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Boney_Gildroy wrote:A good one would be to study about the new Ranger division that the regiment will be involved in.

Joint Special Forces Support Group

The Joint Special Forces Support Group, informally known as the "British Rangers", is a proposed new formation of the British Armed Forces, announced in December 2004 as part of the forces' restructuring. It will be set up along the lines of the US Army Rangers, and will act as support to the UKSF: it will be based at St Athan barracks in South Wales, close to the Hereford home of the SAS. Although it will be a tri-service formation, with personnel from the British Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, the initial core will be formed from the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment. As a result of this, 1 PARA became one of the four infantry battalions to be cut from the line infantry.
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Unconfirmed details

On 17 April 2005, a story in the Daily Telegraph reported the following:

* it is intended to be operational by 2008
* it will initially consist of 450 men from 1 PARA, plus another 200 from the Royal Marines and the RAF Regiment
* it will be commanded by a lieutenant colonel from the Parachute Regiment
* selection procedures will be tough, but not as tough as those for the SAS

While the Paras will supply the assault troops for military operations, it is understood that commanders are keen to exploit the special skills of the Royal Marines, such as maritime surveillance, and the RAF Regiment, who would secure landing sites and airfields

However, the story names no source: until an official public announcement, these details should be treated as unconfirmed.

The creation of the unit, to be called the Joint Special Forces Support Group, will mean that Britain's special forces will grow to more than 2,000, their largest number since the Second World War, most of whom will be committed to fighting terrorism within the United Kingdom and abroad.

The 650-man unit will be composed mainly of paratroopers, who have a proven track record of working alongside the SAS, in addition to troops from the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force Regiment.

Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, is understood to have told special forces commanders that the unit should be ready to conduct operations alongside the SAS by early 2008.

The Telegraph has learnt that defence chiefs want the SAS and its Royal Marine equivalent, the Special Boat Service, to be freed to return to their original role of staging special operations.

These would include long-range infiltration operations deep behind enemy lines, counter-insurgency ambushes, and the seizure of terrorist suspects in hostile countries. This would leave more conventional attacks, such as those carried out in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, to the new unit.

Senior officers within the special forces have long believed that the SAS should operate more like its original incarnation, the Special Operations Executive, which was formed in June 1940.

The SOE, composed of male and female agents specialising in sabotage, spying and assassination, was ordered by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze". In Afghanistan during November 2001, the SAS was ordered to help to destroy al-Qaeda bases in the caves of the Tora Bora mountains, an operation that was described by the SAS squadron commander as a misappropriation of special forces.

The new unit will be commanded by a Parachute Regiment lieutenant colonel and will be based at St Athlan Barracks, in South Wales, close to the SAS headquarters in Hereford. The force will be composed of around 450 soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment and 200 members from the Royal Marines and the RAF Regiment.

Troops from across the Army will be invited to join the new unit, but those from outside the Parachute Regiment or the Royal Marines will have to pass rigorous tests in addition to the demanding Army parachute course.

While the Paras will supply the assault troops for military operations, it is understood that commanders are keen to exploit the special skills of the Royal Marines, such as maritime surveillance, and the RAF Regiment, who would secure landing sites and airfields.

The possibility of a new unit was first discussed last year during the controversial restructuring of the infantry, which saw the demise of three infantry battalions.

Gen Jackson convinced Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, of the need for a so-called "Ranger" battalion - based on the United States Rangers - to work alongside the SAS, and the general was effectively able to reduce the number of battalions facing the axe from four to three.

The Parachute Regiment had previously demonstrated its expertise in working alongside the SAS in September 2000, when 110 members of the regiment helped in the rescue of 11 British soldiers who had been kidnapped by the West Side Boys, a Sierra Leone guerrilla organisation. The mission was a success, although one member of the SAS was killed and several Paras were injured.

A senior Army officer described the creation of the force as a "welcome move which has been a long time in coming".

He said: "You could describe the new unit as SAS Lite. Soldiers wishing to become part of it will have to offer much more than the average infantryman but the entrance requirements will not be as demanding as those required by the SAS."