70 yr old ex-SAS soldier tackles four muggers
 

They got nailed badly! :P :lol:

http://www.smellybean.com/link.jsp?UniqNumber=2391

Hahah

Wow! Almost 50 years after his training, he's still got the moves. Nice work. The muggers didn't know what hit them.

It's prolly just reflex to him

Haaaaahahahaha. Nice.

As the Brits would say: "Bloody marvelous." :D

That raises the question, will a 70 year old ex-SEAL be able to do the same thing :roll:

nicely done :D

and about the SEAL: i dont really see why not?

SEALs are the US Navy's equivalent of the SAS in Commonwealth armies (I think only Britain, Australia, and New Zealand have SAS troopers), so I would expect them to similarly proficient in hand-to-hand combat.

Hahahahahhhahah, how'd you like to have to tell your mugging friends you got beat down by a 70 year old grandpa! :lol: :P

You probably wouldn't tell them at all. They'd probably say they got beaten up by a professional boxer, whom they attempted to mug as a kind of challenge.

Wrong !

The direct equivalent of the SEALs in the British military are the Royal Marines SBS - Special Boat Service (ex Special Boat Squadron).

SAS`s direct equivalent in the US army is SFOD ( Special Forces Operational Detachament Delta, aka CAG - Combat Aplications Group or COG - Combat Operations Group)

The creator of Delta, col Charlie Beckwith aka Chargin` Charlie had a tour with the 22 SAS in Malaya. After that he formed Delta , and the first Delta recruits were trained at Hereford by the SAS.

lol you've done your homework well i see :)
either way, both (SEALS and SAS, as well as SFOD D and SBS) are special forces units and their members can all be expected to be more than sufficient at (unarmed) self-defense... wether a person can still apply the techniques at age 70 depends on the person himself, and probably to a certain extent the techniques (although i suppose all techniques used by special forces will be pretty intuitive and straightforward), but wether he's SAS or any other unit won't matter

Correct :) . . . I read that book by Charlie Beckwith, it was a very good read. But aren't Deltas special in counter-terrorism and hostage situations? Not necessarily open warfare? I mean they did do a good amount of combat during Vietnam though. And they are always part of the US military operations - Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, I think maybe SAS is more direct counter-part of the Army Special Forces - aka Green Berets?

[/quote]

Correct :) . . . I read that book by Charlie Beckwith, it was a very good read. But aren't Deltas special in counter-terrorism and hostage situations? Not necessarily open warfare? I mean they did do a good amount of combat during Vietnam though. And they are always part of the US military operations - Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, I think maybe SAS is more direct counter-part of the Army Special Forces - aka Green Berets?[/quote]

Not only hostage rescue and CT.

For example in the first Gulf War they did SR - special reconoissance.

It was a big issue with the Scuds fired at Israel, so Gen Schwartzkopf decided to send to boys in.
So they "divided" the Scud Box in 2 areas : Scud alley - for the area where the SAS operated, and Delta went to the Scud Boulevard near the town of Al Qaim.

AFAIK as I know they had fun : on one occasion a on foot patrol was chased by a few armoured vehicles but some Strike eagke had it`s share of fun with the iraqis, on another one they were attacked by some helo`s but again the Eagles saved the day.

but afaik their primary role is counterterrorism and CQB related stuff... whereas the Green Berets are more of a long(er)-term recon unit operating behind enemy lines (kinda like marine force recon but without the water focus) right?

i believe the SAS is a pretty versatile unit, i dont know exactly how delta/green berets/SEALs are organised? (as in team specializations etc?)

I would say that the bread and butter of the Green Berets are FID (Foreign Internal defense and UW - Unconventional Warfare) besides SR.
So their main role is force multipliers by organising and training the local guerilla.

Of course they have the capability to do DA - Direct action and SR.


What do you mean by specialization ?
Area of operations ?

well i know in the main SF unit of the Netherlands there are special teams for operations around water, mountain teams, HAHO/HALO teams, CQB teams etc... in SAS there are various different specialty teams too, like parachuting teams, vehicle teams etc etc, is there such a thing with the navy SEALs, which is already a pretty specialized unit?

The SEALs are divided by the AO - area of operations.
Just like all other versatile units in the world they master all type`s of insertion methods and they cross-train alot.


For example SEAL team 3 and team 8, had the main area of operations in the Middle East and Africa so normally they are more proficient at desert warfare, at DPV operations, but that doesn`t mean that they lack in HALO/HAHO insertion, or waterborne or CQB skills.

Team 2 was responsable for Europe, so mountaneering and skiing was something common for them.

But since SEAL Team 7 was created I don`t know exactly every teams AO`s.

The only difference between them and DevGru from DamNeck Virginia ex SEAL Team 6 of Richard Marcinko, is that training for HR is a rather different thing.

Damn RAMMIUS you know a lot about that :shock:

^^ There are a lot of good books on the subject, but unfortunately I don`t have all of them

Could you give me some examples. I read a lot of Tom Clancy, Mark Bowden and Alistair Maclean Novels but don't know as much as you about it! :shock: :P

Maybe you can send me a PM since we might be going a bit offtopic LOL

Yeah definitely a lot of good books. I read Delta Force by Charlie Beckwith. That was pretty damn good, but of course focused on only the Delta Force. Shadow Warriors by Tom Clancy and General Carl Stiner (SOF) was pretty good too and that focused on Special Operations Forces during WWII and Vietnam, and then further into Panama, and Desert Storm. Also brief accounts of taken downs on Cruise ships (Achille Lauro) and airplanes. Carl Stiner was the CINC of SOCOM.

I think I am going to try out Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney next.


Wasn't Richard Marcinko the guy that was a maverick? Didn't follow orders and such? And that's why Team SIX got disbanded?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Force

No, I'm not. The SAS and the SEALs are the special forces organisations within their respective service branches, hence I'm technically still correct, altogether, yes, I concede the comparison is flawed. ;)

Excellent books on the SAS that I read :

The complete encyclopedia of the SAS by Barry Davies (ex SAS man, assisted GSG-9 at Mogadishu)

The Soldiers Sory by Jack Ramsay , has first hand accounts about missions

The SAS encyclopedia by Steve Crawford and also by him The SAS ultimate warriors, this one has a lot of graphics

Aussie SASR:

Phantoms of war by David Horner which is I think the official historian of the Regiment, the book is very thick, with lo`ts of missions described in detail.

Navy SEAL`s :

I read Halberstadt`s books and they are quite documented.

My advice is not to go after general books that treat all the units in a particular country because you can`t find indepth information, go after specialized ones.

ADVICE: go and buy Marcinko`s book as fast as you can : Rogue Warrior.
Team SIX was not disbanded, it became DevGru , Development Group -cover name.

Marcinko with his style made a lot of enemies over the years, and the best unit that he derived from Team SIX, RedCell (cover name for NSCT - Naval Security Coordinatio Team) was the one that created a lot of problems.

On a few words: they had to test the security of naval bases, installations aso, they did and made the civillian and military security personnel look like morons and in the same time the base commanders looked like idiots, which was true of course.

In his book you`ll find amazing things.

The muggers got owned by grand pa!!!
:lol: :lol: 8)

Ok thanks for the tip Rammius! :D

I have a look into that, maybe Ill try it too! 8)

Pfff...Seals....I remember the Moscow theatre crisis when the Spetznaz owned the shit out of those Chechen fucks. I read a news story and one reporter was stating something along the lines of two roadworkers trying to pry loose a sewer cover with crowbars and one Alpha Team meber came, picked it up with one hand and tossed it a few metres like it was a frisbee. All the soldier said was "You gotta work out in order to [be able to] do that."

lol i take it you're joking?
im sure the US military could take out any hostage-takers by dropping a daisycutter on the building 8)

I'm sure the Syrian military could do pretty much the same thing. What's your point?

my point is, its little use "owning the shit out of" hostage-takers if you kill half of the hostages in the process :roll:

Couldn't agree more Gucom!

I guess it's better to give in to the terrorists' demands and give them billions of dollars, like the American government has been doing for the last 20+ years, right?

i dont know to what extent that's true, but 2 answers:
-from a family/friends point of view: HELL YEAH if you can get your loved ones back without risk
-from a strategic / nationwide point of view: no it'll just stimulate other hostagetakings.

However, your original post on the hostage situation came across as admiring of the spetznaz performance there, while its kind of obvious they (not nescessarily spetznaz but whoever decided to intoxicate every1) pretty much fucked it up... i believe (and surely hope) units like Delta would find a better way of solving a situation like that...

More like gas them all to death. The Spetznaz killed more hostages than the terrorists. I would be thinking that that particular incident be an example of hostage rescue gone wrong.

Yes, the Spetznaz killed the hostages. :roll: That's a great piece of speculation from you. Please enlighten me on the wide variety of choices available in a situation where religious fanatics armed to the teeth have over 800 hostages in a theatre that they have also rigged with explosives. I think they did a fabulous job in saving as many people as they did. It also sent a clear message they are not to be fucked with. Had they negociated with the terrorist it would have made room for the proliferation of terrorist incidents in the Russian Federation.

Hmm...like, none. If they had charged in guns blazing, they would at least have saved some hostages. By gassing the theatre, they all died.

You are starting to become annoying with your lack of knowledge.
First learn to write Spetsnaz not Spetznaz.

NAME one single occasion when so many hostages in a huge open space had to be rescued ? Don`t search you won`t find.
750 hostages , can you understand ? and 50 !!!!!!!! terrorists
THEY had to use that gas in order to save the hostages, it`s a tragedy that 129 people died, but if we study your simple logic
:lol: , it would have been the biggest massacre imaginable.

You`re telling the best HR units in the world that they did something wrong :lol:.
FSB`s Alpha and Vympel, for you knowledge, are units with a remarcable service record.


Thank God that all those counter-terror experts are exactly your opposite

Around 170 odd hostages dying of gas poisoning not enough of a massacre for you?

What about Beslan? A few hundred people died there in a similar siege situation.

I'm not saying that Spetsnaz are absolutely terrible, but you really can't ignore the fact that during a couple of recent operations, far more hostages than terrorists have died.

They did the scenario, meaning they kept the hostages in a big place , this time it was the gymnasium.
Because there were kids the special units couldn`t use that gas.

Exactly WHAT HAPPENED there is unclear to this day.

For your consideration only the russians encounetered this kind of scenarios, and saying that Unit X or Y from God knows what country would have done better it`s utterly childish.

Some of the best units in the world at this kind of jobs are Israeli, and even they had there part of bad luck, when they tried to rescue 1 (one!) soldier being held hostage, and the mission went tottaly wrong.



Ahhhh, you`re young, do you know something about Waco, Texas and the Davidian Branch ? I doubt .

76 killed people and 21 children :(:( It was a complete fiasco

The russsians are one of the most skilled in the domain, either you like it or not.

Yeah, Tim McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber got quite pissed about that.

I understand that you can't look at stuff in hindsight and start criticising the people involved, but I wouldn't really call Beslan or the Theatre success stories in the objective sense.

In that particular theatre scenario, the Russians used a gas which had deadly consequences. You'd think they would have used a non-lethal anaesthetic of some sort... :?

At WACO there were NO survivors, unlike the russian siege, where a lot of people were rescued.

Taking in consideratin the fact that at WACO there were Delta Force guys as advisors and the rescue was a failure should we say that american are incompetent ? Of course not, it would foolish to say something like that.

now you`re getting philosophical and it does not suit you
The RUSSIANS did the best job they could, and they were confornted with an atipical situation .

At Beslan nobody knows for sure what happened but in Moscow they did a BRILLIANT job.

Now that's getting a bit ridiculous. I'm sure they didn't reflect afterwards by going "What an excellent rescue operation, only 170 or so hostages died".

In that situation the outcome was great, I must repeat :

Huge open space : 750 hostages , 50 !!!!! terrorists - an unparalled number for both.

IF the terrorist would have been armed only with assault rifles then the outcome would have been different, but taking in consideration the fact that almost all of them had strapped to their waist bombs AND had the trigger in their hands at the slightest sign of assault one could only imagine the carnage.

Pouring that gas into the building, (that killed a lot of people afterwards , yes gas killed them not shootimg), was the only way to prepare for the assault.

Yeah well you win some you loose some :(

Well they could've used a non-lethal gas.

i see your point rammius, indeed i cant really think of any hostage rescue action of this scale and type that was really successful, but like mattk, i find it hard to believe there was no other way to take out those terrorists than by pouring in a lethal gas... in this day and age surely there must at least be more effective gasses around?

And yes you're right, its kind of impossible to compare units from different countries as they often have different functions or different types of enemies... but there are definitely differences in thinking about certain things... for instance when in Holland there were 200 people taken hostage in a train in the '70s, they negotiated for 3 weeks before moving in, i dont see that happening in russia (but again, hard to compare with different attitudes of the hostage-takers probably)

aaaanyway i'll just read what the more knowledgeable people have to say :)

bijstands bizondere eenheid - in 1977, 2 simultaneous assaults, on the train and the school.

BUT those South Moluccan terrorits had the decency of releasing the kids and elderly from the train.

They too needed a diversion, so they used a pair of Starfighters that flew over the train at supersonic speeds :shock: to confuse the bad guys.

I read somewhere (can`t remember were though) that even the rescue team was stunned for a few moments :lol: , imagine the poor bastards from the train.



From what I know in this area every civilized country in the world changes information, and cooperation is the word of the day.
Israel`s Sayeret Mat`kal was responsable for building up Ulrich Wegener`s GSG-9. Imagine that.
Then in 1977 when GSG-9 assaulted the plane at Mogadishu 2 SAS man assisted : seargent Barry Davies and Major Alastair something.
They were the men with flashbangs :P
I think they have a lot of exchange programs, and they share tactics, equipment aso.

Oh yeah, Wikipedia is a pretty good source too, to read up on this stuff.