what exactly makes special forces “special” compared to normal military?
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In older times, they could literally just be soldiers that aren’t the normal soldiers, for some reason
If I remember correctly (please fact check this if you want to share it), there were “special forces” in the battle of Fishguard. They weren’t better or anything, they were just prisoners or something like that so they were “special”
Didn’t go too well, as you might imagine
I wonder if the special part is just a shorting of the word specialist – as in operations that require specialist skills.
When you have a a military force it is generally large, and is meant to work as a whole. People are specialized and most follow orders.
Now let’s say intelligence says there is a very valuable truck that will be traveling deep in enemy territory at a certain time.
What can you do? A full on assault to take the territory and stop the truck? That’s probably won’t work, the the enemy would notice and avoid sending the truck then, as well as be aware that you might know about it and be after it.
So a large force is pretty much out of the question. What can you do? Pick a small handful of people maybe. Most of them do one thing. This guy drives trucks. Those guys handle mortars. That guy is a medic. Almost all of them take orders, and are not equipped and trained for tactics enough to give orders.
Hmmm. Clearly we need the best and smartest group of people who are good at a lot of things. If we can send lets say 4, each of them needs to be a medic, capable of good tactical calls on the fly, probably would best benefit from all having better than average marksmanship, knows how to handle explosives… and oh yeah, they better ne prepared to survive without support as they are much more likely to end up in a situation demanding it.
In summary, as war evolved and became more about small scale objectives, you find that some objectives are best handled by a small group of your best soldiers.
At first, you would literally just pick them from the ranks. Then we realized we could just prepare a group of the best *before* the need arises. So now, whenever needed you don’t have to hand pick every time a “special” objective arises.
Lots of good comments here. For more clarity:
Regular forces are larger units with more support (air, artillery, etc.) for direct contact and combat with the enemy for sustained periods of time. Their goal is usually to make contact with the enemy. Think Saving Private Ryan.
Special forces usually don’t do so well in direct combat because it’s just a small group of people. They tend to be further behind enemy lines so there is no or little support. Their goal is usually to get in and out without direct contact with the enemy. Think Lone Survivor.
Because of the nature of special forces, they tend to have more specialty training and higher physical fitness standards. They specialize in covert operations and participate in especially dangerous missions.
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