Special Forces - who is the best?

[Myth]

I was wondering, out of the SF units that we know of, which one can we claim is the best?

For the USA I can name two:

Delta Force and SEAL team 6 (DEVGRU )

SAS for the UK.

Spetznaz (Alpha or Vympel teams) for Russia

Shayetet 13 for Israel

I've been reading incredible things about DEVGRU and Deltaforce. Also downright scary things for Spetznaz training. And a prevailing opinion online that SAS is still the best (not sure why, apart from the success rate of applicants - only 2% make it). However, DEVGRU are chosen from the other SEAL teams who are already elite, and Delta Force are chosen from the Green Berets and Rangers. Spetznaz have to endure inhumane training which is outlawed in the USA. They have to learn to like pain. Don't know much about the Israelis but seeing as how effective Mossad is, I cannot dismiss them.

[Sarmatian]

I don't know about special forces, but my dad could beat up your dad.

[PROVOST]

SASR (AUS)

[Myth]

I don't know about special forces, but my dad could beat up your dad.

Hey, we have a babe thread. It's what boys do. Maybe I should start a thread about "10 things to say to your guy to get him to do the dishes" or something?

SASR (AUS)

Please do tell us about them.

[PROVOST]

SASR (AUS) is based off of the English SAS model and uses the same methodology overall.

Their deployment history differs of course historically but they are the "Tip of the Spear" type of Special Ops Regiment.

Here's their official website -

http://www.army.gov.au/Who-we-are/Di...rvice-Regiment

Their origins come from the unit known as Z Special Unit from WW2 period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Special_Unit

[Fragony]

I'd reckon they are all good

[Husar]

Spetznas win hands down, Alfa is more of a police special forces group as far as I am aware, the russian type of SWAT but with more vodka.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I was wondering, out of the SF units that we know of, which one can we claim is the best?...

*highlight not in original


I have a sneaking suspicion that the best are the ones who do NOT meet that criteria.

[Fragony]

Just for awesome's sake, a documentorary gone wrong

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bX01miySwkI

Also pretty cool, somali pirates http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uHT0qsYxfw

[Brenus]

The best Special Forces are the ones you never heard about them...

[Kagemusha]

Special forces are overrated. They are light infantry that cant hold shite. They have their role but are far from being Kings of battlefield.

EDIT: With second thought. I should not have even posted in this thread,i am just an reserve staff sergeant of mechanized infantry in Finnish army and never saw actual battle and hope God never will.. Still i think that the toughest infantry in any army are the breakthrough forces like Marines in US and British army or mechanized formations of most other armies. These guys are not supposed to dance around the enemy, but break it...Sorry my French..and i adore the French.

[Myth]

Ugh. Special Forces. I swear if one more stupid movie about the SEALs comes out I'll puke. You'd think operators were the only people deploying if you just went by Hollywood. In reality they deploy less (well, for less time anyway) and they enjoy amenities the average grunt doesn't get. They're like the star quarterbacks of the military world: good, but kind of overpaid (well, over equipped anyway.. the extra money dont go to the troops) and overrated.

The biggest reason they are used is for secrecy, not because they're all that good. When you're kidnapping people or popping them in the middle of the night, best if its SOCOM troops with Top Secret or higher than a grunt who might decide to YouTube the whole thing.

Oh come on you can't really think that. Based on their section process alone you will know that they get the creme of the crop. Just how good the crop is depends on where they're recruiting from. DF is getting recruits from the Rangers, Green Berets and the 82nd Airborne, and a very, very small percentage make it to the troop. Do really think spec ops soldiers are only marginally better trained/conditioned than grunts? The budget they get is absurd, and the gadgets are as well, so on that at least we agree.

If you watch the documentary on SEAL team 6 you'll see how many guys drop out during the training. Only 1 in 5 makes it to the end. That's 1 in 5 out of already a very high profile group of candidates. If your average US grunt was on that level I think you would have conquered the galaxy by now (interstellar travel notwithstanding)

Now, I'm all against stupid Hollywood propaganda and misinformation. Starting with swords making a *wwwhhiiingggg* sound when pulled out of a scabbard. But this thread wasn't meant for movies, it was meant for real information and actually I managed to get some out of it, so there's that. Also, no one is trying to diminish the importance of conventional troops. Not me anyway. But a question of whether the grunts or the Marine corps are better is pointless IMO, while a question of who is better between DEVGRU and Delta Force is pretty legit.

Special forces are overrated. They are light infantry that cant hold shite. They have their role but are far from being Kings of battlefield.

They're not meant to hold shite as far as I know. It's like saying a B2 stealth bomber is useless because it can't haul as much as a C-130 Hercules.

[Kagemusha]

They're not meant to hold shite as far as I know. It's like saying a B2 stealth bomber is useless because it can't haul as much as a C-130 Hercules.

Again.I can only talk from my limited point of view. Special forces as they have been called ever since Green berets in Vietnam are basically small arms tactical units or glorified scouts. These are guys who are more in class of athletes compared to normal people, but in civilian life are athletes somehow superior? People should not be judged by their abilities but their merits. They are not supermen, but they have their key role in most of military actions. Still they eat lead like rest of us, most of time lack any AT capability. Dont have indirect fire support.In other words are not head on soldiers.

[Myth]

They get the job done. The job often requires a cohesive unit of professionals with various skills at their disposal. A small team that knows one another very well and trust each other in their individual skills is what is needed. Can the SEALS storm Baghdad and take it? No. Can they set up explosive charges on the defending artillery units to make the conventional troop's lives easier? Yes. Which one is better or more important? Neither. But how hard would you evaluate the potential candidate for the first job compared to the second job? (this is a bad example because you'd just call in an airstrike on the artillery, but I was making a point)

Again, the point of this thread was to discuss what we know about SF units globally and particularly between the two hailing from the USA. It was not meant to imply that these men are supermen or that they somehow make other troops useless. These men ARE superior in their skill set however. How else would you make your choice? Out of 100,000 candidates you get how many guys? 1000? Less even? They will have something making them stand out, and that's that.

[Kagemusha]

They get the job done. The job often requires a cohesive unit of professionals with various skills at their disposal. A small team that knows one another very well and trust each other in their individual skills is what is needed. Can the SEALS storm Baghdad and take it? No. Can they set up explosive charges on the defending artillery units to make the conventional troop's lives easier? Yes. Which one is better or more important? Neither. But how hard would you evaluate the potential candidate for the first job compared to the second job? (this is a bad example because you'd just call in an airstrike on the artillery, but I was making a point)



Again, the point of this thread was to discuss what we know about SF units globally and particularly between the two hailing from the USA. It was not meant to imply that these men are supermen or that they somehow make other troops useless. These men ARE superior in their skill set however. How else would you make your choice? Out of 100,000 candidates you get how many guys? 1000? Less even? They will have something making them stand out, and that's that.

Yes.Now we are running around in circles in this debate.How do you compare special forces of different countries or even within certain military, as their job is not to fight or kill other special forces. There is no comparison, only opinions. You can witness from any extreme performance, there is very little difference between individuals in competitive sports, less to say units.No country has some certified secret for military training. So ultimately the differences for the tasks they are set to do are negligent unless we are dealing with armies that are really out to date.

So does speak the best special force units today are those that have most experience without breaking coherence (aka not making the most experienced ones trainers), but not inherently because of their training but because of their experience.

[Myth]

My only point is that I think a thread debating which "elite units" are the best is dumb. Nobody here is qualified to say anything for certain, and the mere fact that this thread exists makes me sad.

Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to ask and debate. Sometimes you could get lucky. Meanwhile, here is the drill sergeant scene from FMJ to cheer you up: /watch?v=71Lft6EQh-Y

[Husar]

Gelly Cube is obviously jelly...

The way I understand this thread we are talking about the kind of Special Forces who are actually trained to do combat missions behind enemy lines to actually kill people and stuff. Because as has been mentioned, a lot of them, at least in the US military, are meant to do other things entirely and are not weapon experts. The first Green Berets were largely chosen for their social and language skills etc. Of course you might send a weapons expert to train locals on AK-47s or so but even that is not always required.

I read a book about Green Berets and it has some interesting info. Among the few parts I haven't forgotten was that they were used in Vietnam to train some mountain tribes who then fought the Vietcong with their native weapons, i.e. bows and blowpipes (not the british ones). They were actually really effective as they knew the area well and the Green Berets lived and worked with them. Then the US government wanted to get out and the south vietnamese army was supposed to take over. Unfortunately they didn't regard the mountain people very highly and treated them really bad and lost their support as a result. The border became as porous as it was before and we all know how well the war ended for the south.

Now I'm not sure how much better the Spetsnaz are at this task but as long as they're not dealing with gay mountain people, I believe they can do a better job.

[Husar]

Its less about feeling superior and more about finding this hero worship crap repugnant. I'll leave you to it though, carry on.

The jelly is strong in this one.

Feeling superior and worshipping heroes is the essence of major anglo culture. It is this mislead sense of superiority that makes Russians and their Spetsnaz so awesome because they actually are the typical anglo's wet dream of manly men who are tough and rough and stuff.

You see, even the military channel finds Spetsnaz awesome as long as they're killing brown people in burkas:



You heard that? They train with methods that would be illegal in other militaries.
America may call waterboarding torture, Spetsnaz call it breakfast.

[Myth]

Its less about feeling superior and more about finding this hero worship crap repugnant. I'll leave you to it though, carry on.

For me it's not hero worship. I don't worship Usain Bolt but I admire him for being the fastest sprinter in the world. War is not the olympics of course, but I'll ask you this: given the chance, would you disband these "primadonna"elite special forces units? Let's say you get to be the Secretary of Defence or something. Would you reassign their budget in favour of the conventional troops and remove them from the armed forces? Do you imagine a situation where it's more strategically advantageous to your country to NOT have operatives on the level of Delta Force and the SEAL teams? What about troop morale as a whole?

Take the elimination of Osama for example. Did that not boost morale through the roof? Whom would you entrust such an op to if you were in a position to make that decision?

[Sarmatian]

They do have their uses, but the typical hero worship is undeserved, especially Hollywood crap in which they're represented as superhuman. Throw them behind enemy lines with two nails and a piece of rope and they'll build tanks, helicopters, airplanes and a makeshift base. After that they'll destroy ten enemy divisions, stop a nuclear warhead from launching, capture a dictator and be home for lunch. At least one of them will then quit the army and devote his life to his girlfriend who he dumped just prior to the mission. At least until the sequel in which he will again be recruited and he won't be able to refuse because of his sense of duty.

In the case of Osama mission you mentioned, think about what they really did - they crossed into another country illegally (creating a diplomatic incident) and performed an assassination (creating another diplomatic incident). The effect - Bin Laden is now dead, hurrah!!! Unfortunately, the terrorist organization is still alive and well and it falls again to the grunts on the ground to deal with it in the only way possible, by cutting the funding and taking away their manpower and support, either by direct combat or by winning hearts and minds of the population.

[Myth]

They do have their uses, but the typical hero worship is undeserved, especially Hollywood crap in which they're represented as superhuman. Throw them behind enemy lines with two nails and a piece of rope and they'll build tanks, helicopters, airplanes and a makeshift base. After that they'll destroy ten enemy divisions, stop a nuclear warhead from launching, capture a dictator and be home for lunch. At least one of them will then quit the army and devote his life to his girlfriend who he dumped just prior to the mission. At least until the sequel in which he will again be recruited and he won't be able to refuse because of his sense of duty.

In the case of Osama mission you mentioned, think about what they really did - they crossed into another country illegally (creating a diplomatic incident) and performed an assassination (creating another diplomatic incident). The effect - Bin Laden is now dead, hurrah!!! Unfortunately, the terrorist organization is still alive and well and it falls again to the grunts on the ground to deal with it in the only way possible, by cutting the funding and taking away their manpower and support, either by direct combat or by winning hearts and minds of the population.

I daresay the bolded part is taken care of by Special Forces. The Green Berets do exactly this, I posted it once and Husar also did. The Rangers and Green Berets are the ones who handle this. You can't fight a war on terror (it's a stupid name but bear with me) with tanks and grunts. The movies are stupid yes, but the OP on Osama achieved what it was supposed to do. Diplomatic incidents don't matter much to a country as powerful as the USA, while eliminating this rogue CIA trained agent was a priority. The pure profit in public opinion was worth it. My point was not whether it was a good idea or not to kill Osama or what it achieved, but when presented with the need to carry out such an operation you have to assign it to someone. Who is that someone if not the Special Forces units?

[Ironside]

If two SF teams meets, who win? The defender, always the defender. Why?

Because even if the attacker wins, they failed their mission. All SF teams are close enough that the winning team will always take losses and be delayed enough that any close reinforcements will have time to respond.

And if you're talking about winning the hearts and minds of the population, the most important thing is attitude. Troops that feel genuine and caring is going to do much better than those with a strict military protocol attitude.

[Brenus]

The problem is your view of Special Forces is actually wrong. Special Forces are not going behind enemy lines in a killing 1000 a day. The Special Forces dropped from 3000 metres, buried themselves and report, undetected, what they see. For one sniper killing one person, the job of hundreds of teams is spying, and to do that, you avoid to kill at all cost as, for unknown reason, it may alarm the enemies.
I interviewed one of this “special” for my Doctorate on the French Indochina War. He was the LO of the Roger Vandenberghe’s commando, and he just confirm it: Infiltration, location on map, relay to artillery and job done.

Like the paratroopers, the Special Forces are Infantry on Amphetamine. Movies don’t help in understanding this.

The Special Forces have the same effect and for the same reason than a killer going in a cinema and killing 50 unarmed persons. They are ready; they are equipped, when the others are not. The difference of course is in war that the best way to do it: by night, fog and rain, when the enemies are in pyjamas and sleeping (or sleepy, cursing the weather, waiting to go back in a warmish barracks out of the weather).

[Sigurd]

Marinejegerkommdandoen (MJK) is the best special forces in the world, hands down.

[Husar]

If two SF teams meets, who win? The defender, always the defender. Why?

Because even if the attacker wins, they failed their mission. All SF teams are close enough that the winning team will always take losses and be delayed enough that any close reinforcements will have time to respond.

And if you're talking about winning the hearts and minds of the population, the most important thing is attitude. Troops that feel genuine and caring is going to do much better than those with a strict military protocol attitude.

I do not think Spetsnaz would take losses when the Delta Force are defending their barn:



Around 1:45 you can see a typical Marinejegerkommdandoen defensive position and what Spetsnaz would do to it.
600m is beyond the effective range of common Delta Force, SAS and SASR weaponry.

I also forgot that some special forces were not mentioned here, either because they do not send enough propaganda material to the military channel or because they are clearly not worth mentioning:

Germany: KSK - became really famous when some of them made a photograph of themselves next to a pile of bones from Afghans they had killed.
Kampfschwimmer - German Navy SEALS equivalent, even the DDR had such a special forces group:



Cuba: Desembarco de Granma - no idea what they have to do with your grandma

France: BSFT:



GCP-CRAP - probably not as bad as the name suggests:



Commandos Marine

Somalia: PIRATES - mostly known for their ability to board ships completely unnoticed, minor deficits in direct combat:



There is also a list sorted by countries on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...l_forces_units

[Husar]

Take the elimination of Osama for example. Did that not boost morale through the roof? Whom would you entrust such an op to if you were in a position to make that decision?

The SAC perhaps?

Everybody loves to watch a carpet(/nuclear) bombing except from directly below.

Oh and, the Delta Force are Green Berets because Green Berets is not a unit but an umbrella term for people who used to wear....green berets....which were only worn by special operators. There was a bit of a ruckus lately when other US army units got black berets or something because berets alone were usually reserved to somewhat special people who kill their enemies in especially effective ways.
It was seen as an attempt to boost the morale of common throwaway soldiers that could be to the detriment of the more sophisticated princesses of death who had earned their berets through merit.

The thing about berets is that when you stab someone from behind you're a despicable coward but when you do it wearing a ghilly suit and a beret, then you're awesome. That's why berets should only be given to people who earned them through merit because one has to earn the right not to be a coward.

[Montmorency]

It's pretty obvious that both regular and special forces participate. Each is suited to tasks of a different nature. Get over your anti-SF rageboner.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Guys, guys, guys. I know how to settle this debate. Let me just show you how elite American operators train, and you'll realize all your other special forces with fancy sounding foreign names that just mean the same thing can't measure up.

But be warned - this is some intense training and you may not be able to handle it;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lARY...ature=youtu.be

CR

[Husar]

SF do not win hearts and minds. The average troops who patrol the streets, talk to local leaders, and deal with the backlash from violent and often unexplained SF raids are the ones who do that.

There's so much wrong in this thread I don't even know where to start. I was gonna stay out of it, but Husar's posts alone are enough to warrant this.

What? Everything I say is perfectly 100% validated truth.

You also completely misunderstood the whole thing about winning hearts and minds and who does that and where and when.
The special forces you deal or dealt with the are the killer commando gung-ho types who pale in comparison to Spetsnaz.
The special forces who are supposed to win hearts and minds, they are different, they were different and they are either not deployed in Afghanistan at all or they are working with locals in US-friendly villages somewhere far away from where you were stationed.

It's also perfectly possible that the bloodthirsty US policies and the end of the cold war in combination with the terrorist scaretactics lead to a change in weight. In the sense that the killer commando special forces were increased in number while the number of winning hearts and minds operators was toned down. This would then obviously be a failure of US military strategy in Afghanistan and here we all thought that one was perfect...

That said I also never called it winning hearts and minds and found that to be a bit wrong as these operators were usually sent to people who weren't all that fond of the enemy in the first place. It's not my fault that American governments in the past years have completely failed to utilize special forces the way they were originally intended to be used and gotten themselves into conflicts they cannot win using their favourite bloodthirsty retaliation rhetoric. That book I have is from 2000, so it was written before 9/11 started the whole terror craze and the downwards spiral in US military tactics and strategies.

The focus on this topic also completely fails to recognize the actual point of my posts, which was that Spetsnaz are superior to all other special forces.

Guys, guys, guys. I know how to settle this debate. Let me just show you how elite American operators train, and you'll realize all your other special forces with fancy sounding foreign names that just mean the same thing can't measure up.

But be warned - this is some intense training and you may not be able to handle it;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lARY...ature=youtu.be

CR

Ugh, so they learn how to hit a target at <3m distance, the RPO Shmel has a range of 600m, the Spetsnaz will turn them into Kentucky fried chicks no matter how fast they can draw their peashooters.

[Montmorency]

Ugh, so they learn how to hit a target at <3m distance, the RPO Shmel has a range of 600m, the Spetsnaz will turn them into Kentucky fried chicks no matter how fast they can draw their peashooters.

Just like the Germans would have won the war if they'd gotten a chance to build their 100-ton tanks.