Indian Special Forces (archived)

[Edyk12]

This video is from a 3 part series on Special Forces back in 2011,not sure if this was posted here ever.

 

[Edyk12]

This video is from a 3 part series on Special Forces back in 2011,not sure if this was posted here ever.

Next part.

 

[Edyk12]

Next part.

Last part.

 

[Bhadra]

Just as an FYI

USMC is not regular infantry. They consider themselves elite light infantry and was one of reasons they historically resisted joining SOCOM.

Though within the MC they have elite with elite units - MARSOC raiders and Radio and Force Recon Marine

I really wonder what is your definition of Infantry... The first marine battalion though was an infantry unit.

Marine Special Forces component resisted joining SCOM because they consider all marine forces including their SFs exclusively meant for marine corps and marine tasks. Joining SOCOM meant frittering their resources. Marine resist joint operations outside USN as also taking assistance from outside being a "Self Sufficient Force".

 

[Waanar]

Disgaree. Everything about the MC points to their elite expedentitury nature . Their training, equipment and selection and boot camp. Miles away from the basic us infantry grunt. Hell the marine corp outshoots the us army almost 2 to 1 in an avg year. Any us invasion force is spear headed by the Marines with the army providing from their airborne troops and armour corps.

The 82nd Airborne would be a better comparison (The 75th however are a notch above the Marines )

There are a number of books and material that talk about this going alway they way back to WWII and comparing various campaigns including guadacanal and bastone and D day not to mention Korea and vietnam

Thats not entirely true.

US Marines have a different physical standard in training to begin with.
They have a higher marksmanship requirement as well for all of their personnel.

Aside from this, "Every Marine a Rifleman" holds true. They have a practice of teaching basic infantry and marskmanship to each and every soldier - right down from the line grunt to a fighter pilot.

Which means, in theory, that if a Marine pilot is shot down and can link up with a friendly unit, he can essentially lead that ground unit into combat as well.

And if you take the combat history of US Marines, they have a far more integrated combined arms system than the other branches of the US Military.

Just my two cents.

Agree on some points but Marines, by nature, are supposed to be expeditionary as coast defense is the job of Coast guards and Navy (and Army can do it as well because, well... Coast is land) so saying they're always spearheading the invasions is just because of their specialization as an large scale beach assaulting force.
The comparisons and conclusions from the vietnam era troops I generally shy away from because they're not a good indicator of current US troops.. they're very very different now.
Those Marines could be considered such.
But then again, during those times, SEALS were basic underwater cartographers, tier one units didn't exist and US formed units like MAC V SOG on a ad hoc basis and had very unorganised approach to tackling "different than usual" situations like the infamous tunnel rats who were usually just good shots with pistols rather than comprehensively trained tunnel clearing troops.
As we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, the invasion or occupation didn't give Marines any role different than that of the Army.
"Expeditionary" is like their job description.

Doesn't make them elite, just a niche specialization like Airborne troops, Anti tank troops, VBSS etc etc.

As for outshooting the Army and such, Marines have a fierce (and disproportionate as well as obsessive) competition with the other services to prove themselves different (A marine is a marine, not a soldier yada yada) so these competing units have a lot of pressure on them. A part of their culture.

Fitness part, I do agree on but that doesn't cut the elitism part.
An elite unit is head and shoulders above regular infantry, not "usually better".
Uniformly better.

At least that's my definition of it.

 

[Edyk12]

 

[Edyk12]

Article written in Force magazine back in 2004 on SF, not sure if posted before or not, but worth and must read.

With added emphasis on Special Forces, the army is set to change the face of war

When the call came in the early hours of the morning on November 30, Colonel K.K.K. Singh thought that it was one of his golfing buddies reminding him of the game

forceindia.net

 

[MrPresident]

Does any other SF fanboy/geek also find it difficult to watch things like Uri and Avrodh?

Like God knows which guns in Avrodh they used and pathetic tactics like in school we used to play chor police in display in Avrodh as well as in Uri.

Plus they want me to pay for this!!

Oh yaa, after watching a tonne of Hollywood war movies, Avrodh action sequence and graphics looked like from 80s, was surprised with all the hype on twitter. URI, Hindustan ki kasam (1973) and lakshya were the only 3 comparatively better made Indian war/military movies till now, it still come no where near any of the action sequence and graphics in Hollywood movies.

At times I feel we dont do justice to the actual events and people by making these poorly directed movies.

 

[Bhadra]

Article written in Force magazine back in 2004 on SF, not sure if posted before or not, but worth and must read.

With added emphasis on Special Forces, the army is set to change the face of war

When the call came in the early hours of the morning on November 30, Colonel K.K.K. Singh thought that it was one of his golfing buddies reminding him of the game

forceindia.net

While following the linked writeup. I stumbled upon another writeup in the same magazine on role and tasks of the Indian SF :

Searching for an Indian Role for Special Operations Forces

These are small-scale, operations of an unorthodox and high-risk nature which are undertaken to achieve significant political and military objectives

forceindia.net

I was keen to decipher as to what could be relevant missions for our SF out of the listed ones and found missions listed under " Missions Unique to SOF" as a copy paste of some American writeup. Absolutely irrelevant to Indian conditions. I do to visualize why should Indian intelligence agencies ever use such valuable resources as SF for such tasks in Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives or Srilanka when a simple trained and oriented Dhobi or a Khampa, Gorkha, Bangali or Tamil ex-serviceman can do all those tasks.

The most relevant tasks which might be applicable to Indian scenarios are listed under " Non SOF Missions". Strange but true...

It may be a lack of awareness or knowledge or not knowing well but my impression of our SF is that they are a typical example of "Arming without Aimimg".... they are in search of mission profiles.... still a "Gawachi Ga".

Since mission profiles are not clear or at best illusory, their expectations from themselves and the system are not realistic. Their training, arms and equipment at best are not mission-oriented and focussed.. they want to grab everything and wish to look like a creature from Mars.. after all most of them join SF to fulfill their desires to be different.. Unique..

The mission is gear and a good photo op.. to do what? They simply do not know.. except for those who are at Lolab.. their biggest crib that they are used as Infantry is true but there is no other task for them and they can not be allowed to sit through.. Inside India, they can not even be used like JN Dik shit used them at Valvattiturai and Achuvalley in Vadamarachi .... No way...

I know I am venturing into a crevice.. and shall invite lots of hostility.. so be it..

 

[COLDHEARTED AVIATOR]

Oh yaa, after watching a tonne of Hollywood war movies, Avrodh action sequence and graphics looked like from 80s, was surprised with all the hype on twitter. URI, Hindustan ki kasam (1973) and lakshya were the only 3 comparatively better made Indian war/military movies till now, it still come no where near any of the action sequence and graphics in Hollywood movies.

At times I feel we dont do justice to the actual events and people by making these poorly directed movies.

Border,Pukaar and Angad are the only realistic movies about Armed forces.

Rest is all crap.

Uri you said..You think SF operators fight like Sunny deol?And what a fuck up of the story.Bloody faluda of the actual story.

History channels documnentary is much better.

Now bollywood realises that people are patriotic so they are making crappy movies to earn money.

In Gunjan Saxena's movie Sridevi's daughter doesnt even know how a AF pilot salutes!

 

[MrPresident]

Border,Pukaar and Angad are the only realistic movies about Armed forces.

Rest is all crap.

Uri you said..You think SF operators fight like Sunny deol?And what a fuck up of the story.Bloody faluda of the actual story.

History channels documnentary is much better.

Now bollywood realises that people are patriotic so they are making crappy movies to earn money.

In Gunjan Saxena's movie Sridevi's daughter doesnt even know how a AF pilot salutes!

Border yes, I missed tht one. Uri, still comparatively better than other crappy movies which has come up.

Exactly, they are just trying to milk the population. No one in Bollywood gave a flying fuck for URI when it was released, after its success everyone wants to make money on this genre of movies.

 

[COLDHEARTED AVIATOR]

Border yes, I missed tht one. Uri, still comparatively better than other crappy movies which has come up.

Exactly, they are just trying to milk the population. No one in Bollywood gave a flying fuck for URI when it was released, after its success everyone wants to make money on this genre of movies.

In our country there is a lobby of anti nationals.Bollywood is the biggest source of income for them.

Anyway offtopic.

Personally i am not a movie fan i just like Marvel movies or i watch documentaries.

 

[Vishal reddy]

NSG is technically not a SF but a police force, still posting it here!!
A NSG commando from 26th special composite group (scg), Mumbai
Modified Sig sauer 550 series with red dot sight!!

 

[WARREN SS]

NSG is technically not a SF but a police force, still posting it here!!
A NSG commando from 26th special composite group (scg), Mumbai
Modified Sig sauer 550 series with red dot sight!!
View attachment 55375

NSG 51 & 52 SAG are Special forces Like GIGN
Trained For Anti-Hijacking,Hostage Crisis & SWAT

 

[Tanmay]

NSG is technically not a SF but a police force, still posting it here!!
A NSG commando from 26th special composite group (scg), Mumbai
Modified Sig sauer 550 series with red dot sight!!
View attachment 55375

looks like ACOG sight to me. Not a RDS.

 

[Vishal reddy]

@Bhadra @Waanar or anyone, can you tell me the reserve forces in Indian army??
Is there both regular army reserve and Territorial Army (TA) or only Territorial Army??
Because the official strength of TA is 200,000 but the whole army reserve strength is 900,000!!
In USA they have both regular Army reserve and Army National Guard as its reserve components of US Army!!

 

[Bhadra]

@Bhadra @Waanar or anyone, can you tell me the reserve forces in Indian army??
Is there both regular army reserve and Territorial Army (TA) or only Territorial Army??
Because the official strength of TA is 200,000 but the whole army reserve strength is 900,000!!
In USA they have both regular Army reserve and Army National Guard as its reserve components of US Army!!

As far as I know, Territorial Army covers all functional branches of Army and some civilian essential services like Railways, Shipping, Medical etc with core structure being maintained on a regular basis.

On retirement/superannuation all Services personnel carry a reservist liability for some period of time. Their numbers would be counted as the number of personnel retiring in a year multiplied by the number of years of reserve liability.

 

[Unknowncommando 2]

NSG is technically not a SF but a police force, still posting it here!!
A NSG commando from 26th special composite group (scg), Mumbai
Modified Sig sauer 550 series with red dot sight!!
View attachment 55375

SIG 552/553 LB

 

[Vishal reddy]

Garud commandos with IWI Negev LMG near the valley!!

 

[Waanar]

View attachment 55454
Garud commandos with IWI Negev LMG near the valley!!

This was an airshow or something.