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Subject: NAVY SEALS VS BRITISH SAS
LJ813    7/1/2005 9:34:17 PM
I WILL GO FOR THE NAVY..
 
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bob the brit       12/6/2007 1:28:50 PM
i'll leave you with one thought before i go... if you knew the number of cockups and botched ops a la spetznaz, you wouldn't want them on your side.
 
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bob the brit       12/6/2007 1:46:47 PM
as for the the fijians, they rarely do things outside the guise of a peacekeeping/making mission [often but not limited to] implemented by the UN. bloody good at ruggers though, and they love their drug busts
 
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dirtykraut       12/6/2007 2:18:11 PM
I know of Spetsnaz Alpha, a unit similar to CAG and SAS. Spetsnaz Vega, a unit that deals with Nuclear incidents. And Spetsnaz Vympel, a counter-sabotage unit (whatever the hell that means), and the SSO, I don't know what they do. That is 4 divisions within Spetsnaz right there.
 
Now I tend to defend Russian technology and equipment quite often. I have no axe to grind with the ruskies. But as for Spetsnaz, everytime I see pictures of them they are chopping 2 by 4's with their bare hands, doing back flips off monkey bars, and a bunch of shirtless guys beating eachother with shovels. (people who bring shovels to gun fights have an awful tendency to get shot in the face). It doesn't look very promising.
 
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bob the brit    static...   12/6/2007 3:46:24 PM
Put another way: say you send a CAG team and a SAS team to fastrope into a location, and the rope breaks on the SAS helicopter killing all their guys (sorry Bob), but the Group guys make it in fine
 
static... given this scenario, even if it was the rope on delta's heli'that broke, only one of them would have bit the dust. on one of my many holidays to visit beckwiths bandits, they were mid FRIES exercise. i noticed there would only be one man on the rope at all times. each man would go after the one before him had completely cleared the rope [rather slow process in the end] so i told them that it would never do in a really oppo' and that they should only leave one man space between each roper, so they tried it a couple days later [from a static tower ofcourse, safety safety!]. the results [ie, time it took for every man to have disembarked from the heli] were much better.
 
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Horsesoldier       12/6/2007 3:48:51 PM

as for the the fijians, they rarely do things outside the guise of a peacekeeping/making mission [often but not limited to] implemented by the UN. bloody good at ruggers though, and they love their drug busts


Looking at their record with hostage rescue ops, you definitely don't want Spetsnaz kicking in the door you're being held hostage behind.  They'll probably get the bad guy(s), but odds are pretty good they'll put you in the ground as well.
 
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mough       12/6/2007 3:57:14 PM
Is that guy with all the "spetznaz" lovefest for real, or is he pulling a wah?
 
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bob the brit    static...   12/6/2007 4:11:16 PM

Whoops interweb doubleposted... Anways:

 

Actually spetsnaz is not as broad as many think. During the Cold War days the USSR had up to 15,000 Spetsnaz troops, todays esitmates range more in the 1500 range. Considering the size of Russia that is a very elite ratio of recruits right there. As for the sepcificality of Spetsnaz, you could argue and say specifically Seal Team 6 then or something like that but we're talking about a broad topic here. Based on training alone I would say the Spetsnaz are a more combat effective fighting force based on recruit to recruit for all forms of special forces. There is a reason why Spetsnaz operators are seen as some of the most feared combat units in the world. Their near fanatical resolve makes them extremely effective, coupled with like I said 5 years of some of the most intense training in the world inolving lots of live fire exercises, Spetsnaz are arguably the most combat ready operators to date. They're trained in a variety of foriegn languages, effective foriegn vehicle and weapon operation, and their tactics go beyond firefights and normal concealment. As I mentioned before they are also trained assassins and have a long history of being ruthless fighters. They gain a little more prestige based on that fear factor.

 

As far as SEALS are concerned, their operational expirence makes them formidible at best. They don't cover a broad a range of mission capablities as Spetsnaz do, however they are still an effective combat group who is evenly matched up with the SAS. SEAL Team 6 of course being focused on Counter-Terrorism brings alot to the CT Community. However that being said, as far as Counter-Terrorism goes, you could say the same for GSG-9, SAS, GIGN, and simillar groups. So in the grand scheme of things neither SAS or SEALS are anything TOO special in the world market of special operations.

 

So to put it simply, in a hostage situation at the beach SAS would come in throught the roof, SEALS would have allready been there only for both to find Spetsnaz killed everyone.


firstly, while you may think spetznaz forces are some of the most feared units in the world, you are plain and simply wrong. How do you judge fear? Honestly, is there some statistical formula you can generate as to how feared a group is? Me thinks not. The same goes for saying Gurkhas; while they may be a generally [and I am being general here] respected variety of fighters, there is no way of measuring how feared they are [saying a whole division on Germans ran away when they unsheathed their Khukuris is not statistial evidence {nor likely true}]
 
As for spetznaz' 'near fanatical resolve'... maybe that's what causes those botched oppo's I always heard about.
 
We have already concluded [the smart ones at least] that there can be no measure of how tough a certain selection and training course is. We'll leave it at that shall we? Regardless of being 5 years or 5 months, it is not something that can be judged.
 
Most if not all special forces units take time to familiarise themselves with foreign weapons and vehicles. Not doing so and then deploying to the neighbour's garden to find he uses a shovel instead of a spade would be silly. The same goes for foreign languages. It would be quite a pickle if gardener Fred only spoke spinach when he needed to talk tomatoes [wonderful alliteration, I know].
 
SEALs are confined in their area of expertise for a reason. So they can become as proficient and experienced in said field as they deem fit. Jack-of-all-trades and Johnny-know-it-all often find they are also Billy-no-mates.
 
And finally as for your mock 'hostage situation' on a beach; what kind of beach has a roof? What kind of nut holds hostages on a beach [we would have thought it christmas time had the Iranian embassy been on the Dover coast]? And spetznaz already arriving there and killing everyone, is not a successful HOSTAGE rescue. Not in my books, not in anyones books.
 

 
 
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bob the brit    sorry static   12/6/2007 4:56:44 PM
that last post of mine wasn't directed at you, but our spetznaz PR lad. i guess the post title was left from the other post i made about the heli rope break thing.
 
mough - i believe he's serious, but seen as he brings superior evidence and argument skills to the wooden top with foor legs, we should admit defeat  [makes me wish i were a member of a spetznaz unit]
 
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GOP       12/6/2007 8:27:57 PM

So to put it simply, in a hostage situation at the beach SAS would come in throught the roof, SEALS would have allready been there only for both to find Spetsnaz killed everyone.
Yes, exactly. That is exactly why they are the wrong force for the job. Given their history of botched Ops, I wouldn't doubt if they killed everyone, including all the hostages and a few of their own.
 
I wish my beach had a rough sometimes, dang sunburns.
 
Also, how does a SOF unit come through a roof exactly? Sounds interesting, but not plausible.
 


 
 
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static       12/6/2007 9:15:00 PM

that last post of mine wasn't directed at you, but our spetznaz PR lad. i guess the post title was left from the other post i made about the heli rope break thing.

 

mough - i believe he's serious, but seen as he brings superior evidence and argument skills to the wooden top with foor legs, we should admit defeat  [makes me wish i were a member of a spetznaz unit]


Admit it - you were just all excited thinking about Spetznaz.  Sounds like you joined up with the wrong guys, if you had been Russian then you really could have had some fun during the Cold War.

I was actually trying to figure out how many people ended up on the rope at once, but I remember reading in someone's SEAL book I think that they lined everyone up and didn't wait for the rope to clear.  It makes my post sound a bit more impressive anyway.  I'm still a little confused, did your friends end up changing their roping procedures in the end or not?

I wonder if some of these guys aren't having the last laugh, they come in as one-post wonders and just sit back and wait for us to get into a frenzy trying to prove them wrong.  Beats doing homework I guess.
 
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