Army Rangers?

Question

What exactly do Rangers do that a regular Infantryman do in the US Army? And are Rangers considered Special Forces/Ops?

Answer 1

The Rangers are a light infantry regiment with specializations in airfield seizures and other Special Operations missions. They are part of USACOM (Unites States Army Special Operations Command).

Answer 2

As always if you haven't found it already, try wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Rangers

Tom Clancy has also written books about Special Operations, which goes into a little of the work that Rangers do. As he put it, essentially they are the strong right arm or shotgun of Special Ops Command - called in to do the brute work when all else fails. However when you refer to Special Forces, typically you're referring to something else.

Say in a typical modern wartime situation, you might have a Special Forces Group (popularized as the Green Berets by John Wayne), working with the locals. This could be a small group (A or B teams) of a dozen men or less, whose primary job is for training and establishing the trust of the locals. In the process, maybe they find out that a local wanted warlord is in town with his militia and bodyguard. Obviously the dozen guys aren't going to be enough, so they call in the Rangers to do the heavy hitting. The Rangers will drop in, perform a precision operation typically as a large force - platoon, company or larger, and bug out, as they should being so specially skilled. The Special Forces would still remain - in country, working with the locals afterwards. (A prime example may be the attempted capture of the Somali warlord in Mogadishu - ie, Black Hawk Down). This may have changed recently with the thinning and overextention of forces.

A regular infantryman on the otherhand would have come in as part of the Army, riding a tank or an APC, happy to level everything to the ground because he was there to then defend the land he just rolled over - along with the few thousand support personnel.

Answer 3

Rangers are apart of the Special Operations community. They are different than all other special operation forces because they are a light-infantry based detachment. They are also known as infantry scouts b/c they often parachute in to scout and complete special missions. But also unlike many other special operations they can be considered direct contact infantry, which means that they, much like regular infantryman, fight directly with the enemy. They are first to fight for the Army.

Answer 4

As the mother of a Ranger, I can say the training is brutal. The learn orienteering, mountaineering, & some hand to hand that is wild. My son can kill someone with his bare hands (no noise) thanks to the training - hey, I am being serious. Can't give you specifics or he would have to kill me - just kidding, he does not tell me specifics. He is a special ops & Rangers are very proud of their patch all their lives. I met a General that said he kept his original patch in a safe deposit box & planned to be buried with it on his uniform. Seriously! Rangers lead the way!!!

Answer 5

Infantry are grunts, groundpounders
Special Forces, Rangers, and Special Ops. are all different and unique

Answer 6

Yes they are, an average grunt does not have mountaineering skills, but rangers do among other specialized
skills.