Advice from Spanish speakers

[Nomad416]

I'm translating "Special Forces Battalion" and it's coming out as "Batallón de fuerzas especiales". I'm not a Spanish speaker or reader, so I'm asking if the translation is correct (well, as accurate as Translatium is, at least), or if "fuerzas especiales" should be capitalized. I'm not a Spanish speaker or grammarian, but at least according to English rules, it would be capitalized since it's the name of a specific organization, not used generically. So, which is it?

 

[big soft moose]

its literally correct but probably not how they talk about special forces colloquially. In the spanish army they have special operations groups Grupo de Operaciones Especiales which are subordinate to special operations command Mando de Operaciones Especiales.

If you're in latin america the naming protocol may vary, Mexico for example refers to theirs are a corps Cuerpo de Fuerzas Especiales , Columbia has an urban special forces counter terrorist group Agrupación de Fuerzas Especiales Antiterroristas Urbanas... which being a bit of a mouthful is general known by its acronym AFEAU or sometimes as Alpha

 

[Nomad416]

The location in this case is a fictional nation based on Venezuela, if that helps. But, yeah, I think I'm just gonna start capitalizing when it's not being used generically, regardless of what my translator tells me.

 

[big soft moose]

I'd capitalise if you're talking about a specific unit , but not when you are talking about special forces in general, the only thing i'd say is that a battalion is an odd sized unit for special forces... that only makes sense if ythey are part of a large whole...like a parachute regiment with a pathfinder battalion. if its a stand alone unit i'd be inclinded to call it a group, which could be either groupo or agrupacion depending,or a regiment - regiemento.

 

[Nomad416]

I'd capitalise if you're talking about a specific unit , but not when you are talking about special forces in general, the only thing i'd say is that a battalion is an odd sized unit for special forces... that only makes sense if ythey are part of a large whole...like a parachute regiment with a pathfinder battalion. if its a stand alone unit i'd be inclinded to call it a group, which could be either groupo or agrupacion depending,or a regiment - regiemento.

The size of a battalion is typically dependent on which country it is or even which branch within said country's armed forces. A US Army battalion, for example, can be up to 1,000 troops. At least according to Sean Naylor in his book Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Delta Force has about 1,000 members in total, so battalion would be technically correct even though only a couple hundred of them carry out combat missions. It can also be a diversionary name, as was the case with SEAL Team Six being named so because its founder wanted to confuse the KGB on the number of SEAL teams in existence, which at the time was only two.