SEAL PLATOON
Platoon Training is where the rubber finally meets the road. Armed
with a year of individual skill training, hardened by thousands of
hours of physical training, diving, jumping, shooting and blowing
things up, now the SEAL (if he passes the remaining tests and
boards and earns the privilege to wear the SEAL Trident) gets to
put his fledgling talent to work with seasoned veterans of Naval
Special Warfare.
A SEAL Platoon consists of two officers, one chief and thirteen
enlisted men. Responsibilities are divided into positions in a
patrol (such as Point Man, Patrol Leader, Radio Man, 60 Gunner,
Corpsman and Rear Security), department leadership (such as Diving
Department Head, Air Department Head and Ordnance/Demo Department
Head) and by rank. The senior officer is the Platoon Commander, the
junior officer is his assistant, the senior enlisted is the Platoon
Chief and the next senior enlisted is the Leading Petty Officer who
is in charge of the day-to-day management of the enlisted platoon
members. SEAL Platoons have a training cycle, which includes either
a 12 or 18 month training work-up, then a 6 month deployment
overseas in an operational combat ready status at a Naval Special
Warfare Unit or Detachment. These platoons are incredibly highly
trained and can accomplish most any task thrown at them. The
training that must be accomplished during the year-plus training
cycle is based upon several factors:
Advanced individual and platoon level skills necessary for the
conduct of all Special Operations Missions.
The methods of delivery, insertion/extraction most likely to be
utilized while on deployment.
The geographic area of responsibility of the SEAL Team.
Wherever there are troops on the ground in the world, you can be
pretty sure that the SEALs, along with their Green Beret
counterparts, are either there now or were there first!
The first three months of the training cycle, it is usually back to
the basics. Hydrographic reconnaissance is covered once again
combined with underwater demolition of submerged obstacles. Next,
air training lasts two weeks and builds upon STT skills, including
several -Duck- drops out of different aircraft, both day and night
combat equipment parachute jumps, fast-roping, rappelling and SPIE
rig, mission planning in a classroom environment followed by
intelligence gathering and reporting.
Next, is another Combat Swimmer course. It takes several years
before a SEAL becomes an expert combat diver (expert is a
relative term here, because compared to 99 percent of all the
divers in the world, a BUD/S student is an expert after Second
Phase of BUD/S!). Combat swimmer training in the platoon is a very
arduous and intense training block. The platoon will conduct over
30 dives during three weeks - including a Full Mission Profile,
where SEALs are inserted by aircraft or surface vessel for a 30
mile over the horizon transit in the CRRC, followed by a
demanding turtleback (kicking on the surface toward the dive point
in full dive gear), then a four hour, multi-leg dive into the enemy
harbor to emplace limpet mines on the hulls of the target ships,
then extracting after evading the anti swimmer measures put in
place by the training cadre. Many SEALs say that the Combat Swimmer
course is exhausting.
The typical training day begins at seven a.m., when you come into
the team to set up your dive rigs and prepare you gear. The
officers then brief the dive, and SEALs plan their dive profile for
the day dive. The day dive takes place from about 10:00 a.m. until
about 2:00 p.m., at which time you return to the team to post-dive
the dive rig, then set it up again for the night dive. You
re-prepare all of your gear, plan the night's dive, then cut out
for a couple of hours rest and much needed food. You return to the
team at 6:00 p.m., for another dive brief, make final preparations
and depart for the night dive at 7:30 p.m. Insertion at 8:00 p.m.
and dive until completion at about midnight. Then it is back to the
team to post-dive the rigs and cleanup your gear. Finally, you
de-brief the dive and go home for five hours of much needed sleep
before doing it all over again the next day. Needless to say,
divers don't have the energy to PT much during Combat Swimmer;
however, some might say that swimming six to eight thousand yards
underwater, often against the current, qualifies as exercise!
Land Warfare training occurs again out at Niland or Camp A.P. Hill
(sometimes at a different location like Camp Roberts in CA., if the
teams want a change of scenery). This starts with the basics, once
again, in small unit tactics and builds to Full Mission Profiles
conducted in a simulated combat environment.
This training is as close to a 24-hour a day work schedule that you
can get (besides being on a submarine). Training begins immediately
after breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and it continues until about 12:00 or
1:00 a.m. the following morning. There are breaks for lunch and
dinner and, if it gets above 105 degrees during the day, the
platoon will seek shelter in the classroom for some academic
classes.
The platoon will shoot thousands and thousands of rounds during
this training and will blow up more demolitions than you could
imagine. Immediate Action Drills are again a favorite of the SEALs
and are the most intense portion of the training. Navy SEAL tactics
cannot be discussed in this publication, due to their sensitive
nature and to protect the troops; suffice it to say that SEAL IADs
are unique and have been said to mislead an enemy force into
believing that they are up against a whole company (100 men) of
Army GIs. There are some great books on the market by Vietnam era
SEAL vets. Darryl Young's The Element Of Surprise is excellent as
is Dick Couch's SEAL Team ONE. See the Navy SEAL Books section of
this publication for a quick look at the other good been there,
done that SEAL books.
Land Warfare training ends with a week long Field Training Exercise
where the platoon is put in semi-isolation in a simulated combat
environment. Each squad will conduct several independent missions -
usually a special reconnaissance, stand-off weapons direct action
raid, body snatch, point ambush or combat search and rescue
(CSAR-downed pilot rescue). The platoon combines to conduct a
platoon-size direct action mission, which is supported by
helicopter assets, Desert Patrol Vehicle (only if a Desert
Platoon), and incorporates much of the training accomplished during
the Land Warfare phase of training. This mission is very
comprehensive and, if the platoon is detected by the training
cadre, they are contacted with enemy fire from which they must
utilize the fire and maneuver Immediate Action Drills learned
during training and evade the pursuing force.
Most SEALs say that this training is a great learning experience
and superb conditioning for combat. It provides the platoon with
the foundation from which to conduct the remaining year and one
half (or so) of training. Some other training highlights are Jungle
Warfare Training in Central America. In Navy SEAL lore, these
jungles are said to be a living nightmare. The Army lost a man
training there a couple of years ago - just flat out disappeared.
Man-eating crocodiles and poisonous sea snakes are just two of your
bedfellows as you patrol through the rivers and streams deep within
the dense jungle foliage. The platoon learns the value of a pump
action shotgun to clear foliage when contacted especially if you
can't see your target and he may be only a few feet from the
platoon.
Jungle hammocks are mandatory - ask anyone who has attempted to
sleep on the jungle floor - yikes! Patrolling one klick (one
thousand yards) can take hours, as the point man cuts his way
through the bamboo and vines - humidity of 100 percent will
probably send a constant stream of sweat down your back. This
training emulates, in many ways, the environment of the Vietnam era
that SEALs endured and thrived in. Operators from SEAL Team FOUR
have also found this very valuable in their efforts fighting
alongside the DEA and foreign nationals in the war against
drugs.
SEAL Teams TWO and FIVE are responsible for regions of the world
that are often blanketed in snow so their platoons conduct
extreme cold weather training and winter warfare training.
