[colinb]

Hey. Thanks for your response.

Greek letters first. I’m not particularly knowledgeable of American military nomenclature. Where there Alpha, Beta, and Gamma forces first? “Delta” suggests small but vitally important difference to me; think calculus or mechanics (delta-vee FTW). Perhaps my inner nerd is getting the better of me, and I’m reading things into the name that weren’t present in the mind of the originator.

Where these aberrations? Maybe. It seems logical to me that for every outrage gaining notoriety, there are N more that escape attention. My own father said he saw plenty of brutality against civilians while fighting in the British army in North Africa and later Burma (now Myanmar obvs). It has been 50 years since tens of thousands of Catholic refugees crossed the border between the UK and Ireland. It was soldiers and policemen they were fleeing from. Britain had its dirty wars in Malaya, Oman, and Kenya (with some convenient record destruction for the latter). The US seems to have covered itself with less than glory in the prisons of Baghdad, and the black sites in Poland and elsewhere. France’s record in North African is pretty ugly. Italy dealt brutally with Ethiopia. The Russians raped there way to Berlin (yes, and fought bravely against the Nazis). Maybe aberrations aren’t as aberrant after all.

I’m not here to draw (false) equivalence between Delta/the Paras/whatever and the Nazis. But I stand by the idea that there’s something odd about professional soldiering. And not everyone who does it is in the business for there love of democracy and the flag! People who kill other people in the furtherance of national goals, rather than in direct defence of their homes need extra attention, and extra love sometimes, but always extra vigilance.

[danielvf]

When Delta was founded, the US Special Forces were broken down into three team types.

Alpha Team - (or A-team) was a group of 12 men who would operate in the behind enemy lines together.

Bravo detachment - A similarly sized headquarters group of men who would stay behind and support and communicate with multiple A-teams. (Sort of like a NASA mission control team)

Charlie detachment - An overall administrative headquarters team over multiple A and B groups.

When a new form of special forces was organized with a different focus for the team's capabilities, they just grabbed the next word in the Nato phonetic alphabet - Delta.

[stanrivers]

This is new information for me; very cool; I assumed there had to be a reason. What's your background in the subject matter?

To the gentleman's post above, it does seem to me that Delta has a more negative public image as compared to say the Navy Seals... is there any specific reason for that? or do you disagree with that comment?

[t_away_987324]

Source: I am not an operator nor ex-military, but my line of work lets me interact with a bunch of ex-SOF guys.

It's interesting you say that, as my understanding is that the perception is flipped within the SOF community. Most of the guys I've spoken with have nothing but positive things to say about people from Delta. On the other hand, at least two Rangers have told me that they were explicitly told to stay away from the SEALs (specifically, Team 6) when deployed together.

As I understand it, the average age in Delta is significantly higher than that of the operators in SEAL Team 6 and that has something to do with it.

[runjake]

This is in the book the post is about.

[walshemj]

I seem to remember that these are how the SF units are structured

Alpha is a large fire team capable of being broken down into subunits

Bravo is the next level up (platoon) and Charlie (company)

[dragonwriter]

Close.

The A-team is effectively a platoon (it’s the size of a squad—well, about the size of a USMC rifle squad, a bit bigger than an Army rifle squad—and normally commanded by a Captain, which is more typical of a company, but its the organizational level below the company, which typically has ~6 of them.) A B-team is the company HQ element (so a company has one B-team as well as the A-teams.) A C-team is the battalion HQ element (an SF battalion has ~4 SF companies + 1 C-team.)

[runjake]

An ODA (A-Team or Alpha Team) is composed of 12 guys, designed to be broken down into 2 equal sub-units.

Usually an ODA has a senior guy and a junior guy for each job (Medic/Comms/Engineer/etc).

Here is a good, simple overview:

https://www.americanspecialops.com/special-forces/odas/

[sokoloff]

The letter designators are not Greek, but rather the radio phonetic alphabet. (Alpha and Delta happen to be present in both.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet