i still think egypt's task force 777 takes the biscuit with the hijacked 737 assualt attempt... (then again eagleclaw didn't go exactly as planned... bit misfortunate that)

Botched hostage rescues it is.. 

 

OK, to show that even us Americans can trip over our XL sized peckers.. on occasion... ahem.. "Desert One".    I'm certainly not volunteering us for the worst SF (besides, Old Grunt scares me and might take it personal )  But, it goes to show everyone can have a bad day.

 

other stuff that comes to mind..

 

Was that GSG9 (or whatever the German SF is) that tried for the Black September guys in Munich?

 

Err.. I thought I had a longer list.. but its getting late..

 

 

I figured someone would bring up Eagle One, the botched Delta hostage rescue in Iran in 1979.  That wasn't Delta's fault, so you can't really count that one against them, but it did lead to the formation of Task Force 160 in the Air Force.  You can have the best SOF force on the planet, but if a poorly trained or prepared pilot makes a mistake and crashes the helicopter or aircraft the snake eaters are riding, then all that expertise becomes a moot point. 

 

The whole Moscow theater thing was  disaster.  From what I've heard the whole intent was to put everyone to sleep and then raid the building and kill the terrorists, but somebody screwed the pooch.  The gas put the terrorists to sleep all right, but they used too high of a dose and killed quite a few people.  I seriously doubt the Ruskies would have pumped the gas in if they had thought it was going to kill any of the hostages.  As far as the Interior Ministry troops shooting the terrorists goes, that's the truth.  I've seen the pictures.  Female Chechen terrorists had bombs strapped to them and they dispersed among the hostages in the seats of the theater.  All of the female bombers fell asleep and were either dead or dying when Alpha stormed the joint.  Each bomber was shot between the eyes at point blank range.  I heard that the Russians later wrapped the Chechens' bodies in pig skins before they buried them, which according to Islam would supposedly prevent them from going to heaven.  I thought that was a nice touch. 

The whole Moscow theater thing was  disaster.  From what I've heard the whole intent was to put everyone to sleep and then raid the building and kill the terrorists, but somebody screwed the pooch.  The gas put the terrorists to sleep all right, but they used too high of a dose and killed quite a few people.  I seriously doubt the Ruskies would have pumped the gas in if they had thought it was going to kill any of the hostages.  As far as the Interior Ministry troops shooting the terrorists goes, that's the truth.  I've seen the pictures.  Female Chechen terrorists had bombs strapped to them and they dispersed among the hostages in the seats of the theater.  All of the female bombers fell asleep and were either dead or dying when Alpha stormed the joint.  Each bomber was shot between the eyes at point blank range.  I heard that the Russians later wrapped the Chechens' bodies in pig skins before they buried them, which according to Islam would supposedly prevent them from going to heaven.  I thought that was a nice touch. 

to be fair if what i've read about desert one is at all correct the blame isn't on the poor bloody sf guys executing the plan it would be much further up the chain of command and their insistence that every branch be involved etc.

the western german govnmt created GSG-9 as part of the border police due to the events at munich, they were declared operational on April 1973. their claim to fame was the mogadishu rescue in '77. can't quite remember the unit(s) involved against blck sept' in munich... likely just the west german police and border police-they always helped handling internal affairs. i don't think any sf was involved as very few if any CT units existed or were operational before the munich incident. it was what promoted the need for trained and proficient CT units