British COIN (merged thread)

[Red Rat]

The Rhodesian SAS did magnificent work during the war especially in the last two years. However, if one reads their Op Log one will note that 95% of the type of work they did prior to the end of 1977 would by the end of the war be routinely done by the RLI and even by elements of some of the Territorial Units (Reserves).

We see the same sort of process happening in some respects. However, as in N Ireland, I suspect that what we will see as Afghanistan enters drawdown is that many of the missions currently undertaken by regular soldiers will be once more undertaken by Special Forces. This is simply because that as 2015 approaches political appetite for risk will sharply decrease.

Compared to my day it makes sense to conduct night operations because the night vision equipment and thermal imaging gives the troops such a massive advantage over the enemy. Again how special is an operation where troops are inserted by chopper into an LZ at night and from there they san out to take on an objective while being covered by Apache and Spector gunships? In my book that is a normal infantry operation for well trained troops. There are relatively few of these opportunities going around so (as I mentioned above) the special forces and their hangers on (SAS, Seals, Rangers, Paras) will hold onto those tasks as if only they could possibly succeed. The mindset needs to change.

Properly trained troops can take on that task, but the added value is in the backroom functions and processes that the SF have. if we resourced and trained everyone to the same level as the SF then we might not need the SF so much, but part of the reason they are so effective is because they are so well resourced and certainly the UK cannot afford to resource everyone the same.

As for night ops it - there are advantages and disadvantages to operating at night.