How is a U.S. Navy SEAL Team Structured?

There are 8 active duty SEAL teams stationed across the United States. SEAL Teams 1, 3, 5, and 7 are on the west coast, and SEAL teams 2, 4, 8, and 10 are on the East Coast. Odds are west; evens are East. There’s also SDV, or SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 in Hawaii, and SDV Team 2 in Virginia. There are teams 17 and 18, which are reserve teams, in case you didn’t know. Where’s SEAL Team 6? Well, it's formerly known as DEVGRU, which is also on the East Coast.

Navy SEALs are known as “Team Guys”, because, well, they’re in teams for the entirety of their careers. NSW is the only entity in the Navy that refers to its units as teams, like they do with SEALs and SWCCs.

You might know what a Navy SEAL is, but do you know what makes up a SEAL team? Keep reading this blog post to find out.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: OVERVIEW

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: SEAL TEAM LOCATIONS

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: CONCLUSION

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: OVERVIEW

In order to fully understand the SEAL teams, we have to work from the top down for you first. Starting with the big picture, Navy SEALs fall under Naval Special Warfare Command. Under NSWC, there are four NSW Groups, which are then broken down into teams.

Group 1 has the odd teams, Group 2 has the even teams, and Group 3 has the SDV teams. There’s a group 4, but that contains the Special Boat Teams, which are SWCCs, but they’re not the focus of this blog post. And there’s Development Group, or DEVGRU for short, which is also known as SEAL Team 6.

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: TEAM LOCATIONS AND SPECIALIZATIONS

Each team has its own geographic responsibility, which directly reflects the environments the teams specialize, train, and operate in. SEAL Team 1 deals with the Western Pacific in jungle, desert, and urban environments. Team 2 deals with Northern Europe in desert and urban environments, Team 3 deals with the middle east in desert and urban environments; Team 4 deals with South and Central America in desert and urban environments, Team 5 deals with Korea in arctic, desert, and urban environments, team 7 deals with the Western Pacific in jungle, desert, and urban environments, and Teams 8 and 10 both deal with the Mediterranean or Southern Europe in desert and urban environments.

The SDV teams deal with undersea environments because they operate the delivery vehicles subsurface. Naturally, SDV1 in Hawaii deals with the Pacific, and SDV2 deals with the Atlantic and Mediterranean. 

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: TEAM STRUCTURE

Each SEAL team is commanded by a Navy Commander. Teams consist of a headquarters element and 8 operational 16-man SEAL platoons. The platoons may be structured to operate as 8-man squads, 4 man fire teams, or 2 man sniper/recon teams, depending on operational needs. 

For the platoons, platoons are run by two junior officers, with the senior one, typically an O3, being the platoon leader. The other 14 personnel are enlisted. 

The top officer is the OIC, which stands for Officer in Charge, and the other officer is the AOIC, or the Assistant Officer in Charge. There’s a Platoon chief and a Platoon LPO, which stands for Leading Petty Officer. The twelve other SEALs take on roles such as platoon medic, sniper, breacher, weapons guy, etc. 

And for the SDV teams, which are commanded by a Navy Commander like a regular SEAL team, SDV Team 1 has a headquarters element, an Advanced SEAL Delivery System, 3 SEAL delivery vehicles, dry deck shelter task units, and a lot of support personnel.

SDVT-2 has a  headquarters element, three operational SDV and Dry Deck Shelter Task Units, and a lot of support personnel. 

NAVY SEAL TEAM STRUCTURE: CONCLUSION

Now that you know the basic breakdown of a SEAL team, it’s time to learn some more about the Navy SEALs! We have covered them extensively on this blog. 

If you want to learn more about the military, law enforcement, or government entities, we have a YouTube channel dedicated to providing the best info out there, plus we have a growing list of blog posts as well. Click the links to take you to them!

Back to top.

General Discharge is a veteran-owned, veteran-operated organization that is dedicated to providing the best U.S. Military and Law Enforcement information. With over 250 YouTube videos, over 45 million views, and hundreds of thousands of followers, we have contributed to the success and knowledge of both the current and future generations of service members.