NationStates Jolt Archive

If someone close to you was being held hostage by a hostile party (let's try to avoid the cliche Middle Eastern terrorists shall we?). You hear helicopters in the distance and closing; obviously a rescue attempt is underway. Who do you hope are the guys (or gals) in the helo?Who would you choose? Why?

Edit: My own choices would be.

1) British SAS
2) Sayeret Matkal
3) US Army Delta Force
4) Chinese Special 'Police' Unit
5) US Navy SEALs - their track record is less than achieved when it comes to HRT
6) Russian Spetnaz - as a last resort, just as long as they don't use that opiate sedative gas like the Moscow theatre siege

Edit 2: I would like to add GSG-9 now, but I can't change the poll now.

GSG-9, because I know most about them. And they've got a pretty decent trackrecord.

GSG-9, because I know most about them. And they've got a pretty decent trackrecord.
Including shooting terrorists who surrender in the head.

Love that Wegner.

SAS


Let's face it; any group that can get a group of IRA hostage takers to surrender just by letting it be known that they have been deployed and might be sent in to the building must be doing something right.

Including shooting terrorists who surrender in the head.
Maybe I don't know that much about them afterall. When and where was that?

Special Air Service. Consistently the best in these sorts of situations.

SAS in combination with Jesse Jackson.

Maybe I don't know that much about them afterall. When and where was that?
The Mogadishu hostage rescue.

The commander, one Wegner, dispatched two of the terrorists after they had been subdued, with his own pistol to their heads.

There was a quiet stink about it in Germany, but since the rescue went so well, nothing was done.

The SAS has a good record of killing people unawares as well - in Northern Ireland, due to sniping by IRA members using weapons from the US, the SAS (which excels at sniping), spent a lot of time whacking IRA members in Armagh from long range. Sort of tit for tat.

Men in such units, in such a line of work, are rarely as clean as you imagine. It's dirty, dangerous work and they are up against dirty, dangerous people. Niceties such as honoring surrender often go right out the window.

Hmpf. GSG-9 not even mentioned in the poll.

1,500 missions, and only fired shots four times. Surely that's a good thing.

French Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (EPIGN)i thought the french hostage rescue unit was the GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale)

i thought the french hostage rescue unit was the GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale)

Maybe the name has been changed recently.

After all, they were the guys who blew up the Greenpeace people.

GIGN is police, as is GSG-9. For some reason, it seems like the OP is listing mainly military units, seemingly at random.

JTF2 (gotta be patriotic, and they are pretty bad ass)

def not the spetsnaz, I have huge respect for them as a military unit, but not as police/hostage rescue unit, they are trained in *only* one thing, killing. If I needed someone killed, then Id vote spetsnaz

Why isn't the A-Team on the list?

Why isn't the A-Team on the list?
Whats all this jibba jabba

SAS would definately be first, but a close second (and one not on the list for some reason) would be GSG-9, Spetsnaz would be a trailing third, and then maybe some sort of American HRT, maybe

I picked Delta Force, I mean the guys essentially dont exist