What Special Forces are the best?

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title Newest to Oldest

Pages: PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NEXT

longrifle RE:What Special Forces are the best? 4/22/2006 11:11:21 AM

Interesting viewpoint, I guess the goal for COIN is to work yourself out of a job. If you're still in business..... Of course, I wouldn't want to carry that theory too far. There are some very good law enforcement agencys out there, yet there's still plenty of crime!

Quote Reply

olive greens RE:What Special Forces are the best? 4/22/2006 12:42:30 PM

Israel & India. Practice makes perfect. - Herc First off you will find Indians not particularly enthusiastic about regular "Special Forces" - remember in Kargil ('99) Brigade commanders were dragooning Para (SF) personnel into light infantry, tracking and scouting work whenever they could lay their hands on them. Then there is the fact that there are just about 5,000 SF who could be involved in Indian COIN work, while there are 66 BATTALIONS dedicated for COIN work. Some unlucky "regular" buggers who get caught in a particular battalion-rotation cycle end up seeing more combat than most Para SF. I remember reading about one unit that got caught in 6 continuous years of duty: Sri Lanka (late 80s), Kashmir (early 90s) and NE (early 90s)... Para SF, while punching all three tickets, never ran that gauntlet. In terms of counter insurgency operations, one could argue that too much practice indicates you are not perfect . . . - Horsesoldier Leaving aside Herc -who claims it for us- no Indian is under the illusion that we are perfect. But we ARE pretty good at some specialized aspects of COIN... mainly born out of experience (or practise, as you call it). And many reasons for not finding a solution are strictly political, reflecting nothing at all about military competency.

Quote Reply

TheBigBadWolf RE:What Special Forces are the best? 4/22/2006 9:37:12 PM

?Experience? at COIN isn't necessarily an indication of advanced special forces capability. The lion?s share of COIN work is undertaken by "regulars". In entrenched insurgencies (more than 6 years), large dedicated units may be raised or earmarked to such duties to avoid morale problems within the overall body of troops- does that put them under the SF umbrella? It depends on the national context and the doctrine that is evolved to deal with the COIN ground realities. Elite forces metamorphose into ?strategic troops? only when they have extensive intelligence & communications infrastructures backing them, together with go-anywhere, all-conditions logistics. So it is tied into the overall national capability for power projection and acuity of the ?eyes and ears? deployed. Being able to jump through hoops, disarm IEDs, bench-press 405 lbs or shoot a gippy or M60 from the hip doesn?t necessarily cut it.

Quote Reply

xylene 10/19/2006 9:00:42 AM

Well the only way we will know is if we have a Mad Max style Thunderdome. Put a SEAL in there with hatchet, a green beret with a knife, a spetnaz guy with iron bar, a British SBS guy in with a meat cleaver, and an ordinary fat overwieght office jockey in there with a machine gun and see who wins.

Quote Reply

GreyJackal 10/19/2006 10:24:30 AM

I think Sri Lankan special forces are one of the best counter terror and guerilla out there.

Quote Reply

mough 10/19/2006 11:45:10 AM

Fat guy for the win!!

Quote Reply

GOP 10/19/2006 12:57:42 PM

The Best SF Units are the ones you never heard of before and are so secret the if you did know of them you would want to kill yourself.

But the ones you do know of the Navy SEAls are the most Demannding and most skilled in every way.Æ¥†Y?Q?Vo\

Well, I am not sure about any of this. First of all, how the heck would you know of any secretive SF units (and if they are the best), considering how if you did, you would have already killed yourself (according to the post)...and if you hadn't killed yourself, you would be in the unit or in support of the unit and therefore not likely at all to talk about highly super secretive SF units on a public internet forum.

As far as Navy SEALs, we have had this discussion 1,000+ times. Combat Swimmers (Navy SEALs/SBS/KomSubin) are best at ops that involve water (Oplats, OTB, VBSS, etc), CT units (CAG/SAS/GIGN/GSG9/SASR) are best at ops that involve hostages, room clearing, and DA in general, etc...they specialize for a reason. That way, you don't have Army Rangers doing SCUBA missions in the middle of the Atlantic and a Navy SEAL squad doing DA missions against a company of enemy soldiers. It is bad leadership to mix them, and we have seen the results (usually with the discussion ending with "See, SOF unit X sucks and my Branch's SOF unit is better").

Quote Reply

GOP 10/19/2006 1:04:51 PM

Lol, I could just imagine that. The Navy SEAL throws that hatchet (being the most aggresive) at the SBS guy trying to prove he is the superior combat swimmer, but hit's Green beret (who then throws his knife...Rambo style) at the SEAL, but hits the Spetsnaz guy, the Spetsnaz guy then tries to hit the green beret, but hits the SBS guy, and the SBS guy ends up throwing the meat clever up in the air and hitting the Spetsnaz guy (a completely lucky shot...but of course, "super accurate shot" is now all over this forum again proving the SBS's superiority)...and the office jockey just stands there, scared to death and laughs his head off...because he doesn't even know how to get his weapon off of safety.

Quote Reply

longrifle 10/19/2006 1:10:57 PM

"Lol, I could just imagine that. The Navy SEAL throws that hatchet (being the most aggresive) at the SBS guy trying to prove he is the superior combat swimmer, but hit's Green beret (who then throws his knife...Rambo style) at the SEAL, but hits the Spetsnaz guy, the Spetsnaz guy then tries to hit the green beret, but hits the SBS guy, and the SBS guy ends up throwing the meat clever up in the air and hitting the Spetsnaz guy (a completely lucky shot...but of course, "super accurate shot" is now all over this forum again proving the SBS's superiority)...and the office jockey just stands there, scared to death and laughs his head off...because he doesn't even know how to get his weapon off of safety."

Of course the scout/sniper just lurks on the fringes of all that and kills the last man standing.

Quote Reply

Horsesoldier 10/19/2006 1:14:35 PM

Wasn't this thread pointless the first time it got cranked up? Probably not the best one to bother bringing back from the dead.

Quote Reply

PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NEXT