Originally posted by specialasianX
This was determined from my own personal opinion. Obviously there is no official rating of special forces (that i know of) and if there was it would
greatly biased toward the country in which this ranking was published. Mine was just from media reports fro the Afghan war and The Second Gulf war (i
was too young to observe such things actively for the first Gulf War). The media reports i observed for this opinion included many from the USA,
Australia, Britain, even Malaysian, Singaporian, and Bruneian Media sources.
The Sth East Asian (Malaysian, Singaporian, and Bruneian) media didnt have high opinions of any western forces in Iraq (being islamic that was a given
so their reports were obviously bias against the west). The Aussie sources were hyped the Aussie SAS but also gave the British SAS a good rap but the
US forces (in both conflicts) were not so highly regarded. Over the last few years the Aussie media has been very Pro-US and it has always been
somewhat anti UK so i figured this pattern against the trend was significant. Even the Us media (CNN, CNBC, ABC but not FOX i hate FOX) gave the
Brisitsh troops a great hype in their ability to quell situations where the US forces had failed. So even the US media were hyping them up (as well as
hyping their own forces as would be expected). The British media gave their troops a hype but thats expected as well as it is their troops so thats
what they do.
Kepp in mind though this is my opinion based on my observations... i havent been at war with any special forces from any country so i dont have first
hand experience
So, you determined who was better due to media reports? Must be quite a sway for you during election time.
Originally posted by John Nada
From talking to many people in the military in person and on the net the SAS seem to be far more respected. This coming from Americans as well. It
seems to be a result of their tact rather than being gung-ho.
And your opinion was word of mouth based on their tact? You also must have an interesting time during elections.
If I were going to critique a quality such as who was more "elite" (definition - The best or most skilled members of a group) I would probably base
that on exercise scores. It would be nice to compare same-same missions, but the best we could hope for is training situations and scores. Keep in
mind that some of this is probably out there due to the amount of cross-training between the groups.
I would think measures of:
Shooting skill
Stealth
Languages
Survival
Waterborne insertion techniques
Airborne insertion techniques
Diving
Underwater demolitions
the list goes on and on....
That would seem a better method to claiming the top spot rather than the media or "tact" (that bloke was a right nice chap -

)
In the end, sure...I understand the point but I just can't see how any group could claim the top spot without actual numbers to back it up.
ps) Read Bravo Two Zero though. The SAS? Those are some tough sons-a-bitches.