Red Cell

Red Teams or Red Cells are U.S. government parlance for teams or units designed to test the effectiveness of U.S. tactics or personnel. "Red Cell" was purported to be a U.S. Navy SEAL team which had been organized to attempt to infiltrate and otherwise test the security of U.S. military bases and other installations sensitive to U.S. security interests. The original Red Cell group was led by the former leader of SEAL Team Six Richard Marcinko.

The Red Team is also a term for the opposing force [OpFor] in a war game by western nations during the Cold War, a reference to the predominantly red flags of Communist nations (i.e. the USSR and China) with the western nation(s) being the Blue Team. The USSR used the same colors for the reverse purpose, they were the Red Team and the OpFor was the Blue Team.

Cultural references

In the game Act of War: High Treason, Red Cell is in an alliance with the consortium.

A fictionalized version of Red Cell can be seen in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, where the unit has been renamed "Dead Cell" and includes several soldiers with superhuman skills and abilities.

See also

• SEAL Team SIX
• Tiger team

References

• NAVY Red Cell Overview
• Red Cell at Special Operations.com
• Another Red Cell link at Special Operations.com
• Read the 'Description' section of this DARPA web site page - archived page

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