Australian Special Forces

What kind of military units are more elite than infantry but less so than Special Operations?

Well, you hear lots about the various special operations forces (SEALS, Green Berets, Marine Force Recon, Delta, etc), and regular infantry, but what is in between them in level of eliteness? I know technically the Rangers are a Special Operations force, but they are less elite than the Green Berets. What else is there?

Public Comments

1. im going in to the marines but probably rangers my buddys a ranger and its more than infantry.
2. Army Airborne Infantry and USMC Infantry are better than your average infantry unit.
3. simply put ..... AIRBORNE!!!!
4. Airborne generally although a good Recruiter can talk with you about advanced specialized training that falls short of Special Operations.
5. Airborne and Air Assault
6. Army Rangers are not special ops and are more elite than the common soldier. The Marine Corps delayed entry into SOCOM (Special Operations Command) saying their Recon was not special ops. Recon was considered an intelligence unit. The Marines have allowed Force Recon to join SOCOM. They still have recon battalions and have reinstituted Marine Force Recon to gather intel for the Marines.
7. The 10th Mountain Division. But maybe I'm biased:).
8. All military units are elite. And don't you forget it, buddy!
9. Any kind of specialty unit like Airborne, Air Assault, Sapper, LRRP, Snipers, Scouts, etc.
10. rangers are a part of USASOC which is under USSOCOM...they are special operations. marine infantry is no better trained than regular army infantry. force recon isnt special operations...MARSOC is special operations, force recon is just a larger sized LRS-D. Airborne Infantry is more elite than regular infantry so is LRS-D/101st pathfinders.
11. There a number of recon units like LRRS, Ranger Regiment RECONDO, and the infantry battalion's reconnaisance (scout) platoons. They are more like special forces, SEALs etc. than the Ranger battallions are. To answer your question, the Rangers are more of an elite Infnatry unit than a special operations unit, and LRRS, RECONDO, Marine Recon, and the infnatry battallion's recon platoons have similar missions to special operations, but are not quite special operations units per say. In the army, you have mechanized Infantry Cavalry, light Infantry, and Armor. All of them are probably at the same level as far as quality. Then you have the airborne infnatry regiments, wich are a bit more elite (although tthe initial train is, admittedly not much harder). Then You have the Rangers, which are closer (in terms of what they actually do) to the airborne infantry regiments than to the Special Forces, Navy SEALS, MARSOC (which I know little about, but assume thay are kind of like the SEALS, SF, and Delta). The whole bright line between the Rangers and the rest of the Airborne is a bit misleading. A Ranger battallion isn't that much different from an airborne battallion, when compared to the SEALs, Special Forces, Delta Force, and MARSOC.