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[Webby]

For the best book ever written about a con job read : Micheal Asher's The Real Bravo Two Zero. As he point's out in the book the real danger of this type of behavior is that it creates an unrealistic expectation on troop's to do the impossible. Fake ability and exploits put people's lives at risk ! Don't the people who do this think about that.
We have an English saying for this that sum's it up nicely : Gilding The Lilly.

Lofty Wiseman an ex-SAS trooper, was once asked if he was part of the team at the Iranian Embassy siege. He said, '' I wasn't there, but I know twenty thousand blokes who where. It was very crowded on that balcony ! ''.

LOL Webby.   

[JimH]

To me it is not fair to call the books written of the account of bravo two Zero as Con Jobs.
These guys were in the crap,were compromised,were not prepared for the extreme conditions they encountered,had equipment problems,some captured,some died,one walked out.

Mr Asher went in with info and ATTEMPTED to recreate the Mission as it went down according to him to try and find out what happened to his friend Vince.

According to Mr Asher it is the TRUE story but in Reality it is his version of a story,recreated from different sources.

I am sure that the members of the Teams versions of events are all SLIGHTLY different as to each mans position,degree of the unknown,and each man's perspective being different.
Ask members of any unit,team be it military,police ,fire what events happened during a certain operation and you ALWAYS get a varied story based on individual views.
This is why ALL staements are collected as an after action report and all looked at to find a common story.
When stories are all the same then one must suspect the members got together and created it.

Men who were there and did the job,no matter the slight differences of story,thinking and or embellishment should not be lumped as cons along side Fakes,Frauds,Posers,Pretenders and Out Right Liars.

My opinion.

In regards to Lofty Wieman's remark:

He is speaking of Mostly the Fakes,the men who never served,the pub poser's telling stories.

If we look at the after action report or the for TV Recreation with the SAS Members who were there during the Iranian Hostage mission we will see many Varied perspectives.

[Joe Hubbard]

It is also important to point out that Asher's sources were mostly Iraqis who were supposed to have been there.  I had seen a TV special about that book and all of these Iraqis played down any heroics from the British SAS soldiers.  I thought the whole show lacked credibility.

Joe

[JimH]

Hi Joe,
I watched the TV show also and thought the same.
You do not go back years later and interview a family,who supposedly are on the move constantly,find the family on the scene at the time of The event with Bravo Two Zero  and expect them to give a factual accounting.

The only thing to me that caused me to think Mr Asher was not just trying to make the SAS team seem like complete Fools was that he was a Former SAS Trooper,knew Vince and was just trying to justify his death.

[Hock]

When you think about it. How many times has a team creeping about enemy territory been accidentally spotted by civilians, causing disaster! And what can the good guys do when that happens? Really?  (That and radio problems!)

Hock

[JimH]

quote Hock:
"When you think about it. How many times has a team creeping about enemy territory been accidentally spotted by civilians, causing disaster! And what can the good guys do when that happens? Really?  (That and radio problems!)"

Surprisingly the best laid plans get screwed by someone stumbling across your position.

A few stories have been told by several US SF teams  of being inserted into a crowded area or being in a position for days and or weeks and then herders come along and things happen.

The radio situation is usually delt with in planning.
If comms are not working shortly after the teams are inserted and the automatic resupply is set in play and equipment and supplies, which the team has prepacked, is delivered to the predetermined  DZ or LZ.

Bravo Two Zero was able to send messages,so they had the right Frquencies.
They were not able to receive,so thinking they had the wrong frequencies came up but it was a radio problem,not a radio man problem.
Even checking the workings of the gear before departure/insertion does not mean the gear will work when needed.

Teams inserted behind enemy lines usually have a means of communicating with friendly aircraft so that should have enabled B20 to relay and receive  orders and allow for location ID and route of march,even though regular radio was NG.

Murphy's Law showed all sides of its face to those guys at all turns.

[Webby]

Look guy's just two thing's : Fact : The after-action report given at their debrief was completely different to the event's described by McNab.

Fact : A con is when you deceive a person or persons or swindle them.

Telling Lie's, half-truth's and embellishment's of the truth in order to sell books and make money is a very dangerous thing to do. Policy maker's and senior ranks , put plan's into action based on what they are told people can and cannot do. If they believe the story and not the fact's, real people will suffer.

LOL webby...

   

 

[JimH]

Webby,
To me,the facts are the Team was Inserted,the crap hit the fan.
The Team had problems with comms,Weather and carrying the Load.
They then had multiple  encounters ,whether a fire fight or not and they left there gear and footed it out.
They were persued and some died,some caught,one walked out.

Quote Webby:
"If they believe the story and not the fact's, real people will suffer."

I believe the quote was exactly what Mr Asher said as part of his reason for writing his book.

Who would suffer in a similar situation?
In the Spec Ops community all these events are looked at and become part of training so the correct,or what is seen in Training to be the correct response, is trained and learned.

Even if it were not trained as an after action.
What is the possible outcome if people believe the book version ?
That a team encounters an enemy,is compromised and they engage in a fire fight,as alledged in the book ? Rather than encounter a tribe who ,supposedly,just followed them ?

No one in an SF unit will suffer due to the writings and possible slight embellishments of Ryan,McNab or Coburn.
Outside of a similar unit,in a possible similar situation,the embellishment and or Reality do not really matter.

My opinion

[Webby]

I hope that you are right, because if people do not learn from the mistakes of history they are destined to repeat them.

Bad comm's contributed to the loss of life at Arnhem, poor planning lead to lives lost in The Falkland's, Poor comm's lead to friendly fire in Gulf war one. The list go's on. I've not lost hope just yet, but I find the bravado doe's not help.

Alot of these account's of action behind the line's are fascinating, but also teach the enemy how operations are carried out. What kit they use, how many in a team, what the objectives are, great stuff, show them how it's done. If you have a secret operation. It should be secret. 

Stay safe all..

Webby.       

[JimH]

Nothing in any military force is actually a Secret.
We can try to keep as much from the public eye and from our enemies  as possible but this is never the Case.

The SAS and US had men in Afghanistan teaching them how to fight the Russians in the 80's,tactics learned and employed against units today.
The US and others Trained and trained with Saddams military.

The US had a man who attended the Special Forces Foreign school as an Egyptian,he later came to the US joined the US Army went through the SF course,worked at or around the SF Training cneter and stole booklets and info on training,he later went to work for Osama and planned Bombings and led training for Al Quada.

The friendly forces of the world train and exchange training all the time.
Today's friend may be tomorrows enemy and todays enemy may be tomorrows friend.

Not much is truly a secret in warfare.
Not much ,as far as secret tactical information, was released by any of the B20 books.

We can look at embellishment from a unit and or its members as a form of Psy Ops against any enemy in the future ,because if you truly have a band of men,limited in number who will willfully engage an enemy of many more times their size,this causes the enemy to rethink contact.(this is mostly what happens to and in Spec Ops units)
WWII  and other conflicts have many reports and documented cases of such behavior,
behavior which gave the enemy cause for pause.

As far as mess ups in Battle this is always possible that is why there is a Murphy's law,no matter how well planned unexpected things always arise.
Good training,preparations and planning should lead to the person and or Unit/s to be able to over come and adapt while carrying on the mission.

[Webby]

I'm happy that I put this post in it has created a good deal of debate.

My concern as always is the safety of British,U.S and our allies in the struggle against terrorist's. In my mind anything that could cause them to be in a situation more hazards than necessary, is an unacceptable risk.

This including : negative reporting, e.g going on and on about kit problems.   

Giving of information useful to the other side e.g On the eve of The Battle of Goose Green we where watching news stories confirming the battle was hours away. If the Argentines where in any doubt at all that was laid to rest.

Don't Give succour to the enemy.

Webby.     

       

[redcap]

I think you can give B20 and Andy McNab the benefit of the doubt but only so far. The other version of events as presented by Asher are so very different yet also so very plausible. Having said that one must weigh up the 'money trail' and the WIIFM Ratio (What's In It For Me).

McNab became a celebrity and a millionaire from the book and subsequent books, tv shows and so on. It is arguable his tenure in the SAS was about over after B20 and up until then it was rare for any serving or former member to write about his service. McNab was followed by Ryan and a whole slew of others. If you compare the two accounts, B20 and The Real B20 the more scholarly version, supported with citations and references, is Asher's.

The fact remains Asher did return to the area of operations a few years later and he did carry out an investigation that in the book I read and the TV documentary I watched had far more credibility and believability than the SAS as Supermen version McNab's publishers made a zillion on.

Why have the other members of the patrol never come out in support of Mcnab? They have remained pretty tight lipped but then they also remained in the Regiment. Ryan's version differs enough from McNab's to suggest the usual reality that two people will witness the same thing and remember it differently but on the earlier matters of their discovery and escape he remains close enough to McNab's account. This suggests to me he felt there was little to be gained calling Mcnab out since his book hit the shelves first and was already a huge success. To counter McNab's version of events would not have helped sales of "The One That Got Away" so they let sleeping dogs lie. Ryan is also called to book for his claims of killing an Iraqi during his flight which has been if not disproved by Asher, at least put into grave doubt.

Both men have gone on, with the aid of ghost writers, to churn out a stack of novels avidly eaten up by wanna be spotty faces all over. I confess I was very disappointed with Mcnab after reading Asher. I still believe he is closer to the truth than McNab even if I do take anything his Iraqi witnesses say with caution. Weighing up one versus the other I would say Mcnab has more to lose than any Iraqi goat herder or taxi driver.

None of this takes away from the courage of the men who endured, what ever the truth of the matter. They were there and yes, things go quickly out of shape to even the best equipped, led and planned of operations. But that's just Murphy playing with you.
Redcap