Its time to have this conversation again.
Special Forces is British/European jargon for a Special Operations Unit - SOF is American Jargon for the same.
In India Special Forces is an actual unit name. Same in America. Lets not confuse the two.
For the purpose of this convo lets use SOF
SOF does not have to be Military - It can be paramilitary or Civilian - SOF means small units being force multipliers with speciliized skill training and kit and achieving an objective that would take a very large conventional force to do. Mordern day SOF units are Strategic in nature and not tacitial.
NSG is very much a SOF unit. Just like GIGN, RAID, GSG-9, FBI HRT, Japenese SAT, etc its a civilian/police SOF unit. IT IS NOT to be equated with police swat teams anywhere. Though within those police organizations and their respective limited AO they do provide their forces with an SOF element. (In America specially Major Police SWAT - Miami, LA, NY, Detroit have to be up to HRT Standards and are so good that Tier 1 US units routinely train with them to learn new tricks of the trade as Police swat training is solely centered on CQB and HRT
Now the broader gambit of SOF units (will use western equivalents to explain (Army) - you can extroplate ofr other services.
1. First type of SOF unit is a Direct Action Unit - where our Para SF falls in. Sabotage, Interdiction behind enemy lines (depth depends on supporting infra), LRRP, Mobile Shock Infantry with superior soldiering skills, C&C and equipment to line infantry.
- The westrn equivalent of these are US Army Rangers, UK SF Regiment etc.
- This is usually very high speed direct action missions - in and out no taking/holdin ground
- This is what our Para SF is currently doing primarily today - however in terms of evolution of skills, kit and support infrastruture we have not done anything new worth speaking of in the last 3 decades - we have fallen behind with respect to our peers (Western Europe)- for an economy our size and threats we face we deserve to be peers of the best SOF units in the world/
2. Second step of SOF is what the americans called FID - but basically running insurgencies with small advisors and having outsized impact because of the influence they have on the partner forces - These troops also do DA but are also linguits, diplomates, engineers, doctors etc - hearts and minds is how you gather trust from a partner force. US green berets, SAS, Pak SSG all have substantial experience in this. Deployment is many a times in ones and twos.
Para SF has a long rich legacy of this - Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa etc - hwoever last 20 years of COIN has dulled this skill set. and these are perishable skills
3. Extremely High Risk foriegn Covert Action with minimal infrastruture - this is what the Americans Call Tier 1 - Mission profile includes HVT kill/capture, interrogation, intelligence building - urban and rural operations. Operations usuallyt ake place in heavily denied territory that normal SOF cannot due as they dont have the skill and infra
- NEST operations - recovery and destruction
- we dont have this capability at a military level - SG has limited of this but is more close to RAW's objectives than military and hence is a hodge podge. SG would struggle to operate in heavily denied territory as we dont have the rest of infra to get this done.
Small units like the SAS maintain their 'tier 1' capability inhouse - CRWW / Increment, Russians have the SSO, GROM for Poland, LRR for the Philipinos, Zarar Company of the pak SSG (they even have their own integrated Comms unit to Zarrar - SOCU)
NAVY
Vanilla Naval SOF operations include high risk VBSS, Offensive operations against OPFOR naval assets, mine laying, DA against naval facilities
Higher end include HRT, LRRP (doing HAHO/HALO jumps with full battle load), Cover infil/exfil capability from denied waters and naval NEST capability
Naval SOF is also split between litoral waters and blue water. Coastal and rivine.
Airforce
Lower End of SOF for the Airforce would be CT/HRT, critical asset protection during war time
Higher end is CSAR and JTAC (lesser would be CCT)
Ghatak - Please note that Ghataks are to our infantry regiments what Force Recon Marines are to a Marine EU. They provide Scout and DA capability at a Tactical level. They are better trained than normal solders but far removed from SF (or should be)
They go through Belguam Cdo School so there is a base level of commonaility in capability but each Regiment / Battalion trains their own ghataks - hence no uniformity across the army.
