What do the new ranger units really mean?

From a friend of mine in the know.

Info re the Spec Inf / Ranger concept in case anyone is interested in a few more details.

The short read is:

“‘Spec Inf’ / 'Ranger’ units: hats, organised in to regimental sized training teams, to do BMATT type roles, given a fancy name to prevent them leaving because they will never go war fighting ever again as they have no firepower, but to keep their cap badges to prevent old and bold getting high blood pressure about their regiments being axed. Nothing to do with UKSF, SFSG, Para Regt, 75th Ranger Regiment or US Special Forces (Green Berets)."

In more detail:

A lot has been written about the nascent 'Spec Inf' (now labelled 'Ranger') concept since it was announced by Sec State for Defence in HoC day before yesterday.

Now it has been in the public domain for a few days with much comment and many questions, thought it might be helpful /interesting to clarify a few things.

The Spec Inf role was established several years ago to capitalise on the success of Military Capacity Building work conducted by a small, Joint Services Unit called the Joint Counter Terrorism Training and Advisory Team (JCTAT). It was also part of reducing Army manpower in the last Defence Review.

The original name ‘Specialist Infantry’ Battalions was dreadful MOD PR ’spin.’ Or putting lipstick on a pig.

You are either an Infantryman or you are not. There is, in my opinion, no such thing as a ‘specialist infantryman,' outside the various different Inf skill sets (Sp Wpns, etc) or delivery specialisations like Air and Sea.

However the MOD were deeply concerned (probably justifiably) that soldiers in these Regiments would leave in droves from these Infantry units if their title was more accurately linked to their role (like ‘Foreign Military Training Team Battalions’). They became the ‘hats of the hats,’ if you will...

JCTAT was a permanently established joint services (RN, Army, RAF) cadre. It was based in Folkestone and its role was to do the planning, reconnaissance and coordination of military capacity building teams in priority countries worldwide (as directed by HM Govt / FCO via MOD) under the ‘Prevent’ strand of the UK Counter Terrorism policy.

These were military training teams, up-skilling local units to give them the tactics, techniques and procedures to be more effective combating terrorists in their own country. The theory behind this was to stop terrorism in the countries of origin before it could be exported. (More amusingly, JCTAT's informal motto to themselves was ‘Training tomorrow’s terrorists, today.’)

The Training Teams were effectively delivering basic infantry, weapons handling, tactics (patrolling), communications, command and control, some low-level J2 / Int and Med training. This was just what was needed and made the foreign / partner units being trained significantly more effective .

The manpower for these training teams came from across Defence. Majority from trawls from Infantry Regiments because of the principal skill sets required. No different from the British Military Assistance Training Teams (BMATTs) that preceded them.

The main difference was that JCTAT did all the planning, recce, coord. The (Infantry) soldiers implementing just had to turn up, PDT, do the task and then go back to Unit once the 6-8 week task was over.

This minimised the impact on the unit’s supplying the soldiers and meant that you could build teams from trawls pan-defence, rather than dicking one unit to do it all within their own readiness / training cycles / resources.

It worked very well and JCTAT were a brilliant organisation. So good, and so effective at what it did on the ground, that it was agreed that the role needed to be expanded.

This need to expand the JCTAT scale coincided with a requirement to reduce Army manpower in the last Defence Review.

Doing away with Cap Badges is perennially unpopular and raises the blood pressure of the ‘tweed and blazer' brigade, so the Army trimmed some Inf Bns down, from 600’ish establishment to 400’ish establishment. Most notably, they removed 70% of these Bns firepower by removing the Support Weapons elements; specifically the Mortar Platoons.

This way they kept Cap Badges, but culled manpower and saved money training the most important people (Mortars). They also effectively took the teeth out of these Infantry Units and made them fit for purpose for deploying up to Company sized training teams but completely unable to war fight - but this bit was, naturally, downplayed by the MOD.

The Spec Inf Bns were a step up from JCTAT because so much of working with Indigenous Forces (as with so much in life) is about creating and maintaining effective working relationships and trust.

Multiple different training teams, with different people, was better than nothing but not the most efficient nor effective. Allocating Battalions to tasks meant that they could rotate men from the same unit through the same task in an enduring fashion and build these relationships. It was also sustainable from a UK manpower perspective.

Let’s be quite clear, the requirement to support the ‘Prevent’ strand of Defence CT Policy using Military Capacity Building via Military Training Teams was, and remains, genuine and helps UK support and influence globally.

The British Army has done it for years from SF to conventional Inf since World War 2. The Spec Inf Bns have done a great job over the last five years that they have been doing the role and should be commended for this.

Reorganising the Spec Inf Bns and the role in to the structure which includes 77 Bde is to be commended, and is likely to make them even more effective, which is a good thing.

However, lets be quite clear, this is nothing to do with either UKSF or 16 Bde, nor will the Spec Inf Bns be Task Org’d under the UKSF Group / DSF.

Lets also be quite clear that these tasks have been being done very effectively by Infantry soldiers for years. It’s nothing new.

Personally, I only think it is an interesting diversion if you are doing it as a break from your primary role as an Infantry soldier, not as a role in itself.

Any Infantryman can step down to do a training task. A ’Spec Inf’ infantryman would struggle to go the other way.

The ‘Spec Inf’ / ‘Ranger’ role has nothing to do with the high end war fighting role that the US Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment conducts.

In fact, rebranding the Spec Inf Bns as 'Rangers' is a tendentious misnomer (aka PR Spin). When much nomenclature worldwide is benchmarked against US, when you say 'Ranger,' people inevitably think '75th.’ The 75th RR is one of the most stringently selected, highly trained, best equipped, most formidably armed/equipped, and effective light infantry direct/offensive action units in the world and an integral part of SOCOM.

The British units that have recently been designated as 'Rangers’ in the Spec Inf role are not rigorously selected, and only have a modicum of additional training - which should more accurately be regarded as a high end PDT, rather than any really specialist training.

Nor can the British, self-appointed ‘Ranger’ Battalions ever war fight (without significant re-roling). Mainly because they do not have any integral firepower but also because they are structured to work as individual sub units with zero training or experience of coordinated BG level ops.

Nor is the role the same as the US Army Special Forces (Green Beret) role. This is small teams/ODAs (15 x pax) working, training, and fighting alongside (forward mentoring) indigenous forces as a ‘force multiplier’(controlling CAS, for example).

The Spec Inf / ‘Ranger’ role we are discussing here has zero remit to ‘forward mentor.'. It is considered too high risk and the Spec Inf Bns are not resourced for essential supporting skill sets like terminal control of Air Fires, nor for the high-end medical skills to sustain trauma casualties for extended periods in austere environments.

As anyone at St Athan, particularly in the early years of REGO, will tell you, 'forward mentoring,’ or leading from the front, dragging Indig guys by the webbing in to contact is essential to avoid you and 3 other Paratroopers finding yourselves as the only assaulting troops on target, while the locals remained in cover. (In fairness, once they got it, the locals were solid, but in the early days, it needed a lot of ‘leadership’ and ‘encouragement.’)

The SFSG will remain part of the UKSF Group. It will have nothing to do with the Spec Inf Role.

2 and 3 PARA will remain ‘in-role’ in 16 Bde. It will have nothing to do with the Spec Inf Role (apart from benefitting from not getting trawled for training tasks).

16 Bde’s role is deemed critical to Defence so there is no plan to expand the SFSG’s capacity by moving 2 and / or 3 PARA in to the UKSF Group as a second unit in the SFSG.

Hope this clarifies few things.

In summary: hats remain hats. They can call themselves whatever they want to give themselves a nice warm feeling. They are big training teams whose units cannot war fight. ‘Swift & Bold; shit when cold.'

Chip Chapman

was '2 Up' from JCTAT as Dir UK & CT Ops. I was their ‘1 Up.’

Pete Lodge

was one of the JCTAT TLs for years and, without exaggerating, one of the reasons the Unit was so successful. They may have more to add.

Ama Nesciri