5 ms·
I was reading about special operations in WWII and these kinds of missions always seem to be on a knife's edge. This mission seems more akin to a WWII operatio
by duxup 1y ago
I was reading about special operations in WWII and these kinds of missions always seem to be on a knife's edge. This mission seems more akin to a WWII operation with the team and their immediate support being entirely on their own.
>But the episode worried some experienced military officials with knowledge of the mission, because the SEALs have an uneven track record that for decades has largely been concealed by secrecy.
This seems to be a trait many special operations groups have. Type A personalities that you want in that job, but that bring with it a willingness for big risk taking and fantastical type missions.
That's not to say their success rate should be super high, these are difficult missions, but some like the failures in Panama were a case of ambition over common sense. Granted this mission they made the right call to leave when they were discovered.
- ignoramous 1y ago> Type A personalities that you want in that job, but that bring with it a willingness for big risk taking and fantastical type missions... https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-barbarous-wastes https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-ba...
- chvid 1y agoNothing heroic “type a” about killing random unarmed civilians. These people are disgusting psychopathic thugs and so are the people behind them. And it is tragic that we are so deeply buried in arrogance and propaganda that we cannot see this.
- runjake 1y agoIt’s important to clarify that yes, they’re more comfortable with risk taking but they’re highly-trained for high-risk missions and taking calculated risks with massive amounts of intelligence work and contingency planning beforehand. It’s not just “lol, let’s try it. If we die, we die!” And their success rate should be and is, pretty high. That said, this was a National Command Authority (came down from the White House) mission and those tend to be the riskiest.
- jeffbee 1y agoThe entire story is about how you lack a rational basis for holding a belief about the success rate.
- th3o6a1d 1y agoWhat is their success rate? What is "pretty high?"
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y agoWe don't know. It's classified. That's the part of the point. I get why the OC might assume the success rate is pretty high because the successful missions can be talked about so the public hears about them. Very rare to hear about the failures like this one. But we just don't know if its rare because they don't happen much or because they happen a lot and are kept as a state secret.
- JohnBooty 1y agoThis is my best understanding as well. I have watched a lot of ex-special forces guys on YT. Needless to say, I take it all with massive grains of salt, including the claim that they were even SF in the first place. However, they all describe the selection processes similarly. And, my educated assumption is that this part is probably too dull for them to lie about, much less lie about in unison across many accounts and years. So I have a decent level of confidence in that aspect of their tales. Anyway, the common threads are that while they do want highly confident and confident types who are also outliers in terms of physical ability, the selection process is HIGHLY geared towards selecting intelligent team-oriented individuals. Without those two traits you are going to get you and your squadmates killed in a hurry. These missions are highly planned but due to the inherent ambiguity and difficulty the SF guys have to make a LOT of autonomous decision making on the fly when things (inevitably) deviate from the script. You hear very similar stories from other "elite" types in the military, like combat pilots. While you have to be sort of a highly talented "alpha" type you also need to be professional and team oriented. No loose cannons allowed, either on the individual or squad level.