SAS soldier kills 3 ISIS militants with khukuri

Badass of the year right there


In life there are no winners and losers only participants and spectators
 
It's a cool story, though I have my doubts about its veracity. For one, somehow a 27 year old sergeant has 15 years of combat experience. I know the British have their Army Cadet Force that starts around that age, but I don't think even if he joined that at age 12 that it could be called combat experience. We'll see where this story goes from here. Could just be a typo.
 
The Daily Star and The Mirror (cited as sources for this story) aren't exactly paragons of journalistic accuracy. The International Business Times UK also repeated the story, but with this addition:

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The report is the latest in a long line of under-sourced and unattributed reports of dramatic killings of IS militants by coalition forces fighting IS. Each of the reports cite unnamed sources and cannot be independently verified by*IBTimes UK.
--

While I certainly don't doubt the skill and courage of our (collective) armed forces, the level of detail is a bit much. From my (admittedly limited ) observations, details of contacts are released well after the fact, usually accompanied by the presentation of very high awards.
 
Regardless of the man's "combat experience", I believe he performed as stated. Once upon a time I flew a 101st Airborne trooper out of the North end of the A Shau Valley who permed a similar feat earlier that day using a knife belonging to one of his Montagnard operatives.
 
I'm in agreement with Bookie. However, I still believe all the stories my grandfather told me sitting in his lap about the ferocity of Gurkha Soldiers durine WWI. However, even though highly decorated including several Purple Hearts fighting in the trenches and France he was just embellishing. I doubt it.
 
A cynic might say he should have left the khukri at base and carried a couple extra clips instead.
 
But this cynic says he shouldn't have let the others get away :D well maybe leave one to spread the word
 
I love kuks, but I don't think so.

Decapitating someone in combat while being rushed is harder than you might think, I believe. A good chop is likely to only cut halfway through the spinal column and meat, and you don't have time to keep chopping while getting swarmed. Also, throwing in the quote from the Pres just seems to be there to attempt to give legitimacy.

John
 
Spectre said:
I love kuks, but I don't think so.

Decapitating someone in combat while being rushed is harder than you might think, I believe. A good chop is likely to only cut halfway through the spinal column and meat, and you don't have time to keep chopping while getting swarmed. Also, throwing in the quote from the Pres just seems to be there to attempt to give legitimacy.

John
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Thankfully I have never had to use a khuk in a fight, but I have denogginized various (deceased) meat critters with khuks, barongs and in one case an o-tanto in the course of butchering. It doesn't require a ton of force if you get it right-I tend not to put too much into the swing, and most of the time it's off.
I don't know the truth of the story, but I do know that's not necessarily a criteria for it being false.
 
The story may be embellished but I bet there's a grain of truth to it.
 
Must have had that new bad ass rmj kuhkri i heard 80% of the time it decapitates everytime. Seriously though it is one sweet blade.
 
The most suspicious thing about the original article, apart from the fact that the sources are the Mirror and Daily Star, is that it ends with a poll in a huge typeface, asking readers: "Should the U.S. deploy more troops on the ground to help fight ISIS?"

Regardless of whether the story is true, false, or partly true, it's pretty obvious that the whole point of the article is to influence readers to respond "yes" to the poll, right after reading an example of individual heroism.

No matter how one feels about the poll question, people should recognize when media is trying to manipulate them. I wish that sort of thing were taught in the schools, along with the way media, politicians and advertisers lie with statistics. This has been going on probably since the stone age, but modern media and people trained in psychology have pushed it to new heights (or depths).
 
Steve Tall said:
Looking for more coverage of that story, I instead found this recent video: new Gurkha recruits training with wooden kukris, reportedly in preparation for a test they have to pass before they can use their issued kukris.

http://videos.forces.tv/detail/vide...ng-with-the-famous-kukri-knife?autoStart=true
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ForcesTV makes me miss the desert. That video is very interesting-I never knew they went to the trouble of wooden khuks (but doing kata in formation like that it makes sense haha-there's always one)
I never understood the two-handed cuts with that little 9" issue khuk-I've tried some of that and it's awkward as hell.
 
J W Bensinger said:
Thankfully I have never had to use a khuk in a fight, but I have denogginized various (deceased) meat critters with khuks, barongs and in one case an o-tanto in the course of butchering. It doesn't require a ton of force if you get it right-I tend not to put too much into the swing, and most of the time it's off.
I don't know the truth of the story, but I do know that's not necessarily a criteria for it being false.
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I've never used a kuk on anyone in combat either, thankfully, but I have tested large blades, including kuks, on green bamboo wrapped in foam matting to simulate tissue and bone. The decapitation is only one of several unlikely things about the story.
 
I agree.
WhiLE I have not been in combat, ever, I have seen three dozen cases of partial or total decapitation in both violent crimes and war scenarios. Add to that number at least 50 cases with photographic or videographic evidence of beheadings, executions and neck slashing injuries.
About 70% were done with pangas/latin/bolo machetes, 20% E-Neps and Kukris and the rest 10% with large hunting/pigsticking knives.
In most cases, the decapitation was partial, and the cause of death was carotid artery severing, trachea severing, vagal nerve response and spine severing or severely damaged.
Most of those were instantly incapacitating, and led to death in probably less than a minute. But, to put it shortly, almost never got the head separed from the body. Now, again, not saying it's not possible, but I too believe it hard to do, especially considering the most likely violent and fast motion of both victim and attacker, and general context of the attack. Most likely a diagonal "chop" to the exposed part of the neck, just above the shoulder, typical from this kind of injuries and much common in Gurkha battles and historical anecdotes.

Just my 0.02$
 
Bookie said:
Regardless of the man's "combat experience", I believe he performed as stated. Once upon a time I flew a 101st Airborne trooper out of the North end of the A Shau Valley who permed a similar feat earlier that day using a knife belonging to one of his Montagnard operatives.
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Is that what he told you on the helicopter?
 
Uh...a 101st (not SF) Soldier had "Montagnard operatives"? Why would a "big unit" Soldier have LNs working for him?
 
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