When and why did small groups of highly skilled soldiers become a thing? It wasnt really a thing in WW1 (storm troopers were mostly better equipped) and the SAS in WW2 was in its infancy. What other facets of warfare has changed to necessitate elite soldiers, as well as those elite soldiers seemingly more of the work than regular grunts?
When and why did small groups of highly skilled soldiers become a thing...
Juan Turner
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Aiden Cruz
Dude, a lot longer than that. Robert Rogers led the rangers in the French and Indian war based off of Indian tactics. Indians had dog soldiers that were their spec op, I believe.
Oliver Lee
>dogs were basically the same thing as delta guise
Is this satire?
Jonathan Foster
Since ever my man
the oldest example i can think is the varangian guard
Lincoln Harris
>elite soldiers
They’re made to do push-ups and swim in cold water till some say “fuck this shit.” Spec ops is a meme- they have a virtually unlimited budget for 20 years and they have nothing to show for it except a opioid crisis in the US and the entire Middle East in ruins.
Owen Gray
Special forces had its origins in two kinds of soldiers: skirmishers/scouts and most especially, the guerrilla. Small bands of men, told to accomplish certain missions a big whole army couldnt. In the case of guerrillas: they were sicced out to hit a target in either wearing down operations or surgical operations to cripple the enemy.
Hence the slang term for them -Commandos- which referred to the irregular fighters -the Kommandos- of the Boer Republics during the Second Boer War, who did guerrilla shit.
Following further experiences with infantry tactics in WWI (trench raiders notably), and that of WWII, the militaries of the world formally decided to literally make them actual, purpose built units.
Its worth noting that one of the key founders of the US Special Forces was Colonel Wendell Fertig. He was a mere reservist lieutenant colonel who escaped the fall of the Philippines when the Japs conquered it in 1942 and headed one of the more successful guerrilla outfits in the Philippines.
>en.wikipedia.org
Kayden Adams
The idea of elite Soldiers appears as early as in "The Art of War" by Sun Tsu. He called them "bodies of picked men"
Juan Davis
Because peer state conflict is a thing of the past.
Isaiah Thompson
I think he meant Soldiers that had dogs with them. Like a K-9 unit.
Austin Rivera
Are you confusing dog soldiers as a native American k9 unit, or are you aware that's what they called their elite warriors and you're conveying they weren't specialized as once believed?
If you have sources on it, I'd be happy to read them.
Lucas Sullivan
Except in premodern times, "picked men" literally meant just that.
They weren't an elite formation, but men from the army known to have certain talents which a General would then start ask around. Say "i heard X is good at climbing" or "Y is a deadly shot with a bow."
Its more of a "I'm putting together a team" deal.
What said was right. Special forces started showing up after WWI and WWII.
Robert Walker
Observation, across different countries in different ways, that well-trained guerilla fighters were capable of inflicting mass casualties on formal infantry despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered.
Kevin Torres
Because nations no longer go to war.
Juan Howard
>storm troopers were mostly better equipped
and more experienced and selected for aggression and violence of action
William Butler
Different style of war. Fighting insurgencies is different than a full blow land war. In WWI the Storm troopers were very effective but not sustainable. They were almost all killed in the spring offensive, albeit they made great gains and quickly over ran positions but they died in the same numbers as everyone else.
Look at WWII (Eastern front), it clearly shows having more lesser trained soldiers is a winning strategy.
In a proper full scale war materials and numbers is what you want. If there ever was another total war I think the powers involved would scale down there SOF numbers and increase the number of grunts 10x.
Connor Morris
Right. While there wasn't a real notion of "special forces" or anything like that, certain specialized formations like the Grenadiers or Jagers of the 1700s were certainly looked up to as being more elite or prestigious.
Then you had other purpose driven units like Lovat's Scouts or the Arditi
Carter Perez
>Franc Trireurs, WWI
Aiden Rogers
Who named that picture?
It's mostly horse bones and garbage.
Julian Hernandez
> hasn’t heard of the Triarii
Get a load of this nigga right here
Hunter Young
Remember this dudes from 300? The Immortals? They were the Persian Empires elite, best of the best.
Brandon Scott
What's the lizard on the leash for?
Austin Jenkins
>ywn spend WWII innaAlaska with your friends fuckin with Japs, riding canoes, fishing for salmon and disregarding Army uniform regulations
Why even FUCKING live
Isaac Williams
Wrong pic
Blake Bell
The current Spec Ops obsession is a pretty huge waste of resources. Based on the need for direct action Counter-terrorism, they could be drastically reduced in number and budget.
In response to limited war, the military should reorganize itself for larger Elite infantry divisions, rather than extraordinarily expensive and extraordinarily small special units. Because right now, the doctrine revolves around an almost comedic cavalcade of different ultra vetted Special units, with heavy lifting done by airpower, and with a lot of wasted effort in experimentalism. A lot of them end up doing the same things, anyway. How many different kinds of special divers does the navy need?
This is very expensive in prolonged war, for very little gain.
The military exacerbates this problem by having an extremely specialized occupational system to begin with. This profligate lack of versatility is inefficient.
Gavin Carter
During the Siege of Sinhagad, the Maratha forces managed to scale a Mughal fortress by tying a line on a monitor lizard which would climb up the fort and hand the line to a spy inside. Said spy would pull the line, which pulls a thicker rope, and the Marathas would climb up.
Then the Maratha poos would try to open the gate of the fort. They were doing so well when the rope broke and killed half the team, but they managed to complete their job.
Ryan Smith
pretty dang cool if true
Zachary Thompson
honestly it's probably been like that for a while
dudes who really dont want to fight and just want to go back to their farm arent going to be as a small, tightly knit group of VIN DIESEL I LIVE FOR THIS SHIT dudes