It probably sounds trivial, but I wondered in an earlier post about the meaning of the word “on scene commander” as used by 5th Fleet in relating the takedown of those Somali pirates. Broadly speaking, the captain of a Navy ship has military authority over everyone within his lifelines, but a cruiser CO would be wise to refrain from telling a SEAL platoon CO how to do his job.
Turns out my surmise was correct:
As Sunday dragged on, the seas grew rougher, and Navy officers offered to tow the lifeboat behind the Bainbridge, telling the pirates that they would move them to calmer waters. Once the lifeboat was tethered to the destroyer, military officials said, the pirates grew more desperate, feeling they had lost control of both their boat and the situation. Also, the pirates were probably suffering from withdrawal from khat, a narcotic leaf chewed by many Somali men, according to a senior military official. Aboard the hot and cramped lifeboat, tensions escalated. Watching from the Bainbridge, the sniper team observed an apparent argument between Phillips and one of the pirates.
The SEAL team observed two of the pirates move away from Phillips and stick their heads out from a hatch. The third pirate raised his weapon at Phillips’ back. Convinced that Phillips was about to be shot, the SEAL commander gave the order to fire.
This takes nothing away from the crew of command of the Bainbridge. It just makes good sense.
After all, you probably wouldn’t want the SEAL team CO telling you when to stream your towed array, or how to fight the outer air battle, and “phoning home” for guidance when a fleeting opportunity presents itself is not a good idea.
But, apart from the precision required to take three kill shots from a moving platform to moving targets – at night – think about the discipline and patience it took to wait for that opportunity.
It’s just amazing.
Shoot, I can’t even do 12oz curls without missing my mouth once in awhile….let alone hit a target, at night, moving in three dimensions, from the back of another platform also moving in three dimensions. Egads! Where DO we get these men?
That’s the hell of it, Joe, “we” don’t find them, they find the Navy. Amazing. Those young men won’t be able to buy a beer anywhere for a while.
“It’s just amazing.”
The Navy SEALs are just amazing.
Lex: The platoon’s (squad’s? Stick’s? Dunno how many went in, likely a full platoon or some part thereof) CO was likely some way away cheering. The OIC/AOIC was likely an O-2/O-3 or E-7/8 doing his job, well. Different structure in the teams, don’tchaknow…
Bias toward action is how I’d describe the underlying source of this success. And if there’s a group within the US Navy that is biased in this way, it would be the SEALs.
The second factor that shouldn’t escape attention is the relative freedom enabled by this entire incident taking place on the high seas. Even SWOs can find room to do crazy things like slowing from 18 to 15 knots in this type of maneuver environment.
Finally, the SEAL team OIC probably was able to make the call because he was hanging out toward the back of the boat as opposed to being on the bridge or in CIC (i.e. more than an arms length away from the CO, the commodore, the TF commander, C5F, CENTCOM, etc etc etc.).
I was wondering about this, too. Thanks for finding out. Seems like the kind of decision that only a guy standing on the fantail could have made, and makes sense that it was a SEAL.
I particularly enjoyed your muse in the first paragraph plus the title. Part of the issue has to do with authority, it has to do with where you wear your brass. You have appointed authority and you have experiential authority. Appointed authority knows a great deal *about* the task. Experiential authority has *been there and done that*, therefore understands all of the devil’s details of this mission.
By the way, Lex, words matter and *it took a great deal of courage to open this can of worms*.
V/R Grumpy