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Marshall Few going to Air Force special ops program.

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paksat said:
has a better chance of being a SEAL, only 5% make it in USAF spec ops last I checked. BUDS has a much higher success rate than 5%

good luck to him
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Really? I thought the 2 hardest schools was BUDs and Delta selection.
 
DTP said:
This guy got to play football for the Hurricanes and now he’s gonna fly fighter jets? Pretty bad ***.
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I'm not sure he's going to be a pilot. I'm guessing the Special Operations Command could include those special operators who often go into dangerous territory to identify targets and communicate the location to the planes attacking them. They might use lasers, maybe some other form of communication. I think it could mean going fairly deep into enemy territory to find and identify targets. It could be a very dangerous mission and demands only the best people. These are often the guys who go in first. This is not based on any personal knowledge but from what I've read.

Other parts of the Special Operations Command could be rescue of pilots, and I've read that many forward air controllers embed with ground troops in closer combat to identify targets for the attacking aircraft and to make sure there are no attacks on friendly troops who might not be that far from the enemy.

One part might be Special Tactics, which is supposed to be the equivalent of the Army Special Forces, the Seals, and the Marine Special Operations Command.
 
OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
Why is there such a difference?
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to answer you and the guy on the next page asking

I don't really know, but I will say this.. of all the elite of the elite you never hear anything about the USAF spec ops. in that line of work, thats usually a good thing. The quiet professionals as they are all called, the USAF ones are by far the most quiet.

I don't think they're better than DEVGRU but overall, we don't really know because no one knows ANYTHING about them.
 
I’m not looking to start a fight but one of my biggest pet peeves is when athletes compare a game to war. I’ve played sports but I certainly don’t have the courage to join the armed forces. Major respect to the men and women who have, are, and will. They provide a blanket of freedom so that I can preach the gospel. Salute.
 
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paksat said:
aren't too impressive? I can't even begin to say how much I disagree with this.
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I've worked alongside them and attended marine corps scout sniper with a few of them, and have come away not impressed. The 2 seals I was at sniper school with failed. Now I could be wrong and have just met the bad apples of the community(every SOF unit has em like it or not), but I wasn't impressed. Like I said before, the real seals end up going to Devgru. Otherwise Seals, like the armys regular SF, is just infantry with a larger budget. Regiment, CAG, DEVGRU, and TFO have the best of the best no doubt.
 
OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
Why is there such a difference?
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There are four "Tier 1" units in the military

1. Delta
2. DEVGRU (seal team 6)- this is important- seal team 6 is the ONLY Tier 1 unit in all of the Navy Seals
3. 24th Special Tactics Squadron (USAF)
4. Intelligence Support Activity (ISA)

You probably never heard of the last two. Delta also doesn't like to toot its own horn. SEALS for some reason like to let everyone know they are SEALS.

Dropout rate is also not necessarily correlated with physical difficulty. There are certain cyber jobs in the military that have an even higher dropout rate than any of the special forces.
 
Bubbacane10 said:
Not on same level as seal but close.
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Combat Rescue and CCT in the air force have some of the highest attrition rates in the military.
The reason is that they’re usually attached to special forces a-teams and have to “keep up” with them and be just as tactically specialized.
As far as pararescue goes, they have to be even more fit by default.
One of the first special forces teams in Afghanistan was team 555. They had a an air force combat controller

Most people knowPararescue form their motto “that others may live” but they have their own funny motto “you Fck up, we pick up”. An Air Force plane goes down in the North Atlantic and they have jump and get the pilot. Check.
Dudes trapped behind enemy lines in a mountainous terrain taking enemy fire with serious injuries. Check.
The prarescue school in San Antonio has the nickname Superman U.

This the first Medal of Honor recorded in video of John Chapman attached to a seal team.
 
Kjdcanefan said:
Seals aren't too impressive. Devgru is where the good ones are at. CAG in the army is where the other real boys are at too.
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There are Fleet SEALs and SOF SEALs. Just like Rangers and Special Forces. Cannot be a team guy unless you are anything less than a SFC as enlisted and Captain as an officer to get to the Q course. May have changed but that was definitely the case when I was in. I was Central Command guy and did a lot of work with 5th SFG. We have Fleet SEAL snipers in Mogadishu. They were good guys. I worked with Task Force Blue and those guys were squared away. The difference between SF and Special Mission guys are even more.
 
pacusmc said:
Combat Rescue and CCT in the air force have some of the highest attrition rates in the military.
The reason is that they’re usually attached to special forces a-teams and have to “keep up” with them and be just as tactically specialized.
As far as pararescue goes, they have to be even more fit by default.
One of the first special forces teams in Afghanistan was team 555. They had a an air force combat controller

Most people knowPararescue form their motto “that others may live” but they have their own funny motto “you Fck up, we pick up”. An Air Force plane goes down in the North Atlantic and they have jump and get the pilot. Check.
Dudes trapped behind enemy lines in a mountainous terrain taking enemy fire with serious injuries. Check.
The prarescue school in San Antonio has the nickname Superman U.

This the first Medal of Honor recorded in video of John Chapman attached to a seal team.
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Exactly correct. Teams are built to have a multiple blend of specialties. Even if you have a PJ assigned to a team, he most likely has trained everybody in the fundamentals on how to be a medic.

Getting through all the PJ quals is incredibly difficult. Very long training cycle and the kids have to literally be a jack of all trades. I remember the arguments when I was assigned at SOCOM. I was in Air Operations Division. PJ training was a huge issue. I am sure it still is today.
 
Kjdcanefan said:
I've worked alongside them and attended marine corps scout sniper with a few of them, and have come away not impressed. The 2 seals I was at sniper school with failed. Now I could be wrong and have just met the bad apples of the community(every SOF unit has em like it or not), but I wasn't impressed. Like I said before, the real seals end up going to Devgru. Otherwise Seals, like the armys regular SF, is just infantry with a larger budget. Regiment, CAG, DEVGRU, and TFO have the best of the best no doubt.
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Actually, Special Forces are divided up into Groups. Groups are divided into regions (PACOM, EUCOM, AFRICOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM). Battalions are divided up by country and language, etc. They have do a lot of joint combined education and training with their assigned countries. A lot of Foreign Internal Defense and part of coalition support elements during combat. Somebody has to control strike forces and that needs to be Americans. They do direct action but not their real specialty. I would argue that Rangers are basic infantry with more training and a larger budget. Very good at what they do but they are the door kickers.
 
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Pentagon Cane said:
Yes, because you don't go through BUDS.
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you guys crack me up...BUDS is just another assessment and selection process, which every Spec Ops / SF unit has. To be an STO, that's a 2 year pipeline! I had a good friend of mine that went STO. I had 2 pumps under my belt overseas as a MARSOC CSO before dude made it out of his pipeline, and we started our own initial training around the same time. They are stellar dudes and super well trained. Our A&S was 3 weeks long, and total initial basic skills qualification training called Individual Training Course or ITC was 9 months long to include a language school component... very similar to the Q course for the Army. SEALS go through a similar training pipeline. Up to half of dudes who make it past BUDS and/or A&S wash out of later phases of the training pipeline due to injuries or inability to make the standards, and never earn their uniform device.
 
paksat said:
to answer you and the guy on the next page asking

I don't really know, but I will say this.. of all the elite of the elite you never hear anything about the USAF spec ops. in that line of work, thats usually a good thing. The quiet professionals as they are all called, the USAF ones are by far the most quiet.

I don't think they're better than DEVGRU but overall, we don't really know because no one knows ANYTHING about them.
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Let's put it this way. I flew AC-130 Gunships. When I walked in with an AFSOC squadron patch on, I never had to buy a beer at Fort Campbell or Ft Bragg or Coronado.
 
Pentagon Cane said:
Actually, Special Forces are divided up into Groups. Groups are divided into regions (PACOM, EUCOM, AFRICOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM). Battalions are divided up by country and language, etc. They have do a lot of joint combined education and training with their assigned countries. A lot of Foreign Internal Defense and part of coalition support elements during combat. Somebody has to control strike forces and that needs to be Americans. They do direct action but not their real specialty. I would argue that Rangers are basic infantry with more training and a larger budget. Very good at what they do but they are the door kickers.
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Ranger and SF have two different mission sets. Rangers are the "grunts" of the SOF world, but they are still a hard group of dudes. Above SF and Seals when it comes to a Raid. All three of those units are tier 2 anyways, I would classify Regiment above the other tier 2 units although I get why some on here would disagree. I have a few buddies in TFO(as another poster mentioned here the ISA), and their selection is mind boggling, as is CAG. Rangers specialize in direct action and for me, that is what puts them above SF and Seals in my eyes.
 
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