Training and Selection
One major difference between both units is the way they select their members. In my opinion, it’s apples and oranges.
Delta‘s selection process is very simple: Twice a year the unit holds a one-month selection course somewhere in the Appalachian mountains. The course attracts over a hundred candidates, primarily from the Ranger and Special Forces communities but from other components as well.
The Rangers and Special Forces soldiers who attend are seasoned, battle-hardened shooters who have already attended numerous grueling selection and training courses. Yet the failure rate is still over ninety percent. Just finishing the course is still not enough, as there is a commander’s review board/interview at the end that determines whether each person should be accepted into the unit or not.
If the candidate is accepted, he attends the six-month Operator Training Course (OTC), which still manages to wash people out who can’t keep up with the stressful training curriculum. (My understanding is that sixty to seventy percent pass.) If you want to get into the specifics on selection and OTC, you can read plenty of books, including Inside Delta Force, Kill Bin Laden, and The Mission, The Men, and Me.
SEAL Team Six’s selection process is very interesting. It’s comprised of two parts: The Review and Green Team. The Review portion consists of the SEAL submitting his application for entrance to Team Six, after which his name, team designation, and picture is posted on a wall in a corridor at Dam Neck-and it is up to the individual SEAL Team Six members to give that candidate a check sign or a minus sign to signify whether or not he should be allowed to undertake the selection process.
If the SEAL is accepted, he attends the six-month Green Team. Green Team is very similar to Delta‘s OTC and is held once a year. Fifty percent do not complete the course. At the end of Green Team, the graduates are part of a draft process that is held by different representatives from the squadrons. Because SEAL Team Six are almost fully comprised of SEALs, many of the Green Teamers and the SEAL Team Six members know each other from past assignments or training. It’s in this process that the graduates get “drafted” into their respective squadrons.
NOTE: I mention that almost all members of SEAL Team Six are SEALs and not all because SEAL Team Six is rumored to be open to members of the Marines as well, as long as they have attended BUD/s (they don’t need to attend SQT). I don’t have any concrete information whether any are actually on the team.
Operational Capabilities
Both units operate in the same spectrum of special operations, counterterrorism, hostage rescue, direct action, and counter-proliferation. Most of the time they can be interchangeable with one another. Both units have been widely known to conduct exchange programs with one another.
The team that I worked with in Iraq had a SEAL Team Six sniper attached to them. He defended an Iraqi police station from being overrun by insurgents during the Battle of Mosul, in 2004, from a hotel rooftop. To answer your question, yes, he was a badass. In a place like Iraq where most of the combat was conducted in urban and close quarters environments, you really can’t tell the difference between a Delta operation verses a SEAL Team Six operation.
Afghanistan has shown to be a different case. Many times during an assault against an objective in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a simple clandestine HVT (high-value target) snatch-and-grab operation can turn into a major ambush. When this happens, the operation just turned conventional.
There is no “special” way to react to an ambush or contact that is taught only to SOF units and kept hidden from other units. React to ambush is a basic infantry battle drill, and when the shit hits the fan, you better believe a Delta operator will be doing the same thing an 11-Bravo private from the 101st is doing on an Afghan objective somewhere else.
Here is where some of the cultural differences play a major part in how both units operate.
The vast majority of Delta are infantrymen by Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), or were infantrymen at some point in their careers. SEALs are not and never were infantrymen, nor have they ever spent time training as infantrymen; they are a maritime Special Operations force that focuses on direct action and special reconnaissance.
To put it best, my good friend, a squad leader with the Rangers, who has hit countless objectives side-by-side with SEAL Team Six expresses that the unit is incapable of making the switch from operators to basic infantry grunts when the need to do so arises. It’s not a fault of the unit, but simply a by-product of where the shooters were “raised.” (During my time in Afghanistan, I never was on an Afghan objective with SEAL Team Six, although I did get my feet wet in Iraq with Delta.)
As this became an issue, especially with the resurgence of the Taliban en masse circa 2008, JSOC commanders created a very symbiotic relationship between SEAL Team Six and the Rangers. The two units complemented each other and have had a very close relationship in Afghanistan ever since.
Hope this paints a non-classified picture of the fundamental differences between AFO Neptune and AFO Wolfpack. See what I did there?
One team, one fight. Tombstones don’t have unit designations.
Editor’s note: This article was written by Iassen Donov.
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