SEAL Team Six

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"Team 6" redirects here. For the news organization in Miami, see WTVJ.
For the multinational police force see Special Team Six.
Naval Special Warfare Development Group
Naval Special Warfare Development Group.jpg
Active November 1980 – present
Country  United States of America
Allegiance United States Constitution
Branch  United States Navy
Type Special operations force
Role Special operations
Size Classified
Part of 25px United States Special Operations Command
JSOC emblem.jpg Joint Special Operations Command
US NSWC insignia.jpg United States Naval Special Warfare Command
Garrison/HQ Dam Neck Annex
NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.
Nickname(s) DEVGRU, SEAL Team Six
Engagements

The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), or DEVGRU, is a U.S. Navy component of Joint Special Operations Command. It is often referred to as SEAL Team Six, the name of its predecessor which was officially disbanded in 1987.[1][2] DEVGRU is administratively supported by Naval Special Warfare Command and operationally commanded by the Joint Special Operations Command. Most information concerning DEVGRU is classified and details of its activities are not usually commented on by either the White House or the Department of Defense.[3] Despite the official name changes, "SEAL Team Six" remains the unit's widely recognized moniker. It is sometimes referred to in the U.S. media as a Special Mission Unit.[4]

DEVGRU and its Army counterpart, Delta Force, are the United States military's premier counterterrorism units. Although DEVGRU was created as a maritime counterterrorism unit, it has become a multifunctional special operations unit with several roles that include high-risk personnel/hostage extractions and other specialized missions.

The Central Intelligence Agency's highly secretive Special Activities Division (SAD) and more specifically its elite Special Operations Group (SOG) often works with—and recruits—operators from DEVGRU.[5] The combination of these units led ultimately to the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Operation Neptune Spear.[6][7]

History

Administrative

File:Richard Marcinko.jpg
Richard Marcinko, founder and first Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Six

The origins of DEVGRU are in SEAL Team Six, a unit created in the aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw.[8][9][10] During the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, Richard Marcinko was one of two U.S. Navy representatives for a Joint Chiefs of Staff task force known as the TAT (Terrorist Action Team). The purpose of the TAT was to develop a plan to free the American hostages held in Iran. In the wake of the disaster at the Desert One base in Iran, the Navy saw the need for a full-time counter-terrorist unit, and tasked Marcinko with its design and development.

SEAL Team Six Patch

Marcinko was the first commanding officer of this new unit. At the time there were two SEAL teams. Marcinko named the unit SEAL Team Six in order to confuse Soviet intelligence as to the number of actual SEAL teams in existence.[10][11][12] The unit's plankowners were hand-picked by Marcinko from throughout the UDT/SEAL community. SEAL Team Six became the U.S. Navy's premier counter-terrorist unit. It has been compared to the U.S. Army's Delta Force.[3][9] Marcinko held the command of SEAL Team Six for three years, from 1980 to 1983, instead of the typical two-year command in the Navy at the time.[10] SEAL Team Six was formally created in October 1980, and an intense, progressive work-up training program made the unit mission-ready just six months later.[12] SEAL Team Six started with 75 shooters. According to Marcinko, the annual ammunition training allowance for the command was larger than that of the entire U.S. Marine Corps. The unit has virtually unlimited resources at its disposal.[13]

In 1987 SEAL Team Six was dissolved. A new unit named the "Naval Special Warfare Development Group" was formed, essentially as SEAL Team Six's successor.[14][15][16] Reasons for the disbanding are varied,[10] but the name SEAL Team Six is often used in reference to DEVGRU.

Operational deployments

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Main article: List of operations conducted by SEAL Team Six

Recruitment, selection and training

NSWDG recruiting support personnel,[17] 2007.

In the early stages of creating SEAL Team Six, Marcinko was given six months to get ST6 up and running, or the whole project would come to an end. This meant that there was a timing issue and Marcinko had little time to create a proper selection course, similar to that of Delta Force, and as a result hand-picked the first plankowners of the unit after assessing their Navy records and interviewing each man. It has been said that Marcinko regretted not having enough time to set up a proper selection process and course. All applicants came from the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) and East and West Coast SEAL teams. Marcinko's criteria for recruiting applicants was combat experience so he would know they could perform under fire; language skills were vital, as the unit would have a worldwide mandate to communicate with the local population if needed; union skills, to be able to blend in as civilians during an operation; and finally SEAL skills. Members of SEAL Team Six were selected in part because of the different specialist skills of each man.

Candidates must pass three-days of physical and psychological testing that includes a Physical Screening Test (PST) where candidates must exceed the minimum requirements and perform at their highest level possible. Candidates are then interviewed by an oral review board to deem whether the candidate is suitable to undertake the selection phase.[18] Those who pass the stringent recruitment and selection process will be selected to attend a six- to eight-month Operators Training Course. Candidates will screen with the unit's training wing known as "Green Team". The training course attrition rate is high, usually around 50 percent; during one selection course, out of the original 20 candidates, 12 completed the course.[19] All candidates are watched closely by DEVGRU instructors and evaluated on whether they are suitable to join the individual squadrons. Howard E. Wasdin, a former member of SEAL Team Six said in a recent interview that 16 applied for SEAL Team Six selection course and two were accepted.[20] Those who do not pass the selection phase are returned to their previous assignments and are able to try again in the future.[21]

Like all Special Operations Forces units that have an extremely intensive and high-risk training schedule, there can be serious injuries and deaths. SEAL Team Six/DEVGRU has lost several operators during training, including parachute accidents and close-quarters battle training accidents. It is presumed that the unit's assessment process for potential new recruits is different from what a SEAL operator experienced in his previous career, and much of the training tests the candidate's mental capacity rather than his physical condition, as he will have already completed Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL or the Navy EOD training pipeline.

Candidates are put through a variety of advanced training courses led by civilian or military instructors. These can include free-climbing, land warfare, communications, advanced unarmed combat techniques, defensive and offensive driving, advanced diving, and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. All candidates must perform at the top level during selection, and the unit instructors evaluate the candidate during the training process. Selected candidates are assigned to one of the Tactical Development and Evaluation Squadrons; the others are returned to their previous units. Unlike the other regular SEAL Teams, SEAL Team Six operators were able to go to almost any of the best schools anywhere and train in whatever they wanted depending on the unit's requirements.

Structure

DEVGRU is divided into color-coded line squadrons.[22]

  • Red Squadron (Assault Team)
  • Gold Squadron (Assault Team)
  • Blue Squadron (Assault Team)
  • Silver Squadron (Assault Team)
  • Black Squadron (Reconnaissance & Surveillance Team)
  • Gray Squadron (Transportation/Divers)
  • Green Squadron (Selection/Training)

Each assault squadron is divided into three troops (commanded by lieutenant commanders) and these troops are divided into smaller teams.[23] Each line squadron has a specific nickname. Examples being Gold-Knights, Red-Indians, Blue-Pirates.[22][24][25]

Commanding officers

Command of DEVGRU is a Captain's billet. Ranks listed are the most recent if the officer is still on active duty.

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Roles and responsibilities

Secretary of the Navy, Dr. Donald C. Winter is briefed on the Sentry HP UAV at Dam Neck, 2007.

When SEAL Team Six was first created it was devoted exclusively to counter-terrorism with a worldwide maritime responsibility; its objectives typically included targets such as ships, oil rigs, naval bases, coastal embassies, and other civilian or military bases that were accessible from the sea or inland waterways.

On certain operations small teams from SEAL Team Six were tasked with covertly infiltrating international high risk areas in order to carry out reconnaissance or security assessments of U.S. military facilities and embassies; and to give advice on improvements in order to prevent casualties in an event of a terrorist attack.[citation needed]

Although the unit was created as a maritime counter-terrorism unit, it has become a multi-functional special operations unit with multiple roles that include high-risk personnel/hostage extractions. Such operations include the successful rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, the attempted rescue of Linda Norgrove, the successful rescue of American doctor Dilip Joseph[37] and in 1991 the successful recovery of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family during a coup that deposed him.

After SEAL Team Six was disbanded and renamed, the official mission of the currently operating Naval Special Warfare Development Group mission is "to provide centralized management for the test, evaluation, and development of equipment technology and TTP for NSW." [38]

DEVGRU's full mission is classified but is thought to include pre-emptive, pro-active counter-terrorist operations, counter-proliferation (efforts to prevent the spread of both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction), as well as the elimination or recovery of high-value targets (HVTs) from unfriendly nations.[39][40] DEVGRU is one of a handful of U.S. Special Mission Units authorized to use pre-emptive actions against terrorists and their facilities.[41]

DEVGRU and the Army's Delta Force train and deploy together on counter-terrorist missions usually as part of a joint special operations task force (JSOTF).[3][12][42][43]

See also

Notes

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References

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External links

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  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  5. ↑ Waller, Douglas (3 February 2003). "The CIA's Secret Army". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004145-1,00.html
  6. ↑ "Osama bin Laden killed in CIA operation". The Washington Post. 8 May 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
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  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  37. ↑ Qadir Sediqi,"U.S. Navy SEAL killed in operation to rescue American doctor in Afghanistan". CNN. 10 December 2012
  38. ↑ http://jsou.socom.mil/JSOU%20Publications/2015SOFRefManual_final_cc.pdf
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ U.S. Special Ops: America's Elite Forces in the 21st Century, Fred J. Pushies, MBI Publishing Company, 2003.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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