Elite British SAS Have Lost 1/6 of their Fighting Force in Afghanistan

Times Online
BRITAIN’S special forces have suffered the worst blow to their fighting strength since the second world war, with 80 members killed or crippled in Afghanistan.
Serious injuries have left more than 70 unable to fight, while 12 have been killed. It means the forces have lost about a sixth of their full combat capacity.
The Sunday Times has established that the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Squadron (SBS) have mounted “several hundred” operations targeting Taliban leaders since 2007.
British special forces operations in southern Afghanistan now centre on persuading mid-ranking Taliban leaders that they are better off working with the Afghan government.This involves a mixture of “hard arrests” — snatch operations to grab key Taliban leaders to gather intelligence — and “offensive action” in which Taliban leaders are killed.





A senior special forces source said: “There are ops happening every day and very big ops, hard arrests, offensive actions — it’s having a lot of effect on the Taliban leadership.”
The Falklands claimed the lives of 19 SAS members — 18 of them in a helicopter crash.
The commanding officer of the SBS, in charge of British special forces operations in southern Afghanistan, has warned that the pace of operations is likely to continue. “Many of our team have been almost continually fighting our country’s enemies since 2001,” he said, “and it is likely that our current scale of effort will continue for some time.”


A loss of a national treasure... Freedom isnt Free!

 

As a 2 tour vet of Iraq and 3 Of afghansitan I can say theyre burnt out... And Spec operators of that caliber ya cant just give a few months of training.. it takes YEARS to train them..

 

Only prolem is that recruitement within the British Army for the SAS is down and it has been said that due to the constant demands in Afghanistan a lot of guys are leaving.Its intresting to see mention of the SBS as little of them on OPS is known.

 

In my opinion we have the best SFs in the world. Long may this continue.

 

A large proportion of those SF figures are reservists and I doubt 22 will loose much sleep over it as they hate 21 and 23 with a passion.

Only the other day there was an inquirey on the news regarding the death of two SF chaps, a RAF Reg Reservist and a female Int Corps fullscrew killed in a snatch wagon.

22 would never use a snatch wagon on Ops let alone the media revealing any 22 being killed....They always give their parent unit in press releases.

 

Drew, do tell why do 22 hate thier brothers arms from 21 and 23 so much is it all Chris Ryans fault

 

The selection is different/easier for starters.

 

The selection is different/easier for starters.
I never knew that..... what is the requirement that 21&23 SAS have regards recriutment considering the stink around Ryan and Ranulph Fiennes claim to have served with TA SAS in his book Feather men.

 

Last time I spoke to a TA Trooper was in 2002 on my PTI's course at Aldershot and he told me if memory serves me well selection was two, two week camps and modules over w/ends doing lots of tabbing/map and compass work on Brecon, I'm not even sure if a Jumps Course is included.

He was a top bloke but not a patch on the 'Blades' I met in Kosovo earlier that year.

I suspect the TA selection will be on the internet somewhere. Last I heard their role wasn't even Offensive.....They were being put in OP's out of the way.

 

Hey bear Grylis was in the TA SAS lol

 

Hey bear Grylis was in the TA SAS lol
According to Bear Grylls | International Speaker | Best selling Author | Everest Mountaineer he spent 3 years with 21 SAS

 

Hey bear Grylis was in the TA SAS lol

I rest my case, your honour.

 

Lol that dude cracks e up old Bear. he will eat anything and hes OOO SOOO DRAMATIC,, Good for tv. not somone id wana share a foxhole with, ya know damm well he would eat youre corpse if ya bought the farm

 

Hi Ranger,

Just finished reading Task Force Black and I think your right about the SAS and SBS Seal Team and Dalta they are all burn out.. Still like you say if they didn't do that think of the numbers which would add to more casualties.. In Iraq most of the SAS casualties were in fact crashes Hels and the like I think that 5 or 6 died because of this...

Cheers
Tom

 

I rest my case, your honour.
You heard of a guy called Jim /James Shortt......... made many dubious claims as to his Military experiance........... including 21 SAS, there are numerous internet hits for this Walter if you put his name in the search engine on Google

 

The Canadian government releases NO information at all about the activities of our special forces, the Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2), but it is widely accepted that they too have been active in Afghanistan since 2001.
Has anyone seen references to this unit from their British or American counterparts?

 

Bear Grylls in the SAS? Same way as Gordon Ramsay played for Rangers???

 

LOL
gordon ramsey cracks me up too, he curses almost as much as i do

 

On a more somber note...

In my opinion we have the best SFs in the world. Long may this continue.


"Long" is the operative word - as in....long term, yes.

But in the short term...no it can't. Quite simply, it takes x-amount of time to find volunteers test them, train them...

And apart from the TIME issue, there are two OTHER problems -

1/ a certain percentage of the SAS trainers/vets etc., will be IN Afghanistan and Pakistan!

2/ If the Army is getting exhausted and men want out - across the Army the pool of suitable volunteers is going to shrink in the short term.

There's a WW2 example of how moving training staff into combat posts, however temporarily, can affect training in the short term. Dowding consistently for various reasons overestimated the German output of trained pilots to make up losses in the summer of 1940...as compared to the 6 a day the RAF could expect from the full RAF UK training process...

IN FACT - the output of the Fliegerschulen was very low over the middle of 1940 because the schools had been combed out of trained pilots from among the instructors for the Transportverband in Norway!

Not only was there a 3-4 month period when the Transportverband was heavily engaged in operations, taking these pilots away from the training process for that length of time...

X-number were casualties in Norway and Holland! :mellow:

The same situation pertains in the SAS; x-number of personnel killed, and a smaller pool of volunteers can't help but affect both rebuilding the unit and the time it takes to do so.