NATO has quietly being Positioning combat infantry units in eastern Libya to act as forward air controllers and if necessary act as a last line of defense against Qaddafi’s forces.
The French 11th Parachute brigade has 200-500 troops on the ground. Contrary to popular American cultural references the French Paratroopers are very capable and experienced.
British troops. The British SAS and Royal Marines were probably the first NATO troops inserted into Libya. The SAS have a long history of dessert warfare and are considered the best behind the lines strike force in NATO.
Italy has some very good Special Forces teams trained and patterned after US Navy SEAL teams. Italy has a long history in Libya and probably wants to avoid overt action. Italian forces are probably mixed with other NATO forces and not wearing Italian uniforms.
Canada pretends to be all warm and fuzzy but the truth is they always want to included in the fight. Canadian Forces Joint Task Force 2 does not officially exist, but they have been heavily involved with Special Forces operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa. JTF2 are a mix of SAS and Delta. American commanders frequently have JTF2 soldiers in their units and don’t know that they are not Americans.
US Army Special Forces. Green Berets and Delta troopers. Bigger, badder and less visible than many other special forces. You may hear of their failures but few hear of their successes.
If there is a conflict in an Arabic country these guys are shoulder to shoulder with NATO troops. Sayeret Matkal is an elite special forces unit of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Its main roles are counter-terrorism, deep reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, but the unit is first and foremost a field intelligence-gathering unit, used to obtain strategic intelligence behind enemy lines. Sayeret Matkal is also in charge of hostage rescue missions outside Israeli borders. The unit is modeled after the British Army’s Special Air Service.
NATO may have upto 1000 soldiers on the ground but they are heavily outnumbered by Libyan Soldiers and mercenaries. NATO air power and cruise missile strikes will be the real power brought to play.
Special Forces have their uses but the facts that most Generals would rather go to war with a Marine Expeditionary Unit at their command than all the Special Forces in the US service.The sure sign that a major ground operation is at hand is when the Marines show up.
A Marine Expeditionary Unit packs more fire power per soldier than any other force in the world. The United States had 7 Marine Expeditionary Units.
The Marine Expeditionary Unit is normally built around the building blocks of a MAGTF: a reinforced Marine infantry battalion is the ground combat element, the aviation combat element is a composite helicopter squadron, a battalion-sized logistics combat element, and a command element. Troop strength is about 2,200, commanded by a colonel, and is deployed from an amphibious assault ship.
Tags: Attack, forces, Libya, NATOPosted in News | No Comments »
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.