THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF
THE SECRETS OF
THE SAS
AND ELITE FORCES
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THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF
THE SECRETS OF
THE SAS
AND ELITE FORCES
HOW THE PROFESSIONALS FIGHT AND WIN!
Edited by Jon E. Lewis
ROBINSON
London
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK as
The Handbook of the SAS and Elite Forces,
by Robinson Publishing Ltd 1997
This revised edition published by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2002
Collection and editorial material copyright © Jon E. Lewis, 2002
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication data is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-84119-585-5
eISBN 978-1-78033-735-7
Printed and bound in the EU
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
PART I: ELITE UNITS
1 The British Army Special Air Service Brigade
The SAS: Prototype of the Special Force
2 American Army Special Forces
The Green Berets
Delta Force
3 Russian Army Special Forces
Spetsnaz
PART II: TACTICS AND TECHNIQUES
4 Arctic Environments
Basic Survival Requirements
Food and Drink
Travel in the Arctic
Special Operations
5 Desert Environments
Desert Survival
Desert Hazards
Emergency Survival
6 Evasion, Capture and Escape
Equipment
Evading Dogs
Evasion and Capture
Ejecting Behind Enemy Lines
Urban Evasion
Jungle Evasion
Interrogation
Surviving as a Prisoner
Escape
7 Health and Medical Skills
Avoidable Health Risks
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
AIDS
Field Sanitation
Health in Cold Conditions
Health in Hot Climates
First Aid in Combat
The Four B’s
Resuscitation Techniques
Controlling Bleeding
Treating Shock
Chest Wounds
Treating Abdominal Wounds
Tackling Burns
Fractures
Field First Aid – Improvisation
Casualty Carrying Techniques
Battle Casualty Evacuation
8 Hijacks and Hostage Rescue
Personal Survival
Ending a Hijack
9 Landings and Raids on Enemy Territory
Airborne Landings
Waterborne Landings
Submarine Landing
River Raiding
Raids and Ambushes
10 Personal Skills and Techniques
Special Forces Personal Protection
Personal Camouflage and Concealment
Vehicle Camouflage
Booby Traps
Mines
Navigation
River Crossing
Ropework
Tracking
Combat Tracking
11 Survival
Shelter
Making a Fire
Water
Food
Preparing Plants and Fungi
Seashore Food
Fish
Meat, Trapping
Preserving Food in the Wild
Medicinal Plants
Tools and Equipment
Bows
Arrows
Spears
Index
Part 1
ELITE UNITS
Chapter 1
THE BRITISH ARMY SPECIAL AIR SERVICE BRIGADE
THE SAS: PROTOTYPE OF THE SPECIAL FORCE
The SAS began life in the desert. It was founded by David Stirling, a lieutenant in the Scots Guards, who had fought with No.8 Commando in the Mediterranean. Injured during parachute training, he drew up plans for a new type of long-range commando organisation while hospitalized in Cairo. He presented them through General Neil Ritchie to the perceptive commander of British Forces in the Middle East, General Auckinleck, and was rewarded with promotion and command of the “L” detachment, Special Air Service Brigade. The unit designation was a fiction intended to deceive but the SAS had been born.
Stirling planned the SAS as a strategic force, attacking targets deep in the enemy heartland where they thought they were safe. From air bases in North Africa to the valleys of southern France, the SAS inflicted constant damage and tied down thousands of enemy soldiers guarding installation and sweeping the countryside for these elusive raiders.
&nbs
p; The SAS was disbanded after the war, but resurrected within two years. A territorial regiment, 21 SAS, was created and some members volunteered for a new organisation, the Malaya Scouts (SAS). The latter were formed for counter-guerrilla operations against the communist rebels in Malaya. In 1952, this unit was redesignated 22 SAS and spearheaded the jungle war. Stirling’s original belief that a small elite force could achieve results out of all proportion to its size was proved correct a second time.
As the British Empire disintegrated, the SAS were involved in guerrilla wars from Asian jungles to the Middle East. From 1969 the regiment was committed to action much closer to home, as handfuls of men were detached to Northern Ireland. SAS involvement was on a small scale until Prime Minister Harold Wilson publicly announced in January 1976 that he was sending in the SAS. This was without reference to the regiment, which had very few men available when this politically inspired statement was issued.
The Heckler & Koch MP5 machine pistol has become one of the most widely used weapons of its type. When the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy in London in 1981, TV viewers in the UK saw it in action for the first time. British airport police were also issued with the MP5 in 1986 following the terrorist attacks at Rome and Vienna. Firing from a closed bolt, the MP5 is probably the most accurate sub-machine gun in production today. It is manufactured in a number of variants, including silenced or cut-down weapons for clandestine operations and is available with telescoping or fixed stocks. Although the MP5 is more complex and considerably more expensive than most other SMGs, its accuracy means that it is the favoured weapon of special operations and hostage rescue units around the world.
Specification
Cartridge: 9-mm parabellum; Weight:3kg; Length: (stock folded) 49 cm; Cyclic rate of fire: 800 rounds per minter; Magazine: 15 or 30 round box; Effective range: 200m.
Assessment
Reliability *****; Accuracy *****; Age ***; Worldwide users ***.
The SAS’s counter-terrorist role was developed in response to the massacre of the Israeli athletes in Munich during 1972. In 1980 the world saw for the first time the sinister black combat suits and gas masks of the SAS’s CRW (Counter Revolutionary Warfare) team. An SAS team stormed the Iranian Embassy in London releasing the hostages and killing all but one of the terrorists – a stunning success.
In 1982 the Argentine invasion of the Falklands gave the SAS the opportunity to demonstrate their more traditional skills. SAS patrols ranged behind enemy lines to scout their positions and raid vital targets.
SAS patrols were landed on the Falklands well before the main landings at San Carlos.
Although the Task Force received intelligence on the Argentine positions from American satellites and RAF reconnaissance aircraft, these could not give the whole picture. The Falklands are under cloud cover for much of the time, and only foot patrols could discover the information needed.
Four-man patrols abseiled down from Royal Navy helicopters at dead-of-night. They had no hope of support if anything went wrong. “Special Forces” may have a glamorous image in the public mind, but there was little glamour being stuck in a cramped observation post in the Falklands. It was bitterly cold and wet. Rations had to be eaten cold for much of the time as nearby Argentinians could have detected the smell of cooking.
Just before the British forces landed at San Carlos, the SAS went over to the offensive. An SAS patrol paddled over to Pebble Island where the Argentinians had based a small force of aircraft on the grass airstrip there. They took cover overlooking the enemy position and guided in the main attack force: 45 men of “D” Squadron, SAS, who landed from two Sea King helicopters during the early hours of 15 May.
They planted demolition charges on six Pucará ground attack aircraft, four T-34C Turbo Mentors belonging to the Argentinian navy, and a Short Skyvan transport. The Argentinians did not realize they were being attacked until the aircraft – and about a ton of stacked ordnance which the SAS also blew up – began to explode. Covered by 80 rounds of 4.5-in gunfire from HMS Glamorgan the raiders escaped with only two men wounded.
After the landings at San Carlos, SAS patrols continued to probe the enemy defences, paving the way for the successful ground assaults that overwhelmed the Argentinian garrison.
The campaign in the South Atlantic was followed by more successful counter terrorist work in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. The SAS is now world famous, and the subject of continued and unwelcome media interest. As the anonymity of its soldiers is vital to their safety, the regiment’s very success now poses an added danger to its future operations.
THE SAS IN THE GULF WAR
The Gulf War was widely presented as a showcase for the latest guided weapons technology. In fact few of the “smart” weapons could have been quite so clever without the skill and bravery of the world’s most secretive military units. Soldiers of the SAS and US Army Special Forces infiltrated Kuwait and Iraq months before the ground assault began.
These daring recce patrols helped the Allied forces build an intelligence picture of the enemy forces. But the SAS’s job did not end when the full scale war began. SAS men crept into positions overlooking vital targets to illuminate them with laser designators; guided bombs could then home in and destroy them with pinpoint accuracy. SAS patrols took part in the great “Scud” hunt that began when Saddam Hussein’s mobile missile launchers began firing on Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The launchers were hidden during the day and only moved into their firing positions under cover of darkness. Allied Special Forces roved the deserts of western Iraq in search of them. The extent of these operations was never made public, and precise details will remain top secret for many, many years. Prime Minister John Major would only hint at the regiment’s role when he praised its contribution to Operation Granby.
BIRTH OF A LEGEND
Most of the North African campaign of 1940–43 was fought out in the narrow coastal strip which runs the long arc from Tunis to Cairo. South of the coastal strip lies the Sahara, an immense secret place of shifting sands and cauldron-like heat. Few paid much attention to this wilderness, but in its unguarded vastness a young British second-lieutenant saw the possibility for a new type of unit to operate. A unit which would strike swift and hard, and then disappear like a phantom into the desert from which it had emerged. Jon E Lewis tells of the early days of the SAS.
The Special Air Service was conceived in a hospital bed in Egypt. Injured during some unofficial parachute training David Stirling, a subaltern with No 8 (Guards) Commando, decided to use his enforced stay in the Alexandria Scottish Military Hospital to develop a scheme for special operations in the desert.
On his release from hospital in July 1941, Stirling determined to bring his plan to the attention of the Commander in Chief. As C-in-Cs are not, by and large, in the habit of granting interviews to junior officers Stirling decided to ignore the usual channels. Instead he hobbled on his crutches to British Army Middle East HQ and tricked his way past the sentry. Inside, Stirling found his way into the office of the Deputy Commander Middle East, one General Neil Ritchie. Stirling apologized to the somewhat surprised Ritchie for the unconventional call, but insisted that he had something of “great operational importance” to tell him. Ritchie offered him a seat, and Stirling pulled out the pencilled memo on a desert raiding force he had prepared in hospital.
Ritchie spent several minutes reading it. It was then Stirling’s turn to be surprised. Ritchie looked up and said brusquely, “I think this may be the sort of plan we are looking for. I will discuss it with the Commander in Chief and let you know our decision in the next day or so”. The C-in-C was General Auckinleck, new to his command and under pressure from Churchill to mount an offensive. Stirling’s plan was indeed what Auckinleck was looking for. It required few resources, and it was original. The unit Stirling proposed was to operate behind enemy lines in order to attack vulnerable targets like extended supply lines and airfields. What is more the raids were to be carried out by very small
groups of men, between five and ten, rather than the standard commando force of hundreds.
Meanwhile, Ritchie looked into Stirling’s background. He was pleased with what he found. David Stirling, born in 1915 was the youngest son of the aristocratic Brigadier Archibald Stirling of Keir. After three years at Cambridge David Stirling had joined the Scots Guards, before transferring to No 8 Commando. As part of the “Layforce” brigade, No 8 had been dispatched to North Africa where its seaborne raids had all been proved to be wash outs. The unit, along with the rest of Layforce, had been marked for disbandment. Stirling however, had remained so keen on the commando idea that he had jumped – literally – at the chance of doing some parachuting with chutes that another officer in No 8, Jock Lewes, had scrounged. The jumping trials had taken place near Mersa Matruh. The aircraft used, a lumbering Valentia bi-plane, was not equipped for parachuting and the men had secured the static lines which open the parachutes to seat legs. Stirling’s parachute had caught on the door and snagged. He had descended far too rapidly and damaged his back badly on landing. Which is how he had come to be in Alexandria Hospital.
Three days after his meeting with Ritchie, Stirling was back at Middle East HQ, this time with a pass. Auckinleck saw him in person. Stirling was given permission to recruit a force of six other officers and sixty men. The unit was to be called “L Detachment, SAS Brigade”. The SAS stood for Special Air Service which did not exist. The name was dreamed up by Brigadier Dudley Clarke, a staff Intelligence Officer, as a means of convincing the enemy that the British possessed a large airborne force in North Africa. To mark his new appointment, Stirling was promoted to captain.
The recruiting took less than a week. There were two particular officers Stirling wanted. The first was Jock Lewes who was in Tobruck, where he had been carrying out small raids against enemy outposts. A scholar and Oxford rowing “blue”, Lewes was also a daring soldier. He agreed to join. So did the Northern Irishman, Paddy Mayne, then under close arrest for striking his commanding officer. Before the war, Mayne had been a rugby player of international rank. Most of the rest of the unit were recruited from the Guards Commando then at a camp at Genefa. Selection was based on Stirling’s impression of the men at brief interviews. He also told them that if they failed to make the grade in training they would have to return to their units.