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filipeamaral's review against another edition
5.0
Rottman once again demonstrates his talent as a writer and military specialist. This is a great book about the world's special units in the 80's. The author starts the book by presenting some of the recurrent questions about the need for elite forces. Detractors point to 'leadership drain', 'selection-destruction cycle', 'resource over-allocation', 'misutilisation', 'politically-backed origins', and 'resentment among conventional forces'. The author concedes that all those reservations are valid to some extent, but the more conventionally-minded soldiers usually miss the point. Special units cannot be produced "en masse" and must be maintained to perfect and advance their skill, to preserve continuity of doctrine and, most importantly, to build "esprit de corps" - this point is missed by most scholars.
The author makes a distinction of special operations forces (SOFs) - SAS, Green Berets, LRRP - and special purpose forces (SPFs) - paras, marines and other types of light infantry. This distinction is very usefull to help the reader not to muddle through a myriad of traditional names with different meanings. One thing the author should have emphasized is that the special units (SOFs and SPFs alike) have intense proficiency and superior knowledge of small unit tactics - something most people outside the military don't even know exists - whether or not they are using their special abilities. Elite units need better small unit leadership (corporals and junior NCOs) because they have to carry the independent operations the author is mentioning when defending the maintenance of the parachute training.
Two problems arises in this introduction because of the author's cultural environment. The first one is when Rottman is treating the special delivery means - parachute, scuba/swimmer, helicopter and amphibious landing - he says that general purpose units can be trained to use the two latter ones (helicopter and amphibious) with equal effectiveness. While he is not wrong, as a parachutist himself, he omitted the fact that soldiers who never jumped from a plane in their lives had the same percentage of jump injuries in Dien Bien Phu as the professional paratroopers. Much too often the importance of the amphibious assault is ignored by today's writers, the marines/naval infantry have to advance with their backs to the water and this must be done without having to shout orders or keep prodding reluctant soldiers to move forward. The units have to immediately and confidently move forward to their assignments to keep momentum. This confirms with the author's assertion of units capable of facing challenging odds; S.L.A. Marshalls notes, during the US Army's amphibious assaults in the Pacific, men who just gave up hope and kneeled motionless in silent resignation in the beaches. The existence of naval units is the epitome of the speed and flexibility the author mentions; with a basic formation of 3 fireteams (4 men) forming a 13-men squad, against the army's 10-man squad as basic maneuver formation, the marines have a better small unit flexibility (and firepower, as there is a SAW for every fireteam).
The second problem is when the author say the USSF and the British pioneered counterinsurgency in the 60's. This information is wrong and in accordance to the cultural "insularity" of the English-speakers (notably those from the US). The pioneers of counterinsurgency were the French and the British one decade earlier, with the French holding courses to foreign students as early as 1958, in Algeria. Later the French would export their knowledge to the Americas, teaching not only the nascent US Special Forces in Fort Bragg, but the whole of Latin America. Other notable students were the Rhodesians, the South Africans, the Israelis and the Portuguese (the reason why the Portuguese commando badges in pg. 21 are exact copies of the French ones). The airmobile techniques of vertical envelopment and helicopter gunships were pioneered by the French in Algeria and were taught to the US military by the French (the first US airmobile manual was translated from the French one in 1958, something the Americans never give due credit) and when the US Army was still struggling to airlift an experimental unit in 1962/63, the French already had "tank hunter" gunships. The Communists didn't sat idle either and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces used heliborne mountain counter-guerrilla units to hunt down the anti-Castro guerrillas in the Escambray mountains, quickly inserting groups into battle areas and pursuing guerrillas in the first half of the 60's.
Anyway, the author finishes this first introduction by mentioning the importance of the elite units in fighting guerrillas. "Guerrilla" means "small war", this name is given because in insurrectional warfare most battles occur within and below company-strenght; thus requiring elite units with the needed proficiency on small unit tactics in the ways I already mentioned above, and those small unit tactics are superbly covered by Gordon L. Rottman in the book "Vietnam Infantry Tactics".
Then Rottman continues his introduction through the explanation of the importance of the beret as a symbol of elite status, and the different berets seen on the [marvellous] plates are the high points of this book. In my opinion, the most beautiful one is the beret depicted in plate F2: Oman, Sultan's SF in its royal purple with the SAS-inspired badge. There is one hiccup, though; plate E6 of the Iranian special forces has the beret on the wrong side - they have it "à française". In 1953, 10 officers of the Imperial Iranian Army were sent to France for paratrooper training. Returning to Iran, they established the Paratrooper Unit in 1955, which evolved into the Paratrooper Battalion in 1959. For this reason, the Iranian beret is used “in French style”, with the badge on the right side.
The notable exceptions are the Sikh paratrooper wearing a maroon 'Pagri', the Italian 'Alpini' hat, the German mountaineer 'Bergmütze' and the Brazilian marine with his 'Gorro de Fita'. Speaking of Brazilian, there are spelling errors for the Portuguese names. The Marine SOF Battalion is called "Tonelero", without the "s", in honor to a naval battle of 1851. The names of the jungle school were "Centro de Instrução de Guerra na Selva" and "Centro de Operações na Selva e Ações de Comandos" and the marine division is the "Divisão Anfíbia". The Commando badge in 3b is the army commando badge (just in case it was ambiguous). And last but not least, "Fuzileiros Navais" can also be translated as "marine riflemen". Those mispellings are understandable for the period when this book was first printed and do not affect the quality of the text. This book is also filled with B&W pictures and colored plates of many different badges, one even better than the last one.
The pictures in this book, with the exception of some blurred pictures, are as good as you could get with the technology of the time. Some pictures are quite exotic: The one in page 9 show the barrel of a SIG-Manurhin 540, on the back of the légionnaire at the left; a rifle used briefly as a stopgap by some French units until the arrival of the FAMAS and pictures of it are quite rare today. In page 52 there is a blurred picture of Cuban marines wearing black uniforms almost identical to the Soviet ones.
The text is good, the photos and plates are above average, creating a book that survives the test of time, making "World Special Forces Insignia" one of my favorite Osprey books of all time. Gordon L. Rottman is one of my favorite Osprey authors and he made a superb work in this volume. I hope he keeps writing more great books such as this one.
The author makes a distinction of special operations forces (SOFs) - SAS, Green Berets, LRRP - and special purpose forces (SPFs) - paras, marines and other types of light infantry. This distinction is very usefull to help the reader not to muddle through a myriad of traditional names with different meanings. One thing the author should have emphasized is that the special units (SOFs and SPFs alike) have intense proficiency and superior knowledge of small unit tactics - something most people outside the military don't even know exists - whether or not they are using their special abilities. Elite units need better small unit leadership (corporals and junior NCOs) because they have to carry the independent operations the author is mentioning when defending the maintenance of the parachute training.
Two problems arises in this introduction because of the author's cultural environment. The first one is when Rottman is treating the special delivery means - parachute, scuba/swimmer, helicopter and amphibious landing - he says that general purpose units can be trained to use the two latter ones (helicopter and amphibious) with equal effectiveness. While he is not wrong, as a parachutist himself, he omitted the fact that soldiers who never jumped from a plane in their lives had the same percentage of jump injuries in Dien Bien Phu as the professional paratroopers. Much too often the importance of the amphibious assault is ignored by today's writers, the marines/naval infantry have to advance with their backs to the water and this must be done without having to shout orders or keep prodding reluctant soldiers to move forward. The units have to immediately and confidently move forward to their assignments to keep momentum. This confirms with the author's assertion of units capable of facing challenging odds; S.L.A. Marshalls notes, during the US Army's amphibious assaults in the Pacific, men who just gave up hope and kneeled motionless in silent resignation in the beaches. The existence of naval units is the epitome of the speed and flexibility the author mentions; with a basic formation of 3 fireteams (4 men) forming a 13-men squad, against the army's 10-man squad as basic maneuver formation, the marines have a better small unit flexibility (and firepower, as there is a SAW for every fireteam).
The second problem is when the author say the USSF and the British pioneered counterinsurgency in the 60's. This information is wrong and in accordance to the cultural "insularity" of the English-speakers (notably those from the US). The pioneers of counterinsurgency were the French and the British one decade earlier, with the French holding courses to foreign students as early as 1958, in Algeria. Later the French would export their knowledge to the Americas, teaching not only the nascent US Special Forces in Fort Bragg, but the whole of Latin America. Other notable students were the Rhodesians, the South Africans, the Israelis and the Portuguese (the reason why the Portuguese commando badges in pg. 21 are exact copies of the French ones). The airmobile techniques of vertical envelopment and helicopter gunships were pioneered by the French in Algeria and were taught to the US military by the French (the first US airmobile manual was translated from the French one in 1958, something the Americans never give due credit) and when the US Army was still struggling to airlift an experimental unit in 1962/63, the French already had "tank hunter" gunships. The Communists didn't sat idle either and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces used heliborne mountain counter-guerrilla units to hunt down the anti-Castro guerrillas in the Escambray mountains, quickly inserting groups into battle areas and pursuing guerrillas in the first half of the 60's.
Anyway, the author finishes this first introduction by mentioning the importance of the elite units in fighting guerrillas. "Guerrilla" means "small war", this name is given because in insurrectional warfare most battles occur within and below company-strenght; thus requiring elite units with the needed proficiency on small unit tactics in the ways I already mentioned above, and those small unit tactics are superbly covered by Gordon L. Rottman in the book "Vietnam Infantry Tactics".
Then Rottman continues his introduction through the explanation of the importance of the beret as a symbol of elite status, and the different berets seen on the [marvellous] plates are the high points of this book. In my opinion, the most beautiful one is the beret depicted in plate F2: Oman, Sultan's SF in its royal purple with the SAS-inspired badge. There is one hiccup, though; plate E6 of the Iranian special forces has the beret on the wrong side - they have it "à française". In 1953, 10 officers of the Imperial Iranian Army were sent to France for paratrooper training. Returning to Iran, they established the Paratrooper Unit in 1955, which evolved into the Paratrooper Battalion in 1959. For this reason, the Iranian beret is used “in French style”, with the badge on the right side.
The notable exceptions are the Sikh paratrooper wearing a maroon 'Pagri', the Italian 'Alpini' hat, the German mountaineer 'Bergmütze' and the Brazilian marine with his 'Gorro de Fita'. Speaking of Brazilian, there are spelling errors for the Portuguese names. The Marine SOF Battalion is called "Tonelero", without the "s", in honor to a naval battle of 1851. The names of the jungle school were "Centro de Instrução de Guerra na Selva" and "Centro de Operações na Selva e Ações de Comandos" and the marine division is the "Divisão Anfíbia". The Commando badge in 3b is the army commando badge (just in case it was ambiguous). And last but not least, "Fuzileiros Navais" can also be translated as "marine riflemen". Those mispellings are understandable for the period when this book was first printed and do not affect the quality of the text. This book is also filled with B&W pictures and colored plates of many different badges, one even better than the last one.
The pictures in this book, with the exception of some blurred pictures, are as good as you could get with the technology of the time. Some pictures are quite exotic: The one in page 9 show the barrel of a SIG-Manurhin 540, on the back of the légionnaire at the left; a rifle used briefly as a stopgap by some French units until the arrival of the FAMAS and pictures of it are quite rare today. In page 52 there is a blurred picture of Cuban marines wearing black uniforms almost identical to the Soviet ones.
The text is good, the photos and plates are above average, creating a book that survives the test of time, making "World Special Forces Insignia" one of my favorite Osprey books of all time. Gordon L. Rottman is one of my favorite Osprey authors and he made a superb work in this volume. I hope he keeps writing more great books such as this one.
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