When I first became involved with
Special Forces, the following basic
"table of organization" was in effect.
All Special Forces Groups were part
of the 1st Special Forces (Airborne).
There were several "active" groups at
the time. (Please forgive me if I miss a
couple, it has been 28 years) The 6th
Special Forces Group (ABN) was at Ft.
Bragg when I entered it. The 7th SFGA
was also based at Bragg. The 5th SFGA
was out of Okinawa but had detachments
in Vietnam. Their were several others at
that time but I can not recall all right
now.
Each Group was commanded by a Colonel
and was divided into several "C" Teams.
These "C" Teams were run by Lt.
Colonels. Each "C" Teams was divided
into "B" Teams commanded by Majors and
these were divided into "A" Teams
commanded by Captains.
"A" Teams consisted of 12 men, a
team commander (Captain) and executive
officer (Lieutenant) and 10 enlistedmen.
Each enlistedman was a specialist in one
of the following military fields;
operations, weapons, communications,
medical and engineer/demolitions. There
were usually 2 men per specialty and all
were cross trained in each others area.
This allowed the team to split into two
equal teams if the need arose. All
enlisted members were from Master
Sergeant (E-8) to Sergeant (E-5).
The officers received lesser
training in all specialties so as to
have operational knowledge of all team
members and their functions. All
recieved some language training
depending on the area of the world that
the teams might deploy to.
The mission of the "A" Team was two
fold, depending on the type of operation
and where deployed. In Vietnam the
mission was to train the South
Vietnamese military in ways to defend
their country from what were called
"insurgents" or guerilla forces. The
second mission was just the reverse, to
go into an enemy nation to find, recruit
and train forces that would work to
overthrow the government. An "A" Team
was capable of training, suppling and
controling several hundred guerilla
forces.
The "A" Teams were controlled by
the "B" Teams. In normal military terms
an "A" Team was like a platoon, the "B"
Team like a company and the "C" Team
like a battalion. The "C" and "B" teams
provided basic staff support to it's
deployed units. Each had it's command
staff to include S-1 personnel; S-2
intelligence, S-3 operations and S-4
supply.