In all fairness, isn't my criticism of the ops planning for Bravo Two Zero valid?  This isn't just another mindless 'which unit is best' topic, although admittedly the clear implication here is that Matkal's level of competence is higher. But at least I predicate that view on a logical argument that is factually supported.

Over to you...

I'm certainly no expert on this sort of thing but Bravo Two Zero is just one SOP which seemed to go very wrong. I'm sure there are plenty of others which we don't hear about due to the fact that nothing went wrong with them. Albeit I'm sure it could be interesting to compare the two operations to see what went wrong with Bravo Two Zero and more importantly, what should have been done differently.

And as for Matkal 'cockups,' there really has only been one - the 1974 hostage rescue raid at Ma'alot in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 26 schoolchildren.  The rescue op was botched because the IDF Chief of Staff at the time, Lieut. Gen. Motta Gur, forbade Matkal from implementing some of its more innovative takedown tactics, and instructed that they go 'hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle' through the front gate of the school.  The Israelis killed all the terrorists, but not before the Palestinians were able to empty several AK mags into the huddled mass of kids. 

A debacle, but not really Matkal's fault.  The problems stemmed from: A) Motta Gur's overweening arrogance and anti-special ops bias (he was a conventional infantry officer) and B) the fact that hostage-taking was a relatively recent Palestinian terrorist phenomenon with which the IDF had relatively little experience.  Since that time the Israeli Border Police have established a dedicated counter-terror/hostage rescue unit - the Yamam that is certainly among the best in the world. Matkal operators still do hostage rescue training, and their skills are reasonably sharp, but they tend these days to focus more on their traditional deep reconnaisance and intelligence gathering roles.

I don't the Ma'alot debacle can fairly be compared to the SAS amateur hour with Bravo Two Zero because deep penetration recce was/is supposed to be the Regiment's raison d'etre.  Reconnaisance is supposed to be the SAS' bread and butter and there was nothing new about the task of putting OPs deep in enemy territory. Having read several books on BTZ, the one question that always comes to mine is 'where were the officers' during the planning process? Where were the troop and squadron commanders?  Why did they rubber stamp such a stupid plan? In the IDF, any similar operational scheme would have to be vetted, not only by Matkal's commander (a Lieut. Colonel,) but by also by the Chief of Military Intelligence. It the objective were particularly challenging, the IDF Chief of Staff himself would come along at the end of the planning process to see whether the op made proper sense.

The bottom line is that an amateur-hour balls up like BTZ could never happen with Matkal. And I believe it says something when a well-established unit botches so badly an op that is supposed to be its stock in trade. 

Is there something rotten in Denmark?  

Eh.... Mough... I fail to see now "SM" ( by which I presume you mean Sayeret Matkal) can in any way be held responsible for the failures of Bravo Two Zero.  You are going to have to explain that one to me, because it doesn't compute.

I'm glad to hear that things have 'changed markedly' in the SAS since B2Z, and that a similar cock up couldn't occur today.  After all, we are all on the same side here.  We are all fighting against the same jihadis who want to drag us back into medievalism at the point of an AK. 

You are absolutely right that luck can play an important role in special ops.  And yes, the relatively limited geographic and cultural theatre of operations of Israeli units make its life somewhat easier (although there are substantial social and linguistic differences between, say Arab countries in the Maghreb and those in the Mashraq) And yes, there have been dud Israeli SF operations.  Not so much Matkal, but other units. There was one notorious instance of a friendly fire error during a West Bank arrest op by Duvdevan (the undercover 'Arabist' unit). It was sloppy planning that I think could be put down to the fact that the unit was running at an extremely high op tempo with insufficient time in some instances to adequately prepare. And then there was the case of the Shayetet 13 raid in Lebanon that went sour and in which a slew of naval commandoes died. That was simply bad luck.

But I guess my question is to the operational planning process of B2Z, and what that says about the SAS (if anything). Particularly the question of command oversight. The IDF certainly allows junior commanders to plan their own ops, as I take it is the rule in the SAS. But as an ex IDF officer I can tell you that if any patrol commander made a decision as ill-advised as McNab/SM's plan to go in without vehicles, he would be overruled in a nano-second. And what's more, I can easily envisage the sheer dumbness of the plan bringing about the relief of the commander on the grounds that his superiors lost faith in his judgement.  

I mean, a system that promotes initiative down to the lowest ranks is a bedrock principle of the IDF ethos.  But initiative is one thing, and recklessness or irresponsibility are another.  So I guess I don't understand how the Major in command of whatever sabre squadron to which McNab/SM belonged allowed the op to proceed.

Perhaps this can be attributed to the perishability of 'hot war' skills during the 80s.  Although one would think that there would still have been NCO vets of the Falklands (Pebble Island) some 9 years later.  

In any event... I am heartened to hear that the Regiment has learned from the experience and evolved to a higher level. And in that spirit I would venture to assert that I think the US military certainly, and perhaps the British Army as well, are probably the best they've ever been.  They've been blooded enough to have gained valuable exprience that has allowed them to hone doctrine and SOPs. There is an entire generation of NCOs and junior/mid-ranking officers for whom this has been the formative experience of their military lives. And as a result I think that the culture of the US army will change irreversibly for the better. It will assimilate the principles of counter-insurgency war ito the very marrow of its being because that is the face of 21st century war.

And what's more they've been tested to the point where the non-performing deadwood has been exposed and weeded out.  So for all the talk of the American military being at breaking point, I would think that the Army and Marines - and by extension the Brits, are as operationally sharp as they've ever been.... perhaps even sharper

Mough:

unfortunately solidcon'... you will never know the full details behind B20, thus it you can only hypothesise as to whether going in 'wheel-less' was a good idea. i know a number of lads who would have likely come to the same decision being that the patrol was only 2 bricks (thus two pinkies) and that the oppo was a stationary observation. in the end, as pat' leader his say was the way, hindsight's a beautiful thing.

mough, having outed you as a dressmaker, i'm curious as to how you have met the 'legendary mcnab'?

And from my admittedly foreign and 20/20 hindsight perspective, it strikes me as strange that the decision to go in dismounted was not overridden by McNab's - or whatever his real name is - superiors. I guess the IDF ethos must be different, but whenever Sayerets Matkal or Shaldag does a deep penetration raid, there is always a substantial extraction force on immediate readiness should the need arise. 

Now I realise that the scope of the SF operation in Desert Storm, with literally scores of British and American OPs scattered over a large geographic area of Iraq, might have made such an extraction effort far more complicated. But then if you don't have a dedicated force of cavalry ready to ride to your rescue, all the more reason to have the organic ability to high tail it on your own if things go south. Even having only two pinkies gives you an opportunity to maneouver with a measure of mutual support in either bounding or travelling overwatch (translation from Hebrew - hope terminology is correct).  This is especially true of the trucks are equipped with ATGMs like Milan or, even better, TOW. And if you conclude that an 8 man force is excessively vulnerable, you increase its size.  Either that, or you don't do the op.

All of which brings me once again to my original conclusion - the operational plan of B2Z was irresponsibly overconfident, and the command oversight process was profoundly flawed. Being a combat-experienced soldier myself, I realise that in a battlefield situation you can go from hero to zero in a nano-second. I realise that dame fortune plays a big role in combat. But it would seem to me that in light of the Clauswitzian friction and uncertainties of battle, you take prudent measures to cope with a possible fiasco. And this is especially true when the operation in question is a special op deep in enemy territory. The line between boldness and recklessness can be narrow, but it exists nonethesame. And I remain of the view that in this particular instance, the SAS crossed it.

I have no first hand knowledge of any unit in the British Army, conventional or special. But I can bring to bear my own military experience that includes several years of combat ops as an IDF officer in Lebanon (I know I'm dating myself). 

i was not at the planning stages for the B20 patrol (to busy at my "desk" job), so the only conclusion i can come to is he gave good reasons for the no-wheels. i was told after the whole fiasco that there was a consensus among the eight to not take pinkies.
you can already understand the pros of going mounted (ie, greater fire power, more kit, speedy esape if the world goes bollocks up, etc.) but you must look at the cons given the oppo and the place

firstly it was a stationary observation, not a "roam around free for all and f*ck the scuds" as has been said in a number of stories/media interpretations, it was simply get there/sit there/look there/leave there. secondly, the terrain wasn't favourable for taking vehicles, especially coupled with the oppo type (whilst a-squaddies went in with wheels in similar, billiard board terrain, they didn't have to sit around and stick out like a sore thumb)

the terrain around the oppo site didn't lend itself well to concealing two pinkies which would have stuck out like a bulldog's bollocks, i've seen the maps/overheads, which leads me to the next point... the visual intel of the area was shite, and what there was, one could only conclude that the vehicles would have stuck out in the previously mentioned manner.

with vehicles sticking out like that, there would have been no telling if the locals have spotted you or not.

and what happens if one pinkie gets fudged and can't be repaired? eight men on one pinkie ain't easy... we tried.

you make very valid points solidcon, and i understand your opinion that if eight men are too vulnerable, increase the number or don't go, but i have been in a couple of similarly daunting oppos, and there are a number more, where everything went ATP with two thumbs up. now having said all this i am not advocating mcnab's decisions, simply showing a couple reasons he, and the rest, may have come to the decision they did. who know's, if they had have taken vehicles, maybe it would have gone balls up in different manner.

I appreciate the civil nature of your response. But I guess coming from my particular background I find it puzzling that the available visint about the target area was so poor.  I mean, it's not as though this was an operation done by frago... they presumably had months to prepare. I can tell you that any IDF deep recce ops has visint, sigint and even humint coming out the wazoo.  Even if it's a op is of a relatively quick reaction variety within a relatively telescoped time frame (along the lines of the Ba'albek raid during last year's Lebanon war, at a bare there certainly would be a numerous photo-recon passes done, both oblique and vertical to provide hi-resolution current imagery.

Thaks Bob:

solidcon'... you're welcome for the civil response, you addressed me in a civil manner and so deserve it in return (unfortunatley not all discussions on this site proceed in a well-mannered fashion, and i'm no angel)
as mough said before, the regiment had all but lost its cutting edge expertise in the desert, and couple that with poor visuals it's no suprise willy wonka decisions get made (although that is no excuse, we both know). the regiment i knew always had an ethos of getting things done "whatever the weather". i.e. if intel was shite, no worries (well to a degree... obviously) as long as there was something. i can't remember the altitude the photos of the area were taken (in the case of B20) but they were old and too high up to put it plainly. also, there wasn't as much time to plan as one would think (again, no excuse) but coupled with the want for a little fun in the countryside... well history happens. in my experience, the green slime were never the best at getting you the details you desired, why? who knows... lazy buggers really. and as mough also previously said, the regiment was quite an underfunded force at the time.

OK, I am new here, and the post to which I refer is old. But to describe Motta as arrogant is incomprehensable to anyone who knew him, and I did.

 

I knew Motta, he was in our home a lot. He was a quiet, unassuming humble man, who hated war, and wrote infants bedtime stories.

 

Shomer