Indian Special Forces

ALBY

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NSG would never even reach the target in a thick jungle forget about rescuing in the first place.

Secondly, I am shocked you have no idea about Para rescuing civilians in kashmir in ops.
Very recently they had started training in Jungle at Grey hounds academy in Hyderabad in the numbers of 120 each.But still thats all in early stage and don’t think they will perform well in monsoon forests of NE which is totally different from that of central India.Just like you said only a force who had operated in similar terrain could mount such an op and such an op wont be ideal textbook op just like an urban HRT does. Coming to rescuing 300 people I don’t think no kne had ever successfully rescued people in that much numbers from anywhere else.(op khukri was not like this,it was lifting a blockade).So every SOF in the world will be having almost similar nightmares about reaching the target undetected, plus how to neutralise the defence mechanism and how to extract such a huge number of men with out small collateral damage
 

ALBY

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NSG would never even reach the target in a thick jungle forget about rescuing in the first place.

Secondly, I am shocked you have no idea about Para rescuing civilians in kashmir in ops.
Those training modules were designed to rescue small numbers of people as Greyhounds itself is a raiding party and not HRT .If i am not wrong the hostage rescue mockdrills conducted in greyhounds academy is not that much advanced .Their training was mostly to asapt the men to fight in jungles if a hostage crisis of small scale happened like the ones in 90s where likes if veerappan abducted people for ransom.
Don’t know NSG had started evolving their training for jungle after learning basics from Greyhounds
 

Jedi Operator

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About 300 Indian are supposedly being held Hostage in Myanmar. Supposedly by Chinese Criminal Org / Myanmar Mil.

This is the place where our SOF capacity should be used to force project and protect our interest in our neighborhood. Can we ?
I dont understand, for those who say NSG.......why would you use NSG away from an urban setting and that too NSG being a domestic force not the nation's primer hostage rescue force.
Secondly, I think Special Group is the one that will go out. Let me explain why. SG was set-up based on Sayeret Matkal and 22 SAS. Now It doesnt make sense to me why would a unit under an intelligence agency be the nations premier antiterrorist force. But look at Israel, Sayeret Matkal comes under the branch of Military Intelligence Directorate.
I noticed that SG has it's own badge and uniform. But units like CIA's SAD which the SG is often compared to has no such insignia or special beret. Even in Lt Gen PC Katoch's idea of implementing a two tier system, he mentions that SG equivalent unit should be tier 1 under the NOD and Army, Navy and Airforce SF should be tier 2 should be commanded by CDS. The question is why should a unit like SG exist on paper anyways. Our country has the mindset that SF in military is meant for purely military ops whereas in UK and US tier 1 forces are under army but operate with CIA and MI6 at strategic levels. The CIA's SAD and MI6's E squadron are not under a tier system and have no unit designation of their own.
 

AlphaRaiderZ

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seems welcoming!
Ahh finally...the thread where the most legendary of all battles and most civilized of all discussions happen. Now i welcome you to my presence.
Correction. Battles here just like SOF conflicts and missions tend to get dirty . That's why recently, I preferred on having no opinion at all and just started reading whatever shit just goes on .

**Only commenting on equipment, comic moments and when biased coments such as Bigotry , Derogatory words and racism enters chat**
 

rkhanna

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I have read enuf about this. LTTE rats hid in jungles and lost many of their base camps. The reason why india failed to capture the rat that is Prabhakharan is that their intel was very poor Becuase LTTE commanders used to take cyanide pills after surrendering
You have oversimplied a very complex cause and effect.

To start of with

1. We were under equipped and ill trained - The Gorkha units used to running up and down the mountain suffered in the jungles of Lanka
2. THe LTTE had superior Kit to us in many respect specially COMMS
3. We were betrayed on a number of occasions to the LTTE by the Lankans
4. SG/RAW trained the LTTE - some of those trainers i have met - they had the highest regard to the LTTE cadre. The LTTE knew our playbook
5. SOF units did have an outsized impact on the physy of the LTTE but did not make strategic headway. Some units even had 2st gen NVG sets - they did a lot of hunting and CTR / LRRP etc at night. Even MARCOS did some outstanding SpeOps
6 Ultimately it was lack of political will and a disenchanted Army HQ that had a detrimental effect onalot of things from Ops to equipment to moral.


No, Op entebe was different. There were hardly 10 hijackers and a hostile nation Uganda. The mission was doable but here we are talking about Manipur PLA they have a strength in 1000s and you will be fighting in their home base. Entebe and this is different, no doubt about that.
And op khukri is also different. Soldiers were under seige and were not taken hostages. Also, soldiers would not be a burden after getting rescued unlike the civillian hostages.
You are mising the point. Every one of those ops was one of a kind never done before. As would this be. Every problem has a solution. Work the Problem. Myanmar or without there will always be SOME solution. Ingredients required are
1. Will to take risk
2. Military Capability
3. Diplomatic capbility

Lastly i am always a fan of asking forgiveness rather than permission if need be.

I have no doubt about military capability. We need a force to hold the outnumbered PLA terrorists. That force can be Mayanmar/Thailand or any other military/terrorist group.
Everything boils down to the assets that RAW has planted there.
Let's go by the location you provided and assume Mayanmmar is hostile towards us.
According to me the best course of action would be as follows:
1. Asking a group to fight PLA in a full-blown war by promising them hefty benefits.
2. Using your SEAD/DEAD capabilities to destroy Mayanmmars Air defence
3. Sending your figher jets and aircraft to engage JF-17s and dropping the soldiers to resuce the hostages.
4. Asking Thailand to provide safe passage to soldiers and hostages and engaging Mayanmarese at Thailand border.
Fair - many ways to skin a cat

SF Battalions had several allowances that regular Abn Bns didn't. Plus they ran similiar ops in kashmir and NE (as per senior regular para "commandos" officers) there is no difference b/w SF and regular para, now you know why ;)

Also, I just got to know that Most of the airborne-->SF Bn conversion was all about transfer of personnel already serving in SFs as very few regular para guys were able to make the cut. Take this with a truckload of salt.
First - Para Commando means Para SF.

Yes thats what the regular Paras have been saying about SF for the past 40 years. Para SF/Cdo got hazard pay special in the 80/90s for the ops they ran. Then the whole thing with the SF HQ happened. This was too much for Vanilla Para COs - they started this whole drive to lay claim that all were equal. that prevails till this day.

But again Para SF battalions also bare alot of the blame. When you dont have a standarized selection or training program even Para SF battalions are unequal in capability. And when you do wholesale conversions you will sit on skill/capability dilution. (in Conversion MOST troops convert over). The differing standards and the conversion dilutions most likely have infact lessened the gap betwen normal Para and SF.

And the fact remains that Army HQ, MOD, Cabinet Secretariet, NSA also all think the same.

PS today CRPF Cobra COs have also said they are as good as Para SF. in a decade or so this may also not be far off.
 

Jedi Operator

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You have oversimplied a very complex cause and effect.

To start of with

1. We were under equipped and ill trained - The Gorkha units used to running up and down the mountain suffered in the jungles of Lanka
2. THe LTTE had superior Kit to us in many respect specially COMMS
3. We were betrayed on a number of occasions to the LTTE by the Lankans
4. SG/RAW trained the LTTE - some of those trainers i have met - they had the highest regard to the LTTE cadre. The LTTE knew our playbook
5. SOF units did have an outsized impact on the physy of the LTTE but did not make strategic headway. Some units even had 2st gen NVG sets - they did a lot of hunting and CTR / LRRP etc at night. Even MARCOS did some outstanding SpeOps
6 Ultimately it was lack of political will and a disenchanted Army HQ that had a detrimental effect onalot of things from Ops to equipment to moral.




You are mising the point. Every one of those ops was one of a kind never done before. As would this be. Every problem has a solution. Work the Problem. Myanmar or without there will always be SOME solution. Ingredients required are
1. Will to take risk
2. Military Capability
3. Diplomatic capbility

Lastly i am always a fan of asking forgiveness rather than permission if need be.



Fair - many ways to skin a cat



First - Para Commando means Para SF.

Yes thats what the regular Paras have been saying about SF for the past 40 years. Para SF/Cdo got hazard pay special in the 80/90s for the ops they ran. Then the whole thing with the SF HQ happened. This was too much for Vanilla Para COs - they started this whole drive to lay claim that all were equal. that prevails till this day.

But again Para SF battalions also bare alot of the blame. When you dont have a standarized selection or training program even Para SF battalions are unequal in capability. And when you do wholesale conversions you will sit on skill/capability dilution. (in Conversion MOST troops convert over). The differing standards and the conversion dilutions most likely have infact lessened the gap betwen normal Para and SF.

And the fact remains that Army HQ, MOD, Cabinet Secretariet, NSA also all think the same.

PS today CRPF Cobra COs have also said they are as good as Para SF. in a decade or so this may also not be far off.
Watch Jocko Podcast no 7 where he does the review of the book "Mission Jaffna", which anyway I found out to be Assignment Jaffna on google. But whatever it is, it's a good podcast. The author is a retired Indian Army Lt Gen who was in IPKF. They mention & Jocko appreciates how our military dealt quickly with the perpetrators of war crimes. He compares it to Vietnam and lessons he learnt from the book.

Then you should see this thing:-
This is an excerpt from Relentless Strike discussing a mission delta force was training to do but never did. It was a similar situation - a hostage rescue of over a 100+ prisoners of war in the early 80s

"
JSOC rehearsed extensively in Hawaii for the mission, which would involve a task force launching from the tiny Pacific Island of Tinian in the Northern Marianas and using an abandoned and overgrown U.S. military airfield in Thailand as a forward staging base. With the airfield under control, C-5 transport planes would have landed, bearing JSOC’s own version of a Trojan horse: white, civilian-style eighteen-wheel trucks, each hiding two TF 160 AH-6 Little Birds with folded rotor blades. As Delta operators made their way overland to the prison camp TF 160 personnel would have driven the trucks close to the Laotian border, before stopping and launching the helicopters.

TF 160 kept this rarely used technique—known in JSOC as “Smokey and the Bandit” after the 1977 trucker comedy starring Burt Reynolds—up its sleeve for decades, because it offered a clandestine way to move a lethal capability close to a target. “Our guys were trained and even had the truck licenses,” said a TF 160 veteran. The unit had its own trucks, but locally obtained vehicles would suffice “with maybe a couple of days’ work and some welding,” he said. When the time came to launch the aircraft, the crew would roll them off the back of the truck and have them flying within three minutes. “You have to be really well trained,” the TF 160 veteran said. “It’s absolutely an incredible capability.”

The Little Birds’ role was to provide fire support to the Delta assaulters, and, in particular, to destroy the prison camp’s three wooden guard towers. The delays caused by Gritz’s interference meant it was now 1982. Army General John Vessey had replaced Jones as Joint Chiefs chairman. When briefed on the plan, Vessey refused to believe that the Little Birds could take out the guard towers. JSOC had replicas built at Fort A. P. Hill in Virginia and held a nighttime demonstration there for the chairman that ended with the AH-6s turning the towers into splinters, much to his amazement"


Now you see, we should first have the risk taking capability to authorize such an operation. Then we need to give the various agencies and organizations involved in it the freedom to demonstrate their idea properly and that often starts prior to the op. That's because the forces need to work together first to build a cohesive team. Then when the opportunity arrives they should train for the mission as much as we can. Delta trained with TF-160 since it was formed after failure of Op Eagle Claw in 1980. Just a year later we see this:- TF-160 using creative methods to bring helos close to the target. That's why Delta was comfortable working with them because the trust had been built up, despite Delta having it's own aviation squadron

Compare that with the failed NSG, MARCOS integration in 26/11. Why? Because both never worked together before. No point unless you start with a mandate and keep the inter service training altogether. Special Forces cant be created during emergencies. If we already have such ops in mind only then we can authorize an execution in the future
 

rkhanna

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Watch Jocko Podcast no 7 where he does the review of the book "Mission Jaffna", which anyway I found out to be Assignment Jaffna on google. But whatever it is, it's a good podcast. The author is a retired Indian Army Lt Gen who was in IPKF. They mention & Jocko appreciates how our military dealt quickly with the perpetrators of war crimes. He compares it to Vietnam and lessons he learnt from the book.

Then you should see this thing:-
This is an excerpt from Relentless Strike discussing a mission delta force was training to do but never did. It was a similar situation - a hostage rescue of over a 100+ prisoners of war in the early 80s

"
JSOC rehearsed extensively in Hawaii for the mission, which would involve a task force launching from the tiny Pacific Island of Tinian in the Northern Marianas and using an abandoned and overgrown U.S. military airfield in Thailand as a forward staging base. With the airfield under control, C-5 transport planes would have landed, bearing JSOC’s own version of a Trojan horse: white, civilian-style eighteen-wheel trucks, each hiding two TF 160 AH-6 Little Birds with folded rotor blades. As Delta operators made their way overland to the prison camp TF 160 personnel would have driven the trucks close to the Laotian border, before stopping and launching the helicopters.

TF 160 kept this rarely used technique—known in JSOC as “Smokey and the Bandit” after the 1977 trucker comedy starring Burt Reynolds—up its sleeve for decades, because it offered a clandestine way to move a lethal capability close to a target. “Our guys were trained and even had the truck licenses,” said a TF 160 veteran. The unit had its own trucks, but locally obtained vehicles would suffice “with maybe a couple of days’ work and some welding,” he said. When the time came to launch the aircraft, the crew would roll them off the back of the truck and have them flying within three minutes. “You have to be really well trained,” the TF 160 veteran said. “It’s absolutely an incredible capability.”

The Little Birds’ role was to provide fire support to the Delta assaulters, and, in particular, to destroy the prison camp’s three wooden guard towers. The delays caused by Gritz’s interference meant it was now 1982. Army General John Vessey had replaced Jones as Joint Chiefs chairman. When briefed on the plan, Vessey refused to believe that the Little Birds could take out the guard towers. JSOC had replicas built at Fort A. P. Hill in Virginia and held a nighttime demonstration there for the chairman that ended with the AH-6s turning the towers into splinters, much to his amazement"


Now you see, we should first have the risk taking capability to authorize such an operation. Then we need to give the various agencies and organizations involved in it the freedom to demonstrate their idea properly and that often starts prior to the op. That's because the forces need to work together first to build a cohesive team. Then when the opportunity arrives they should train for the mission as much as we can. Delta trained with TF-160 since it was formed after failure of Op Eagle Claw in 1980. Just a year later we see this:- TF-160 using creative methods to bring helos close to the target. That's why Delta was comfortable working with them because the trust had been built up, despite Delta having it's own aviation squadron

Compare that with the failed NSG, MARCOS integration in 26/11. Why? Because both never worked together before. No point unless you start with a mandate and keep the inter service training altogether. Special Forces cant be created during emergencies. If we already have such ops in mind only then we can authorize an execution in the future
Couldn't have said it better. Relentless strike is a must read for every SOF enthusiast.

On Lanka I have heard first hand accounts from veterans who were there both SF and conventional as well one who trained the LTTE

There is a fiction book called becking isle written by an ex SF chap. For the most parts quiet accurate

So now we take pics of SOF units on deployment and share on SM huh? Lol jai ho
 

COLDHEARTED AVIATOR

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Couldn't have said it better. Relentless strike is a must read for every SOF enthusiast.

On Lanka I have heard first hand accounts from veterans who were there both SF and conventional as well one who trained the LTTE

There is a fiction book called becking isle written by an ex SF chap. For the most parts quiet accurate



So now we take pics of SOF units on deployment and share on SM huh? Lol jai ho
The red flag was when marcos failed to survive on a Andaman island in a wargame situation.
 

abingdonboy

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If i may ask, to the Abhijit Iyer Mitra of this forum, @abingdonboy where did you find the last ones from. I guess it is from NDTV news report on MARCOS but i dont know where to access the complete video. Any idea anyone?
The last one is from an NDTV report ~2013(?) that Vishnu Som did about A&N, I had a quick search on YouTube but couldn’t find it, good luck.



+Abhijit Iyer Mitra is a complete clown who would sell himself to the highest bidder if he had a chance. Negativity is one thing but you should look at the motivations and intent. Abhijit Iyer Mitra would be quite happy if India became the 51st state of the US
 

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