Robert Stirling - SAS Ultimate Guide to Combat: How to Fight and Survive in Modern Warfare

This book will teach you a wide range of advanced soldiering skills known only to the most experienced and highly trained soldiers in the world. If you want to understand everything the switched on Special Forces operator needs to know, plus quite a lot more relating to planning military operations, then read on.

You may already be a soldier of some kind and presumably you want to be both a better soldier and to stay alive while you are doing it. The chances are that if you are a soldier then you are either going on operations where some guys come back in body bags or you want to join the particular Special Forces (SF) group that is your idea of the dogs gonads: British Special Air Service (SAS), US Navy SEALs, US Army Rangers, German Jagdkommando or Russian Spetznaz. And the only reason you would join a Special Forces unit would be to go where the action is. Isnt it?

So one way or another you are going to fight. And if you are going to fight as a soldier then you need to know what you are doing because, in the end, you must either win or you will die. For sure, against a force of Taleban or al-Qaeda insurgents, surrender is not a realistic option. Not if you want to die an old man in bed with all your bits attached so you either succeed in your mission and stay alive or, eventually, you dont. To keep your mind on the job I will just mention here that I have seen insurgents in Afghanistan dig a hole like a deep grave and throw some sticks in the bottom. Then they doused the sticks with petrol and tossed a match in so it lit up like the gateway to Hell. When it was nice and warm they rolled their prisoners in. Just with their hands tied behind their backs so they could jump about a bit but not get out. You do not want to end up in a similar situation.

What going on operations playing on the two-way range and joining a Special Forces unit have in common is that you need a thorough knowledge of soldiering skills to stay alive. Knowledge ranging from what the grunts are taught in basic training through to the skills taught to Special Forces operators right up to the wide range of military knowledge required of those tactical officers who plan special operations. This is where you will get that knowledge. Whatever you do as a soldier at the moment, the chances are that in this book you will learn a few military skills and about bits of kit you just never had the chance to come across before.

You might say, quite rightly, that any knowledge only improves your odds of survival on the battlefield. What I would say in reply is that some units in Afghanistan, as I am writing this, are taking 10% casualties killed and seriously wounded. Are you happy with a 90% chance of coming back in one piece or would you rather lift the odds to 99%? Its up to you.

At this point you might be wondering who the hell I am to tell you all this. Well Im no Arnold Schwarzenegger or Captain America. Ive just done a bit of soldiering here and there and been in a fair few firefights. I was a British Paratrooper, tank soldier, passed SAS selection at 19 and did some covert work in Northern Ireland before leaving the British Army for a bit more action in the African Bush Wars of the 1980s. Ive only been wounded twice and Ive learnt from that. I still train European Special Forces in unarmed combat and various units around the world in all sorts of soldiering skills.

The author teaching unarmed combat to some interesting characters at the Vienna Military Academy Austria 2009: notice the foot. (Authors Collection)

You may think that a bit of experience of staying alive, and a lifetime of working with various armies across the world, gives me some grounds to tell other soldiers how to stay alive and do some damage to the enemy. Or you may not I can stand criticism from anyone who has seen a few rounds fired in anger.

Some people have accused me of helping the enemy by providing them with soldiering skills to use against our guys. I tell them not to believe everything they see on TV. Terrorists and insurgents are, for the most part, neither stupid nor badly trained. And anyone who says they are is either ignorant or trying not to frighten the children. Insurgents already know everything in this book that they can use. Insurgents get better training than most infantry soldiers so you can be sure that this book is not helping them. In any event, the roles they play are quite different and the tactics useful to a peacekeeper for staying alive while operating a vehicle checkpoint, for example, are quite useless to the modern terrorist.

This book is effectively a training manual to raise your soldiering skill levels to those of operators serving with the best of the worlds modern Special Forces, from the US Navy SEALs through the Russian Spetsnaz to the SAS. On top of that we also look at a wide range of weapons and tactics useful to the Special Forces officer in planning operations.

The way I have laid it out is as follows:

Personal Weapons so you know how to shoot anything you come across

Food & Shelter so you can keep cool, warm, dry and get yourself something to eat

Staying Healthy so you can dodge exotic diseases and patch your mates up

Not Getting Shot so you can come home and collect those shiny medals

Not Getting Shelled so you can come home in one piece

Not Getting Mined so soldiering wont get in the way of your dancing skills

Dodging Suicide Bombers so you dont visit paradise too early yourself