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Sonea Fifer

Sonea Fifer

Sonea Fifer

Soldato
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Posting this as my brother in law is out in the gulf at the moment doing his duty with the RAF:


A large group of Taliban soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand-dune.

"One British SAS soldier is better than ten Taliban".

The Taliban commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune whereupon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence. The voice then calls out "One British SAS soldier is better than one hundred Taliban".

Furious, the Taliban commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gunfight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence. The English voice calls out again

"One British SAS soldier is better than one thousand Taliban".

The enraged Taliban Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannon, rocket and machine gun fire ring out as a huge battle is fought. Then silence. Eventually one wounded Taliban fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander, "Don't send any more men, it's a trap, ...there's actually two of them."

I'm sure it'll bring a smile to his face - and perhaps even one or two people here may find it amusing? :p
 
:cool:
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Didn't the Scots guard fight off a group of Taliban when outnumbered 20 to one or something sill like that? Or was it 20 to 6? I think it was in the news?
 
BigglesPiP said:
Didn't the Scots guard fight off a group of Taliban when outnumbered 20 to one or something sill like that? Or was it 20 to 6? I think it was in the news?
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No. 2 to 1 max I think. I'd loved to be proved wrong.. I like stories like this.

You may be thinking of the Royal Anglians though... I believe they were outnumbered.

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were outnumbered 5 to 1 and FIXED BAYONETS in one battle too.
 
meghatronic said:
No. 2 to 1 max I think. I'd loved to be proved wrong.. I like stories like this.

You may be thinking of the Royal Anglians though... I believe they were outnumbered.

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were outnumbered 5 to 1 and FIXED BAYONETS in one battle too.
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What was the Regiment that Sgt Dan Miles was in? (His books Sniper One) Didn't he and his troop flight off the Tailban for days on end?

Blackvault
 
Blackvault said:
What was the Regiment that Sgt Dan Miles was in? (His books Sniper One) Didn't he and his troop flight off the Tailban for days on end?
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Princess of Wales Royal Regiment I think, I'll check when I find my copy.
I believe they were involved in reenforcing the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in that bayonet attack.

Scary stuff.
 
eyyaz said:
did they use them....to kill? :eek:
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Yup. Did in the Falklands too.

'I bayoneted people. It was me or them'
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 18/03/2005)

The daring and bravery shown in Iraq by the men of 1 Bn, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment were so outstanding that their battlegroup receives no fewer than 37 of the honours awarded today.

They include 33 gallantry awards, among them the Victoria Cross awarded to Pte Johnson Beharry, two Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses, the second highest award for gallantry, 10 Military Crosses and 17 Mentions in Dispatches.

The succession of heroic actions under fire included the first bayonet charge since the Falklands Conflict and the 23-day defence of the former governor's residence in Amarah under siege from a continuous attack.

The gallantry awards have made the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (PWRR) the most decorated in the history of the British Army, with a total of 57 Victoria Crosses and a host of other medals.

Although formed in only 1992, it is the senior English regiment of the line, tracing its history back to 1572, and its forebear regiments have fought in virtually all the major campaigns in which the Army has taken part.

Lt-Col Matt Maer, CO of 1 Bn, the PWRR, described yesterday how his men were forced to fight every day for five months in Iraq, coming under 860 separate attacks, with 109 alone on one day.

On the first day of their deployment they found themselves drawn into a three-hour running battle with insurgents, he said. "We knew it was going to be a very long and very hot summer."

The steadfast defence by Y Company of the former provincial governor's residence in Amarah saw a number of Military Crosses awarded to the battlegroup, which also included Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Major Justin Featherstone, the Y company commander, who, despite repeatedly being told he could withdraw if he saw fit refused to do so, is among the 10 members of the battlegroup awarded the Military Cross.

But it was inevitably the bayonet charge, led by Sgt Chris Broome, from Trowbridge, Wilts, who is awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, that captured the imagination.

The three-hour battle during which it took place began on May 14 last year when a dozen gunmen ambushed nine soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in a pair of armoured Land Rovers.

The Argylls were attacked on the road to Amarah, with insurgents repeatedly attacking the vehicles with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Land Rovers sped through the ambushes only to come upon two dozen insurgents putting together an improvised roadside bomb.

Two platoons of the PWRR, a total of 40 men in four Warrior armoured vehicles, were sent from nearby Camp Condor to hunt down the bombers.

When they saw the insurgents waiting in ambush in foxholes alongside the road, the four infantry sections in the Warriors, 28 men in all, dismounted, carried out a flanking manoeuvre and charged the insurgents with fixed bayonets.

Cpl Mark Byles, 34, from Portsmouth, who is awarded the Military Cross, said: "The look on their faces was utter shock. They were under the impression we were going to lie in our ditch, shoot from a distance and they would run away.

"I slashed people, rifle-butted them. I was punching and kicking. It was either me or them. It didn't seem real. Anybody can pull a trigger from a distance, but we got up close and personal."
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Bayonet Brits kill 35 rebels
From an article in The Sun

British soldiers killed 35 Iraqi attackers in the Army’s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago. The fearless Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders stormed rebel positions after being ambushed and pinned down. Despite being outnumbered five to one, they suffered only three minor wounds in the hand-to-hand fighting near the city of Amara. The battle erupted after Land Rovers carrying 20 Argylls came under attack on a highway.

After radioing for back-up, they fixed bayonets and charged at 100 rebels using tactics learned in drills.

When the fighting ended bodies lay all over the highway — and more were floating in a nearby river. Nine rebels were captured. An Army spokesman said: “This was an intense engagement.”

The last bayonet charge was by the Scots Guards and the Paras against Argentinian positions.
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Argylls fight hand to hand in Iraq
by BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
(from an article at Scotland on Sunday.

SCOTTISH troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shi’ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night.

Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders mounted what were described as "classic infantry assaults" on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.

At least 20 men from al-Sadr’s army were believed killed in more than three hours of fighting - the highest toll reported in any single incident involving British forces in the past 12 months.

Nine fighters were captured and three British soldiers injured, none seriously.

"It was very bloody and it was difficult to count all their dead," one source was quoted as saying. "There were bodies floating in the river."

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were drawn into the fighting when soldiers in two Land-Rovers were ambushed on Friday afternoon about 15 miles east of the city of Amara. The soldiers escaped, only to be ambushed a second time by a larger group of militia, armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Reinforcements were summoned from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment at a base nearby. "There was some pretty fierce hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets fixed," the source added. "There were some classic assaults on mortar positions held by the al-Sadr forces."

Official spokesman Major Ian Clooney confirmed the Mehdi army "took a pretty heavy knocking", but refused to specify tactics. "This was certainly an intense engagement," he added.
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I met 2 of the soldiers involved in the recent Bayonet attack, they were at the same place we were during an OTC training weekend. Was quite an honour for myself.
 
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