EPTOn December 03 2011 21:45 nymfaw wrote:
Try fighting a 2 front war with a really stupid and stubborn leader.
Try fighting a 2 front war with a really stupid and stubborn leader.
We've been trying since 2001!
What is the Most Elite Special Forces Unit? - Page 25
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FallDownMarigold
United States3710 Posts
We've been trying since 2001! | ||
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gn0m
Sweden302 Posts
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Schnake
Germany2819 Posts
On December 03 2011 11:54 bardtown wrote: I'm biased but I agree with this. First off, no small or poor nation can have the best elite forces, as they don't have the most current technology and adequate funding. Second, no militarily inactive nation can have the best elite forces, because they won't have seen frequent and varied activity (I'm looking at you Germany). By these criteria there are only a few nations left and really only two stand out: the UK and the US. Russia has actually been relatively inactive, and France has taken part in predominantly African conflicts offering a much narrower field of experience. Of the UK and the US, it would seem intuitively correct that the US has seen more activity, but I'm not sure if that's true. In fact, I'm fairly confident it isn't. Many of the UK SAS have served in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Africa and the Middle East. It might also seem sensible to think the US forces are better funded, but the UK defence spending is biased towards improving their special forces and is still one of the biggest budgets in the world. Finally if you take history into account, the achievements of the SAS pretty much dwarf those of any other unit, particularly with all the new information about WW2 being revealed. Small nations can still have great elite forces because that is why they are elite forces. They do not necessarily correlate with the general army size of a country or military budget because usually elite forces of any kind are well-funded; Sweden and Denmark come to mind here especially. Discrediting a country's special forces because, again, the army of said country is not actively engaging in wars is silly. Why? In the case of Germany, while the Bundeswehr tries to stay out of combat, the KSK do engage in combat and carry out missions alone or with with other special forces, e.g. in Afghanistan. With that said, personally I would rate the SAS higher than the KSK. After all, the KSK was founded relatively late in 1996, is modeled after the SAS and Delta Force, has less experience in general and I would hazard the guess that the SAS has the better equipment. Anyway, happy guessing.  | ||
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adun12345
United States198 Posts
On December 03 2011 05:10 SilentchiLL wrote: Since the Americans joined the war pretty late, maybe you should've used another example, but this isn't the right thread for this disscussion anyway. US forces arrived in the European theater in mid-1942, which was about half-way through the war. In any event, US forces were deeply involved in the North African, Italian, and French-German theaters. If the US had entered the war so late that it had only fought a few battles, then it might be a bad example; however, despite the relatively late entry, US forces fought many battles against the Wermacht and the Waffen-SS. They won pretty much all of them. This, combined with the fact that the Wermacht and SS were completely demolished by the Soviets, leads me to conclude that the Waffen-SS probably don't belong in the ranks of the most elite special forces. On December 03 2011 21:45 nymfaw wrote: Try fighting a 2 front war with a really stupid and stubborn leader. it was all about stalingrad, thats where the war was lost That might explain why the Nazis lost the war in general, but not why they lost so many battles so consistently. If you look at the actual combat performance of the German military (including its elite Waffen-SS units), you'll see that while in general they fought well and scored some impressive early successes, they were ultimately out-fought on any number of occasions by US, British, and Soviet forces. The "superior German soldiers undermined by their stupid leadership" thesis is actually a myth. As for the Nazi paratroops mentioned in another post, they performed a key mission in overrunning the Belgian defenses in the opening moments of the German 1940 offensive, but then got butchered attacking British forces on Crete in 1941. So again, they might not really be amongst the "most elite" SOF of history. | ||
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Somaht
Germany7 Posts
On December 03 2011 11:54 bardtown wrote: I'm biased but I agree with this. First off, no small or poor nation can have the best elite forces, as they don't have the most current technology and adequate funding. Second, no militarily inactive nation can have the best elite forces, because they won't have seen frequent and varied activity (I'm looking at you Germany). By these criteria there are only a few nations left and really only two stand out: the UK and the US. Russia has actually been relatively inactive, and France has taken part in predominantly African conflicts offering a much narrower field of experience. Of the UK and the US, it would seem intuitively correct that the US has seen more activity, but I'm not sure if that's true. In fact, I'm fairly confident it isn't. Many of the UK SAS have served in the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Africa and the Middle East. It might also seem sensible to think the US forces are better funded, but the UK defence spending is biased towards improving their special forces and is still one of the biggest budgets in the world. Finally if you take history into account, the achievements of the SAS pretty much dwarf those of any other unit, particularly with all the new information about WW2 being revealed. You are joking, right? :o | ||
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AKomrade
United States582 Posts
Best trained is a throw up though. For instance, Green Berets are adapted for supporting insurgencies, guerilla warfare, things like that, SEALS are for offensive "stealth" insertion, Delta Force is counterterrorism/counter insurgency, not to mention groups like the Frogmen (SEALS/SBS), GSG9 (more or less US's Delta), SAS (basically SEALS, Berets and Delta combined), GIGN. Add groups like the Foreign Legion and the US Rangers (paratroops) and it gets much harder. Really hard to pick just one as the best because of the different training and technology that goes into separate organizations. In a rush I'd pick Spetz or SAS though. They're trained to do virtually anything while SOCOM forces are pretty damn specialized, though very good at what they're trained to do. | ||
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Kermine
Finland33 Posts
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Waterflow
Sweden1550 Posts
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T0fuuu
Australia2275 Posts
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NIIINO
Slovakia1320 Posts
but they are all really similarly. Ofc I understand that paramedics / snipers / airforce... must know more than rangers. but its just my opinion. | ||
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secretary bird
447 Posts
On December 03 2011 23:33 adun12345 wrote: US forces arrived in the European theater in mid-1942, which was about half-way through the war. In any event, US forces were deeply involved in the North African, Italian, and French-German theaters. If the US had entered the war so late that it had only fought a few battles, then it might be a bad example; however, despite the relatively late entry, US forces fought many battles against the Wermacht and the Waffen-SS. They won pretty much all of them. This, combined with the fact that the Wermacht and SS were completely demolished by the Soviets, leads me to conclude that the Waffen-SS probably don't belong in the ranks of the most elite special forces. That might explain why the Nazis lost the war in general, but not why they lost so many battles so consistently. If you look at the actual combat performance of the German military (including its elite Waffen-SS units), you'll see that while in general they fought well and scored some impressive early successes, they were ultimately out-fought on any number of occasions by US, British, and Soviet forces. The "superior German soldiers undermined by their stupid leadership" thesis is actually a myth. As for the Nazi paratroops mentioned in another post, they performed a key mission in overrunning the Belgian defenses in the opening moments of the German 1940 offensive, but then got butchered attacking British forces on Crete in 1941. So again, they might not really be amongst the "most elite" SOF of history. The Wehrmacht hardly fought the US in any battles that were even remotely fair in terms of numbers and didnt use their most highly trained soldiers in the west . They actually lost the war on the eastern front, once again severely outnumbered in terms of anything just look at the battle of kursk for example. The Wehrmacht certainly wasnt able to perform miracles and didnt actually have superior equipment in meaningful numbers generally speaking but judging the individual ability of soldiers by the outcome of battles that were decided before they were even fought on numbers alone seems silly to me. The battle of Crete was an operation that would claim a lot of casualties by nature and ended in allied defeat with significantly higher casualties on the allied side. The actual combat effectiveness of individual soldiers was btw higher for the Wehrmacht compared to the allies this is regarded as fact by experts as far as I'm aware if you have sources for your opinion I'd be very interested. Note that I have no interest in seeing Wehrmacht soldiers as more effective or symphaties for the Third Reich, this is simply what I've heard. The real myth is that Germany could have won the war if this or that happened imo. | ||
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zoLo
United States5896 Posts
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BADSMCGEE
United States94 Posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Pararescue | ||
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adun12345
United States198 Posts
On December 05 2011 00:16 secretary bird wrote: The Wehrmacht hardly fought the US in any battles that were even remotely fair in terms of numbers and didnt use their most highly trained soldiers in the west . They actually lost the war on the eastern front, once again severely outnumbered in terms of anything just look at the battle of kursk for example. The Wehrmacht certainly wasnt able to perform miracles and didnt actually have superior equipment in meaningful numbers generally speaking but judging the individual ability of soldiers by the outcome of battles that were decided before they were even fought on numbers alone seems silly to me. The battle of Crete was an operation that would claim a lot of casualties by nature and ended in allied defeat with significantly higher casualties on the allied side. The actual combat effectiveness of individual soldiers was btw higher for the Wehrmacht compared to the allies this is regarded as fact by experts as far as I'm aware if you have sources for your opinion I'd be very interested. Note that I have no interest in seeing Wehrmacht soldiers as more effective or symphaties for the Third Reich, this is simply what I've heard. The real myth is that Germany could have won the war if this or that happened imo. I accept the fact that the Germans were pretty heavily outnumbered overall (though I'd note that the fact that they were so outnumbered in the East was in part due to the fact that millions of German soldiers were tied down in the West and South dealing with the Western allies - the Soviets did their part in the war, but so did the US and Britain), and that their numerical inferiority was a significant factor in their ultimate defeat. Since the purpose of soldiers is to win battles, however, I'm not sure how the "actual combat effectiveness" of individual soldiers can really be measured outside of their results in combat. And expert testimony aside, the indisputable historical fact is that the Germans got their asses handed to them time and again by both the Soviets and the Western Allies. They weren't just outnumbered, either - even in instances where they achieved localized superiority of arms (opening phases of the Kursk Offensive or the 1944 Christmas Ardennes Offensive, for example) they were unable to achieve significant results. This is especially telling compared to their earlier performance, in which the German ability to achieve localized operational superiority over their opponents led to significant operational successes (for example, the 1940 Ardennes Offensive into France or the 1941 Commencement of Operation Barbarossa). This suggests that, at least by 1943/1944, German forces were being actively out-fought by the Allies in both the East and West at an operational level. So, while I recognize that the Allies' vast superiority in terms of resources was a key component of their success against Germany, I also have to wonder how one can maintain that the combat effectiveness of German soldiers was actually higher than that of the Allies. | ||
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SilentchiLL
Germany1405 Posts
On December 09 2011 22:59 adun12345 wrote: So, while I recognize that the Allies' vast superiority in terms of resources was a key component of their success against Germany, I also have to wonder how one can maintain that the combat effectiveness of German soldiers was actually higher than that of the Allies. Numbers and the opinion of experts I guess. | ||
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Telefonmann
Germany111 Posts
German Force called Kommando Spezial Kräfte.... but is pretty secret.. you will have no family, friends, whatsoever when you join them ...these guys were assisting us and uk troops in Irak .. marking targets, setting up assasinations... allthough germany didnt had any official part in these donflicts at the beginning.... and the german fightingdivers... insane trainingsmethods | ||
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adun12345
United States198 Posts
On December 10 2011 01:08 SilentchiLL wrote: Numbers and the opinion of experts I guess. On the numbers issue - I already listed four examples where, although the German army may have been outnumbered in absolute terms, they managed to achieve localized operational superiority in numbers. In the first two cases (France 1940 and Russia 1941), that superiority proved decisive; in the second two cases (Kursk 1943 and Ardennes 1944), despite achieving initial localized superiority, the Germans were unable to prevail. Just comparing total numbers of soldiers doesn't really tell you anything; you have to look more closely at how they were actually employed. As for expert opinion, point me to them. You can't justify an argument by appealing to "experts" and then not naming any. | ||
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JMave
Singapore1806 Posts
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Abort Retry Fail
2636 Posts
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intotheheart
Canada33091 Posts
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