Using Elite SOF

> Don wrote:
Well, I disagree somewhat.  :-)  Regarding
the Rangers, while their original purpose was raiding, if the invasion worked
there wouldn't be any more raiding.

[Tomb] Really? Wherever there is a LoB,
there will also be an area behind that (the rear area) where raiders that can
penetrate the LoB can strike. In the modern day, heliborne and airborne
insertions and riverine insertions offer this avenue. In the future, add
spaceborne.

Using elite forces to take targets that *had* to be taken, even if they
weren't hundreds of miles behind enemy lines is more or less doctrine, though
I guess you could argue Pointe du Hoc wrote that role into Ranger doctrine.

[Tomb] Elite forces are sometimes used in
this role when 1) no one else is likely to
have the morale/gumption to get the job
done and 2) the task at hand is worth more than the other tasks for which the
elite forces are trained and better suited. This doesn't make this an optimal
role for the elite force.

In addition, I really can't agree with your last sentence. "using them wrong"
implies (to me, I hasten to add) that you had a choice and picked the wrong
one.

[Tomb] Not at all, in this case. It means
that, considering their normal mission
profiles, their training, and their typical kit-
out, they will be best suited for particular types of missions. Using them
outside that envelope opens them up to a greater chance for losses and is
therefore suboptimal in many regards. Now, does this mean you'll never do it?
Of course not. Sometime even combat engineers have to pick up a rifle. Or
clerks. But that doesn't make this the "right use of them" to my mind, just
necessary.

Doing something you must do removes the possibility of it being either right
or wrong; it just is[1].

[Tomb] Right or wrong is sort of a poor
choice. Optimal or Sub-Optimal. Using a
tool for a job for which it is not well suited may work, but it is not the
optimal use of the tool. If you use a $20,000 electronic probe as a hammer,
you may drive in a nail which matters at the moment, but at some point you're
then footing a $20K bill for a new probe. So the question you have to ask is:
Does driving this one nail now justify the expenditure of a $20K probe? If the
answer is yes, then you go ahead. But if the answer is "maybe", then you run
the risk of expending your elite troops outside
of their best-effect type of operation and
hurting your overall force efficiency and efficacy.

On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 04:31:11 -0500, "Thomas Barclay" <kaladorn@magma.ca>
wrote:

> Right or wrong is sort of a poor

I think this clears up the issue. This is the correct way to phrase it. Don's
right, sometimes you put elite units where they don't belong because you
really had no choice. The US airborne at Bastogne comes immediately to mind.
They had no business plugging the line like they did... except they were about
the only good quality troops available.

Don's correct, this could make a good scenario. There are certainly historical
precedents.

> At 04:31 AM 12/9/2002 -0500, you wrote:

I meant in a WW2 context. I obviously hashed my point, and I have a feeling if
I tried again, I'd mess it up again, so I'll drop the point.

> Doing something you must do removes the

See, I said it was a terminology thing. :-)  Optimal vs Sub-optimal is a

much better way to describe it than good vs bad, which was pretty much my
point.