New british special forces regiment

Shadowalker

Shadowalker

Active member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4928028.stm


The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) based in Wales, will be drawn from Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment and the RAF Regiment.
Its insignia is a dagger run through by a lightning flash. Based at St Athan, the SFSG will train with special forces to be deployed around the world at short notice.
 
This has been muted for years, 1 Para has moved from Dover to St Athan and one company is already deployed on operations.
 
Is this a doubling up of a capability that the Brits already have????
Or is someone empire building in the ivory towers of MOD???
SAS, SBS, PARA and royal marines are all specilaised units in the own right already...
Didn't know the RAF regiment was that highly regarded. I was always under the asumption that they were just the RAFs version of soldiers t protect there own assets.
Wonder how well it will go.
 
SF Support

I do not believe that, there is a doubling up of assett's but merely the multiple units which where worked loosely with each other under varying command structures are being brought together under one roof of DSF.
Basically this is the British equivalent of SOCOM and it has been along time coming. Presently it is commanded by a Brigadier however with that much responsibility i imagine it will go 2 star and become a Major-Generals job in the near future.
 
The problem is with all the deployments going on at the moment there are not enough SAS to cover every thing that the Government requires. Now as about 60% of all the SAS people come from the Parachute Regiment. Now in their wisdom our leaders have pulled out a regular Para battalion for special duties and these will do much of the SAS more mundane work leaving the SAS to what they do best in the way of covert operations.
 
It needed to happen

Without starting to drift from the main point,i think there are a few factors not being taken into consideration Lee. Firstly the reason there is not enough SAS to cover operations is so many are leaving for the private sector,so much so that the military is considering to allow soldiers to take a years sabbatical in the hope they may return.Its true that the SAS takes its Lions share from PARA Regt (Some say this is reflected in the SAS's mind set being altered to a more'Hands on approach' than the 'Outside the box approach' it used to have).This has been to the PARA Regts benefit as they have been in a similar position to alot of Inf Regs, being undermanned in that they have been significantly reinforced (having at one time whole Ghrkha companies attached) but due to the SAS's importance (or the governments defence priority,Counter-Terrorism being No1) this has mean't no loss of a Bn to its structure,an enviable position. The Ranger capability which the British have woefully been lacking in for so long has been addressed by attaching a Para Bn to the grouping(Hopefully the proximty to the SAS and working with them will mean that more men will transfere from PARA to SAS via selection with greater sucess than presently) After all covert ops is their speciality and the assault on the Tora Bora caves(A complete Sqn conventional assault) was summed up by an SAS officer by the telling phrase"An ordinary Infantry Bn could've done it better". All in all the new force structure will enable a more intelligent,agile,proportionate and not to mention cost effective monetry & political response to a new type of asymetric warfare we now are fighting.
 
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