U.S. Special Forces

[CodeTalker]

I was going to generate a battle last night but couldn't find U.S. Special Forces. Are there any included with the game?

[Flyboy]

There are SEALs in the US Marine OOB. There are Rangers in the US Army OOB. That's it.

I've often thought it's an oversight not to include Green Berets or even Delta.

There are SAS and SBS in the British OOB, SAS in the Aussie, Spetsnaz in the Russian etc.

I suppose if you were determined to have units identified as Special Forces you could buy them as 'captured' from the Canadian OOB. Their kit would be pretty similar I suspect, at least where the game is concerned.

[thatguy96]

I've created US special forces for the Vietnam timelines, with rather crude formations, and a pretty basic weapon loadout for commando infantry. One has to realize that Green Berets (the primary US Army Special Force) do a lot more than fight people , and fighting is probably relatively low on the list. In the US Army OOB, I included three formations, A-Team, B-Team, and C-Team, which is a rough representation of the organization nature of a SFG(A) group, but would never really be all in the field at the same time. The A-Detachment is just one squad (a true 7 man team), a B-Detachment is 4 A-Detachments, and a C-Detachment is 3 B-Detachments (in this case overseen by another A-Detachment). Now this is real organizational structure of how SFG(A) teams were set up, but like I said, I doubt that you'd have a single C-Detachment all in the field in the same place at the same time, and likely they wouldn't be fighting people, they'd be there leading indigenous personel, doing recon, public affairs work, and psyops.

I included them for better effect as "Foreign Advisors" in the ARVN OOB, and had them for a while in a similar capacity in the US Army OOB with CIDG units copied out of the ARVN OOB. In the ARVN OOB my plan would be to create a seperate set of formations for the CIDG, with an "advisory" command element with a slightly higher morale rating, and maybe a higher experience rating.

[CodeTalker]

Thanks for the info guys. That's what I needed to know.

[Mustang]

If you need special forces, just by SEALs because they'll have pretty much the same specs as Green Berets or Delta. Armament for Delta and Green Beret teams is pretty unstandardized, so you shouldn't have to worry about them having unrealistic loadouts.

[thatguy96]

More importantly is that the plethora of small arms that are in use by special forces means for relatively meaningless differenes in a game of this scale.

Also, like I said before, the SFG(A)s are not designed really as covert offensive units by themselves, and are more often used in anything from public relations to reconaissance. Fighting is a low priority, and historically when they've done so it has been under duress, or at the helm of indigenous personel. SEALs and the SAS both have mission profiles that include for more offensive covert operations, such as sabotage, ambush operations, and the like.

Even if you were to dl my OOBs with the SFG(A)s included, you'd probably be better served using Cav Scouts, Rangers, or some comparable light infantry, rather than these guys for anything but perhaps recon and adding a slightly more capable force to basic infantry units.

[Mustang]

There are a lot of commando raids and infantry assaults in the game. In fact, they probably make up most of the battles. Soldiers are also good for anti-tank because of the cost of modern MBTs (a 500 point Abrams can be killed by a 20 point infantry section). So they still have a big role to play. Also, special forces teams usually carry a lot more heavy stuff, like LMGs and satchel charges, than normal grunts, so they will do a lot of damage.

[Marek_Tucan]

Commando units usually cost more than 20pts, actually when fiddling with the Slovakian commandos the fire support teams with heavy weapons (incl. ATGM's) cost about the same price as BVP-2 which can kill tanks as well;o)