Special Commando Unit

"Surprise!"

- Lieutenant Piers leading a raid at Kanna

The Special Commando Unit are a special forces group made specifically for large unit surprise raiding attacks. During the war numerous large raids lead by normal infantry had brought many of its greatest successes. Many battles, such as the battle for Installation 04, 05, the Ark, the Battles for Earth and many other colonies had been won by rank and file infantry, ODST forces or a mix, mounted, orbitally dropped or on foot. Along with this, other specialist commandos like Fireteam Sierra, the SPARTAN-IIIs and Sangheili Commandos had given the UNSC plenty of data to create its own specialist raiding force. The idea of large scale, surprise raiding was taken well by HIGHCOM.

Formation
In 2594, with the number of increasingly hostile Remnant and Pirate raids increasing, Brigadier Mgekabo brought forth a simple idea to HIGHCOM. She had been supervising Sangheili Commando units on a officer exchange program and had gleaned much battlefield information from it. A large raiding force who focused on guile, agility then simple brute force, profesionalism and superior tactics, with highly individual natures could succeded. Where the STO could launch a number of small raids across a large area, the effect was feared by Brute forces, which often caused them to refocus their forces, the SCU could launch a sledgehammer blow that in a small period of time caused massive damage to a small area. After a initial selction program a company was formed. Their mission was simple. A Kig-Yar pirate ship had moored at a desolate planet on a system close to the border with UNSC space. This pirate ship was commanded by the Pirate Lord Kred Vek and this was the perfect chance to destroy him and test out the SCU. A group of 200 men set out on a number of stealth infiltration craft, the UV-497 Tern to their surface side camp. There they quitely manouvered into position around the camp and in under an hour had taken the camp with minimal casualties and massacred the occupants before boarding the ship via the gravity lift. In few hours they had killed or captured the crew, along with holding the Pirate Lord, Kred Vek, prisoner. The ship was taken back to human space, where he was promptly executed by the UNSC. This warrented the unit to be expanded into a full brigade of multiple raiding forces.

Organization
The organization of the SCU is ad hocat best. They focus largely on raiding by Battalion or company, each one being a well trained raiding force. It is made up of seven battallions, each 600 men strong, sub divided into three companies. Each Battallion is responsible for raiding, however raiding forces can differ from a company in size to three battalions strong. Alos, per mission requirement, individual specialists from the marines and navy are taken on to help preform their missions.