by Darius137 » Tue May 11, 2010 6:00 pm
What do you mean by black ops personnel?
The guys pictured are from an ODA. ODA means operational detachment alpha. Special Forces in the US Army are broken down into A and B teams. A teams (ODA's) specifically, are the "boots on the ground" who do such things as collect human intelligence (HUMINT), build rapport with locals, kick down doors, find persons of interest, patrol local villages and a LOT of other tasks. ODB's are the Bravo team, which is tasked with gathering intelligence, finding places for the A team to go, analyzing the data, handling communication with other agencies, and again, a LOT of other stuff.
This is where the whole Delta Force idea came from. an ODD that was tasked with more stuff under the radar, and a lot of focus on CQB (indoor) and CT (counter terrorist) situations.
Now if you're looking at a "black ops" team, you're probably talking about a CIA paramilitary force. They are often working side by side with military personnel, with more civilian gear and attire, sometimes preferring it, so they don't look like soldiers. The CIA paramilitary guys I saw overseas wore a lot of 5.11 type stuff, cool guy shades, and were a lot more into the magpul fanboy stuff.
SF = lives out in the middle of nowhere, working with locals. Their base is usually drawn from redneck types, so you'll see them in anything from US Army gear, gucci gear, to carharts.
CIA guys draw from a mixture of SF, Rangers, SEALs, etc, so they could look like whatever they want, though a lot of them are bred through the agency, so don't look as redneck or soldier as the SF guys in that picture.
A lot of the paramilitary guys like AK's and lighter loadouts.
