  Or did he just pick up all that knowledge through osmosis in his throat?

The amount of danger faced by the SR-71 air crews was probably the same, meaning their job always had substantial risk, no matter what was happening on the world stage.

Was your job any different when "Regan" was dealing with Iranian missiles than it was during stateside training missions?

You forgot the smilies.

You can't go as high as in, say a 17, but yes, it is possible to do a HALO jump from a helo.  The freefall is shorter, and I can't recall seeing them use oxygen.

Some  really bad, unifomed speculation earlier in the thread. One comment was that a TACP would not shoot full auto, or that the TACPs weapon was surpressed and therefore would not have much of a signature, or that the SEAL (Slab) made some huge, unforgivable error, based on service (TACP vs SEAL) rather than the unique circumstances of the situation.

 



  The TACP could have been using an AK if is own weapon was out of ammo, out of reach, or broken. The TACP could have taken off his surpresor simply to fit into the "bunker" The TACP could have simply made a mistake after being shot and turned his weapon full auto.

  This battle was the first real, sustained combat for many of these people, It was 2002, not 2016 and we did not have 14 years of war experience, SOPs, AAR,s and war stories to guide our thinking.

  As far as the SEALs lacking infantry training, they also lack UW training, ranger school or any other school is not going to help with this, they dont want to train for such things and do not retain personel the way SF and MARSOC does. Most SEALs are in for one deployment, maybee two and then out of the navy. SEAL officers quickly move off of the platoons to give the next officer a chance. They also farm out a lot of planning to support guys.

I have a feeling that one of these days, you will learn a few things that will cause you to look back at this thread with great embarrassment.

I spent all my time while on active duty OCONUS.

Very little danger when handling JP-7 due to the high flash point.

The most dangerous stuff I did was hot pit refueling (fueling a running jet while it is also being rearmed)  and mobility stuff with bladders.

For me the Iranian situation was the only real world event of which I had a small part. I am proud of how we did in that situation.

What is interesting is how some in GD view others in the military. If you didn't see any combat your nothing and SEALs who saw a bunch of combat also deserve zero respect.

that's called halo? educate me please.



 

Missing a Navy vs Army joke is not exactly the worst thing that ever happened to me.

The joke does show the service rivalry and the hard feeling about who was chosen for the highest profile raid in history. It's even more interesting in light of the Capt Phillips operation that was the highest profile hostage rescue mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2DeH-E6ab0



 

Sounds to me like what you did in a "real world event" was no different than a training mission.

Most people in the military realize that it is a team effort, and nearly all parts of the effort are necessary.  (I don't see bands as being useful.  That goes double for the ones that play popular type music as "recruiting tools") There are definitely people--especially young ones-- in combat units who wrongly look down on support personnel.  The irony is that I've found SEALs to be among the worst at it.

No one in this thread has "zero respect" for SEALs.  No one has accused them of being "treasonous" or compared them to Snowden.

Like I said, I expect you will look at your posts in this thread with embarrassment.

that would require reflection. I expect not only will he never be embarrassed, he'll never even understand what you're saying

And many of your posts show your utter lack of knowledge about the military.  But hey, you've hung out with some cool guys.  I guess you figure some of that coolness has rubbed off on you, kind of like putting a text book under your pillow the night before an exam.

You're probably right.

have you ever been on a two-way range? I know I haven't been on one. for some strange reason I don't think I'm qualified to tell professionals who have btdt what happens on a two-way range! believe it or not there is a plethora of real war fights who have hunted two legged animals on this site. you should stick to hunting four legged animals because you have no clue what real war fighters are capable of accomplishing.



 

 

Did you read the thread or just my posts?





Maybe I should practice my reading comprehension.

What "team" ,Green or Blue, do you think was flying those SneakyHawks.

To blame the loss of that helicopter on the SEAL team is a perfect example of the bias some have here in GD.

Most likely.

The situational awareness is still at potato for a certain nobody.

 
I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Feel free to quote examples where I told anyone "what happens on a two-way range".

While your at it could you quote me where I was in any duragatory to any "real war fighter".

It is funny how not joining in on a good ol GD SEAL bashfest feels like an attack to those who are grinding on their bias.

Feels are powerful things.

That's why ARFcom is better than all the rest

Holy fuck... that's exactly what I was thinking!



(BTW - I don't believe there is another pop song that mentions more guns by name than that one.)





 

 

I didn't recall that post.  While he did compare them to Snowden, he didn't call them treasonous.


I think that was a reference to a less than complete demolition job, rather than the crash, and I think someone else pointed that out earlier.

I can well remember the .mil during the Clinton years; specifically the submarine world. I was actually deployed when the USSR collapsed, went from doing cool submarine type stuff vs. our archenemy to pretty much nothing overnight. So WTF do we do with all of these submarines now that there is no longer much of a submarine threat from what now is Russia; we friggin multi-task that's what.

During a period in which dollars were scarce all branches and communities were competing for funding and relevance. The submarine world and SpecOps world became reacquainted and the SSGN was an outcrop of that relationship. If your community loses relevance you lose, popularity for want of a better word, and all that goes along with that. So what happens if we go at it with a land locked country or one without much of a Navy? You lose your relevance, headlines, popularity unless you get engaged. Some communities don't seek notoriety that's just how they function, some not so much.

Remember all of this inter service BS is built in and perpetuated by those way up the COC and is usually about funding; those much further down are usually the ones who pay the price for the lack of real cooperation. This event occurred in 2002, I can almost understand it that early into the conflict but the same types of events continued much past when those lessons should have been well learned and become SOP.

This is a systemic problem, as dollars continue to be in short supply it's going to get worse. New blood, new thinking? I don't know but I'm pretty certain we will be ill prepared for what comes next.

 

Why you no like skyhook ?

Yo John,

Have you ever been involved in planning a military operation? 5 paragraph Op Order for a flag football game? Anything at all?

Most of the guys here with tanks have. And that's where our criticism comes from. The mission was fucked up in it's planning (specifically the decision to land a helo right on the objective), which caused the execution to get fucked up. And why was the decision made? Because Seals are great at missions like that. They have experience doing missions like that and their staff has experience planning missions like that. So they didn't see the problem with landing a helo on the mountaintop because that's how it's done in ops like the OBL raid. Put a Ranger or SF officer in that briefing room and they would have raised holy hell over it.

Here's how it works for the Army. Infantry company gets tasked to set up an OP on a mountain. The company does the planning. At the very least, the platoon leader and platoon sergeants for the platoon doing the mission are involved at looking at the map and planning it.

SF company get tasked for same mission. The entire team works out the CONOP and sends it to higher.

In both of those examples, about 87% of the planning is done at the ground level. At the very least, it's done by experienced officers and NCOs that know what they're doing.

Seals do not plan that way. They walk into a briefing room or tent and get handed a 87% complete plan and told to run with it. Why? Because that's not how they were trained. Because planning operations isn't fun or sexy and the teams have no interest in it. I've seen this first hand with seals, downrange and in training. Seals were sent to work a joint op with a SF company (I am NOT SF, and not claiming to be, I was a intel support guy assigned to a SF company downrange where I was present for a lot of planning). The SF team involved and the B team (that's the company staff, all SF guys also) brought them in to plan and the Seal team lead told them 'We don't waste our time with that shit, come find me when it's time to do mission brief', then walked out.

I saw the same thing in training. Seals were at Ft Polk for JRTC. Seal teams get briefed on their mission (get dropped off here, walk here, hit the safe house, then call for pickup). A Navy intel guy in a tent told them where they are getting dropped off and what route to take while coming in on foot. That team ended up walking through waist deep swamp and bitched nonstop during debrief. Sure the intel guy fucked that up, but why didn't the team lead catch that? 'Umm sir, that's a lot of swamp on that route. Why don't we go this way?'

Please read the following as a tongue in cheek question.

Green crashes a SneakyHawk on the compound wall and Blue sucks because they didn't blow it up good enough?

That's an interesting train of thought.

For those whos bias makes them unable to get a bit of sarcasm I am not in any bashing on the Night Stalkers.

Yo Slick,

I don't have any info other than the open source stuff we have all seen but according to most all the open source stuff the SEAL team had no choice to to fly to the X. They requested additional time to fly to the Y and then move on the ground to the X but that request was denied.

I get your point that the culture in the SEAL community is quite different and many would view it as less professional.

The SEALs whom I have discussed this with feel that their culture breeds more creativity and gets better results.

I am not taking sides per say just pointing out that open source information about real world mission don't really support the GD SEAL bash.

GD would be so much more fun if the Staff would shut these threads down.

Not how these things work...