The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), also known as DEVGRU for short, or more commonly by its former name, SEAL Team Six (ST6), is one of the United States' four secretive counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units (SMUs).

 

The vast majority of information about DEVGRU is highly classified, and details of its activities are not officially commented on by either the White House or the Department of Defense.While DEVGRU is administratively supported by the Naval Special Warfare Command, it is operationally commanded by the Joint Special Operations Command. It is based at Training Support Center Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach, Virginia, known as FTC Dam Neck until 2004.

 

The CIA's highly secretive Special Activities Division (SAD) and more specifically its elite Special Operations Group (SOG) is rumored to recruit operators from SEAL Team Six.Joint Navy SEALs and CIA operations go back to the famed MACV-SOG group during the Vietnam War.This cooperation still exists today and is seen in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

History
 

Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team Six
 

The origins of ST6 can be traced to the aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1980.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, which culminated in Operation Eagle Claw. 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.

 

Marcinko was the first commanding officer of this new unit, which was first called MOB 6 (Mobility 6) and Sixth Platoon. Eventually the unit was dubbed SEAL Team Six. At the time there were only 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. 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.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.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. The existing SEAL teams, including 12 platoons in SEAL Team One on the West Coast, had already begun counter-terrorism training. They had formed a dedicated two-platoon group known as "MOB Six" (Mobility Six) in anticipation of a maritime scenario requiring a counter-terrorism response, and had begun training to that end.SEAL Team Six started with 75 shooters. According to Dick Marcinko, the annual 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.

 

In 1987, SEAL Team Six was dissolved. A new unit, dubbed the "Naval Special Warfare Development Group," was formed, essentially as ST6's successor. Reasons for the disbanding are varied, but the name SEAL Team Six is often used in reference to DEVGRU.

 

Renaming

In a 2010 article, Marc Ambinder wrote that DEVGRU's designation had been changed by the Defense Department to a new name;[15] the name itself was classified. 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Delta Force) was renamed Army Compartmented Elements (ACE).[16] Despite the official name changes, Team 6's original name remains widely recognized; Disney filed to trademark "SEAL Team 6" the day after the Bin Laden raid, but withdrew after the Navy fought back with trademark applications of its own. 

 

Recruitment, selection, and training

In the early stages of creating SEAL Team Six, Marcinko was given only six months to get ST6 up and running. 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.

 

The training schedule was intense. A former Team member claims that in one year SEAL Team Six fired more rounds of ammunition than the entire U.S. Marine Corps ammunition allowance.The emphasis was on shooting skills, range firing, close-quarters battle (CQB), and stress shooting in a variety of conditions.

 

Information about the unit is mostly highly classified, so little information is available about recruitment and selection. What is known is that the selection and training for the unit has not changed dramatically since its creation. All applicants come from the "regular" SEAL teams, unless applying for support positions (there have been open advertisements on the web for support personnel).

 

It can be inferred from the quality of their pool of applicants that those considered are in peak physical condition, maintain an excellent reputation as operators within the Naval Special Warfare community, and have done multiple operational deployments with a SEAL Team. As a result, the candidate will usually be in his 30s. As ST6 was recruiting the best and brightest SEALs/UDTs from the regular teams, this created animosity between the unit and the "regular" teams, who considered that their best SEALs were being poached for the unit.

 

Candidates are interviewed by a review board to deem whether the candidate is suitable to undertake the selection phase. 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; during one selection course, out of the original 20 candidates, 12 completed the course.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 only two were accepted. Those who do not pass the selection phase are returned to their previous assignments and unlikely to be able to try again in the future.

 

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 training.

 

Candidates are put through a variety of advanced training courses led by civilian or military instructors. These can include free-climbing, 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.

 

To celebrate the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden the Combatting Terrorism Center released documents seized from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad home.The Associated Press reported that the troops had been trained to search for documents, computer files and "pocket litter" "that might produce leads to other terrorists".

 

Structure

NSWDG is divided into color-coded line Teams, which are commanded by senior officers: Red Team (Assault), Blue Team (Assault), Gold Team (Assault Team) and a recently-formed Silver Team (Assault). There is a Gray Team (Boat Crews) and a Black Team (Reconnaissance and Surveillance Team). Each Team is divided into three troops and troops are divided into smaller teams. Each troop has a specific nickname. Examples being Gold-Knights/Crusaders, Red-Indians, Black-Pirates.