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Hm, interesting: in the Reach beta, SPECWARCOM was stated to be under UNICOM. In the A Spartan Will Rise ViDoc, near the end, it's shown in the large viewscreen in the lower left-hand corner that SPECWAR actually answers directly to HIGHCOM. Now, someone more familiar with the military organization structure could explain if this means that SPECWAR is separate from NAVSPECWAR, or if it's even attached to any branch (Navy, army, etc.) in the first place. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 14:18, August 17, 2010 (UTC)
- SpecWar sounds like a term referring to any member of a specialist unit, rather than an Army unit. The SPARTAN-IIs were Navy; the IIIs appear to have Army ranks (at least Gamma company) and the SPARTAN-Is and ODSTs are Marines.-- Forerunner 22:18, August 28, 2010 (UTC)
- I'd imagine Special Warfare Command is the UNSC Army's equivalent of the Naval Special Warfare Command. More than likely the "HIGHCOM" reference is referring to a unified combatant command such as the modern-day U.S. Special Operations Command. But i'm glad that they didn't put UNICOM in Reach. :) User:CommanderTony/Sig.
I believe the use of SPECWAR in Reach with its obvious references to the Army rather than the Navy (which already has its own NAVSPECWAR), should properly be written as UNISPECWAR for Unified Special Warfare. Reason being is SPECWAR on its own doesn't represent the Unified Ground Command as it should. Col. Holland is also Army. He's in charge of Noble Team, which itself is a part of Unified Special Warfare, Group 3. In the opening of the Halo: Reach game manual, Col. Holland is shown as attached to USW which I think can only be interpreted as Unified Special Warfare. If anyone has the Reach pre-order bonus card of the Recon helmet, notice it submits for authorization for S-312 the Recon helmet from ">UNICOM/SPECWAR GROUP THREE > NOBLE" .Incidentally, "SPECWAR/GroupTHREE" is part of what's written on Jorge's dog tags. I imagine the frequent use of simply SPECWAR on its own is to be less confusing to fan of the game who aren't into the particulars like most of us. It was probably enough to know that Noble was a special warfare team. -ScaleMaster117 (talk) 20:49, 21 January 2014 (EST)
- The discovery of the "USW" in the manual definitely sheds some light on the matter. I'd reckon the UNICOM part was omitted essentially for the same reason Noble Team used to lack the SPARTAN-III company identifiers in their Spartan tags; to avoid confusing casual audiences. So Unified Special Warfare would basically cover Army special operations - while UNICOM (according to the Encyclopedia) is in charge of the Marine Corps as well, the ODSTs fall under NAVSPECWAR instead. On that matter, is it Naval Special Warfare or Naval Special Weapons? It's as if both are used interchangeably, though it's possible there is some minute distinction. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 00:23, 22 January 2014 (EST)
- I want to do some more research into where the Marines belong. In my own org chart I have them within the Navy, not UNICOM, and I take the Encyclopedia with a grain of salt still. The main reason is the definite inclusion of the ODSTs (Marines) within the organization of the Navy as NAVSPECWAR Group 2. Since the existence of UNISPECWAR would suggest that if the Marines were a part of UNICOM then they'd logically fall under that title, yet they don't, I want to group the Marines as a subset within the Navy, although I'd treat the "Unified" aspect of UNICOM to allow for joint operations between Army and Marines, certainly.
- The Noble Team company identifiers were reintroduced into the first Visual Guide at my insistence. 343i wanted to keep it like Bungie had changed it, but I managed to get a copy of Halo: Overture and that included them, so despite the obscurity of that book I was able to make the case that Spartan-IIIs should still retain them.
- To answer your last question, there are both. Naval Special Warfare is the umbrella group that includes Naval Special Weapons, so NAVSPECWAR contains NAVSPECWEP. -ScaleMaster117 (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2014 (EST)