Ranger Regiment – Really???

So amongst all the ongoing cuts, downsizing, trimming the fat away, trying to make the MoD more cost effective for the tax… emerges a new concept… a RANGER REGIMENT!

It wasn’t enough we went and copied the Camo pattern from the yanks which is Multicam and added some funny brush strokes to make it more DPM looking in style and than a few years later make our uniform similar to the US ACU in the addition of the PCS uniform which replaced Soldier 95 uniform nooo… we had to go and make a new Ranger Regiment!

Now everyone including myself whom is a military buff knows of the infamous 75th Rangers Regiment of the United States which isn’t special forces but more a core of “more elite” of the “above average” Infantry choices in the US Army, now these are the guys who get to do the more exciting and dangerous roles in supporting Special Operations like illustrated in Joe Bidens excellent book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden which is a good read if you are into picking up the hard copies because obviously the film has some things tweaked, glorified and basically slides a bit off reality and it’s hard to know the fact from fiction unless you pick up an accurate collection of accounts or speak to the blokes who were on the ground.

So of course the US Rangers are held in high regard due to their arduous training and first hand accounts of how good they are at their job, which is of course being Infantry; taking ground, holding ground and kicking the enemy’s ass in addition to the more boring jobs of military life like drill and peace keeping.

It has to be emphasized they are not Special Forces but they support Special Forces, because Special Forces are just simply too good, highly trained, over paid and its below their stature to do things that the commoners like Infantry crack on with like holding ground and running around on patrol, these guys are more niche and get to do exciting things like jumping from 10,000 feet and get into enemy territory undetected, assasinate high value enemy targets, capture high value targets, rescue US citizens when they have been captured by the enemy and other various stuff and basically when you need to send a message, these are the guys you call.

It has to be understood that defining being elite means lesser manpower and so these guys need some other guys whom are a proven cut above the rest so that’s where the US Rangers come in, they have already proven they are better than the rest by qualifying fo the Ranger tab so when a boring job needs to be done like creating a distraction like attaching an enemy outpost so the Creme de la creme can rope into the heart of the enemy this is where they come in.

So obviously we as a country do love showing off and wasting money but the question is how effective will it be as a concept? The SFSG were creating to support the SAS and included selected units from the Parachute Regiment, RAF Regiment (why???) and the Royal Marines, now I won’t comment on why the Rockapes were needed but I’m guessing it’s down to the keeping not feeling left out that the other departments elites are out getting the glory whilst their bad boys are stagging on airfields, but hey, I’m sure they can be just as good as the rest.

So, what’s the point in a new Ranger Regiment when you already have the SFSG? How will they be any different in their function and set up and will the SFSG be an addition, integrate with or work with this new glorious annoucement of the MOD, more to come as and when it will be available!