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| pic via USNI News. |
The SOFLE enabled the MEU’s Recon Company, a robust group of about 75 Recon Marines and support personnel, to do more, Trollinger said. The liaisons “advertised capability and said, ‘Here’s what we can do for you. We have Reconnaissance Marines – they’re not SOF – but they do have some similar capabilities. Let’s look at leveraging those capabilities.’ So the SOFLE did a lot of work identifying, and then actually planning, coordinating different activities that my reconnaissance Marines were able to do with different SOF entities while we were deployed.”Read it all here.
“If we did not have the SOFLE, we would not have been able to do, in my opinion, the different activities that we were ultimately able to do,” he said.
I understand why Special Ops is so hungry for this teaming. Check this out from FM71-3..
Limitations of SOF:
*Depend on the resources of the theater Army to support and sustain operations.
*Cannot conduct conventional combined arms operations on a unilateral basis.
*Their capabilities are limited to advising or directing indigenous military forces conducting this type of operation.
*Do not have organic combined arms capability. They habitually require support or attachment of other combat, CS, and CSS assets.
*Cannot provide security for operational bases without severely degrading operational and support capabilities.What I don't understand is this. What's in it for the MEU? The article is laced with a massive pile of bullshit. Each Combatant Commander has an inhouse Special Ops Liaison Team. Deconflicting areas and making sure that the MEU is informed of what a particular SOCOM Unit is doing (assuming its not classified) should already be covered. There simply is NO need for a team led by an 0-5 to compete for limited berthing aboard our amphibs (oh and make no mistake about it...for every person added, another person is left on the beach...the same applies to equipment). If advertising that we have Recon Company aboard ship is the best that we can offer a Combatant Commander, then we need to totally rethink the briefings that we give on the capabilities of the MEU.
My take on this? The counter insurgency zealots in the Corps have won. Maritime Raid Force move over. You're no longer the "master" of the MEU. There is a new element in town...and they come from Tampa.
So why doesn't the MEU have a "deep bench of well-funded, advanced, high-tech capabilities?" Relying upon fancy-pants outsiders for functions better done by the unit is a recipe for disaster in battle. It's called Unit Integrity, the loyalty of men toward their unit, integrity that one can't borrow nor buy, and it shouldn't be diluted by the introduction of outsiders into the unit, which can only breed a dissent anathema to success.
ReplyDeleteyeah the part about comms capability that can be brought aboard ship and providing capabilities that aren't organic surprised the hell outta me. the idea that the Marine Corps is no longer elite and that you need an additional identifier...being in MARSOC or Recon is now the gateway to being in the warrior elite clubs bugs me too.
ReplyDeletebut worse is the fact that every time i turn around it seems like the MEU is being diminished more and more...and its not by outsiders but by the Corps itself.
Marines aboard JHSVs, SPMAGTF-CR's etc...all point to trouble in my mind. dispersed forces can be located and once located if they're small enough without supporting fires, they can be easily killed.
If I were a Marine I would resent the hell out of some snake-eater pretending that he was a better soldier (sorry) than I was, and when crunch time comes, as it is bound to, I would tell him to fend for himself, my obligation is to my band of brothers, my MEU (or whatever). That is the strongest bond there is, and others from a "deep bench of well-funded, advanced, high-tech capabilities" are aliens, of no account.
ReplyDeleteRecon not SOF? Probably as good as Rangers. And, hang around salt water more.
ReplyDeleteIt really is a null issue, Recon and the "SOF" community tend to have a lot of cross ties. Enough ties such that a SEAL can be "loaned" as the Recon CSM for totally the same training. This is just paper shuffling. Or unit shuffling to be precise. 12 of one, a dozen of another.
ReplyDeleteHell, lots of "SOF" were poached from Recon in the first place!
I would like to hear you explain how a SEAL can be loaned to be a Recon CSM.
ReplyDeleteDo I look like a clerk to you? He was just assigned, how the hell am I supposed to know why?
ReplyDeleteCan you at least explain the situation you were in in which this happened
ReplyDeleteyou KNOW Owl is bullshitting us on this. its never happened and will not happen. to give him the benefit of the doubt i'll guess that what he's saying is that SOCOM is trying real hard to be service agnostic and mixing and matching units. thats me being charitable.
ReplyDeleteYeah, cause they are not trying to be service agnostic is the thing. The fact is that all of the SOF groups are extremely different from each other with TTPs and SOPS and their general mentalities.
ReplyDeleteok. so you're spoiling for an argument? i'm game. SOCOM is pushing the meme that they are separate from the rest of the services, yet fully integrated with each other. you can talk different TTPs and SOPs...even mentalities but that's not where was going with this and YOU FUCKING KNOW IT! take a look at the leadership at SOCOM. take a look at the staffing. yeah they're trying to be service agnostic and you can talk to any of the bubbas down there to get that view.
ReplyDeletequite honestly the thing that has me laughing my ass off is that someone somewhere sees the writing on the wall which is why you see SOCOM pushing so hard to integrate with conventional forces now. while i mourn the loss of the people that died on the helicopter in Florida it does make me wonder why MARSOC would be flying on National Guard helicopters for a training mission.
the time is coming where senior people are beginning to ask why we have a SOCOM that is bigger than the British Army and the cuts are coming.
Oh really Sol, you so sure I'm bullshitting on this?
ReplyDeleteCommon, from what I gather, SEALs are on a high-low-high-low activity cycle, so on the "low" part of the cycle, they sometimes "loan" them out to other units as their downtime is rather long. IIRC it was 12? 18? months of low cycle, you can't give the person a whole year of leave, so they are sometimes sent to other units for the time being. Not common, but it happens. Sometimes they even get sent to "multinational" training with SOF from other countries. Think of it as a strange form of exchange program.
IIRC, even the SEAL course itself is open to foreigners.
http://www.extremesealexperience.com/Faqs_Seals-On-Operation-Redwing
Look at the part on the double dipping from Recon.