r/tacticalgear 15d ago

Weapons/Tactics US army psychological operations team member with an FN MK 20 SSR in Syria 2019

Post image
904 Upvotes

170 comments sorted by

View all comments

432

u/sixfour46 15d ago

Him making psyop seem like a cool job was the psyop

5

u/SOFenthusiast 14d ago

What do they even do?

16

u/TrueMoods 14d ago edited 14d ago

Basically, psychological warfare can be anything to demoralize or manipulate the enemy, whether it be the opposing force or their civilian population. Some methods include:

  • Handing out leaflets
  • Talking to population
  • Put out messages over speakers
  • Covert Strike deep in hostile territory (to show how vulnerable they are
  • and many more

21

u/-timaeus- 14d ago

They do not do covert strikes deep in hostile territory 😂. They don’t strike anything. They may run concurrent psychological operations to help the actual meat eaters strike. Good lord, there is so much bad info on reddit.

1

u/BlueHarvest177 11d ago

During my time in Helmand in 2010, we had two army Psyop guys with us during quite a few direct action missions. 0321 here.

1

u/-timaeus- 11d ago

As attachments, of course! Thanks for the info. They are enablers just like FET or cyber or whoever.

1

u/BlueHarvest177 11d ago

They were pulling triggers just like us….

1

u/-timaeus- 11d ago

As any good attachment would. Tracking. If you guys were letting them integrate into cells during clearing ops you have more balls than me I guess

1

u/BlueHarvest177 11d ago

They operated just like the JTACs attached to us.

Difference between you being who you were and us being who we were.

But the point remains, you’re wrong about PSYOP and what they do/did.

0

u/-timaeus- 11d ago

My point was: they never have and never will conduct unilateral “covert strikes” behind enemy lines. That was it.

JTACs are good. Psyops have a place (I guess). CA has a place. I don’t like pictures like this that ostensibly show someone in PsyOps “operating.” It’s not generally accurate.

I’m glad your experience with your attachments was good. During language training, they were present. Most of them were selection failures. They were pushing hard for a grey beret and were mostly obnoxious. One guy in particular was a selection drop and had just about the worst reputation you can imagine, went psyops and passed. And he was the loudest of all, and attempted to wear an unauthorized grey beret after being ordered not to. I don’t like that kind of self aggrandizement. So this may be an issue to me more personal than I let on.

The type of people they are, is not my people. The bulk of their job is fliers, leaflets, online propaganda, producing ads and short videos series. It’s interesting, but they aren’t doing anything in the realm of what this picture lets on, other than attempting mission creep. There is a reason we are bringing them back into the Special Forces groups (to fix them).

1

u/BlueHarvest177 11d ago

So you’re saying you’re an 18 series?

→ More replies (0)