Combat Zone

There have always been elite units within armies, from the Spartans, the Praetorian Guards, to the modern day Special Forces. By the greater loyalty, discipline and fighting skills, these elites were to be far better the their "other" friendly units. On the battlefield, they would spearhead an attack, to certain death, or be the rock an attack wave would bolder. The men of the elite units were volunteers and had better training, weapons and special insignia.
The twentieth century has seen the rise of a new military elite, one that takes members from other elite units, therefore to be an elite within an elite. They are dedicated to a particular form of warfare and these are called Special Forces. The warriors of unconventional warfare.

"These men are highly dangerous . . . .They must be ruthlessly exterminated."
That is the instruction Adolf Hitler gave in 1944. The dangerous men were the wartime Special Air Service of David Stirling, After Northern Africa, these men focused on Occupied Europe. Thereafter came the "Fuhrer Instruction", a compliment of success of the SAS.

Perhaps the irony in the Furher's detestation of the SAS is that "Special Forces" are a German Invention. Although that can be seen earlier on, such as Rogers Rangers of 1763, or the Boer Commandos, Special Forces were formed definitely in 1915, on the Western Front. In that year, after months of bloody slaughter, the German Military leaders began to look for means of ending the stalemate. It was decided that instead of leading attacks with large amounts of soldiers, spearheading attacks would be led by "Sturmtruppen", a lightning assault and seek out the weaknesses in the defense of the enemy. This, so that the conventional forces could be exploited to their full potentional.
At first the experiments were to be unsuccessful, but an officer of the "Garde Schutzen Battalion", Hauptman Eric Rohr, set about perfecting the idea, and developing the weapons and equipment for a new force.

The unit Rohr created was first deployed in December 1915. In action, the "troopers" carried little kit and concentrated on firepower. New battalions were formed from volunteers from frontline units and were veterans. Others would not have the necessary motivation. They were then sent to specialized training. The training would be as hard and as real as possible. One Sturmtruppen Officer, Ernst Junger, recorded in his wartime journal, "Sometimes I made practice attacks with the company on complicated trench systems, with live bombs, in order to turn the account of the Cambrai Battle of November 1917"

The Sturmtruppen made an impressive contribution to the offensive in 1918, when the German Army almost managed to rescue the war. It was for the use of such troops that the first sub-machine gun was developed, the "Machinen Pistole 1918" (Bergmann MP 18.1).

Fast moving Raiders, relying on surprise, with superior weapons and training, veteran volunteers, the Sturm Battalion Ruhr was the definition of a "Special Force".

Sturmtruppen, or Stormtroopers (also known as shock troops) were first employed by General Oskar von Hutier, nephew to Ludendorff, on the eastern front in September of 1917. Hutier's strategy involved bringing the sturmtruppen up to the front under cover of darkness, launching a fast and powerful artillery bombardment (170 batteries supported by 200 medium and heavy mortars in this case) consisting of conventional explosives and gas. This replaced the prolonged bombardments that, in effect, warned the enemy of the coming offensive. Waves of sturmtruppen armed with the latest in weapons (flame throwers, grenade launchers, light machine guns) would then assault weak points in the enemy line in a leapfrog manner. The key to success was surprise and speed. This tactic accounted for large German gains during the late years of the war and would evolve into the blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactic of World War II.

The Sturmtruppen in turn, formed the model for the "Kommando" of the Waffen SS during World War II. Under the leadership of Otto Skorzeny, the SS Special Troops pulled off one of the most daring exploits of the war, by rescuing Mussolini in the mountains of Gran Sasso, in 1943.

The use of parachute troops had been pioneered by Italy in the 1920's and picked up by the USSR in the 1930's. Impressed by this, the Germans developed their own airborne formations, which they used with stunning effect in the first years of World War II.

World War II
World War II also witnessed the raising of similar units by other countries. A small number of British military Officers, prime among them, Lieutenant-Colonel J.C.F. Holland R.E., had begun in the late 1930's to press for the formation of irregular or guerilla companies in the British army. These first saw expression as the "Independent Companies" created during the period of a Phoney war, but it was after the fall of France and the personal interest of Sir Winston Churchill, that British Special Forces received real direction of resources.

Germany
In December 1939, following the success of German infiltration and sabotage operations in the Polish campaign, the German Office for Foreign and Counter-Intelligence (OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr) formed the Brandenburger Regiment (known officially as the 800th Special Purpose Training and Construction Company). The Brandenburgers conducted a mixture of covert and conventional operations but became increasingly involved in ordinary infantry actions and were eventually converted to a Panzer-Grenadier Division, suffering heavy losses in Russia. Otto Skorzeny (most famed for his rescue of Benito Mussolini) conducted many special operations for Adolf Hitler. Skorzeny commanded Sonderlehrgang z.b.V. Oranienburg, Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal, and SS-Jäger-Bataillon 502, all SS commando units.

A report written by Major-General Robert Laycock in 1947 said there was a German raid on a radar station on the Isle of Wight in 1941.

Italy
Italy employed specialist trench raiding teams to break the stalemate of static fighting against Austria-Hungary, in the Alpine battles of World War I.

These teams were called "Arditi" (meaning "daring, brave ones"); they were almost always men under 25 in top physical condition and, possibly at first, bachelors (due to the fear of very high casualty rates). Actually the Arditi (who were led to the lines just a few hours prior to the assault, having been familiarised with the terrain via photo-reconaissance and trained on trench systems re-created ad hoc for them) suffered "fewer" casualties than regular line infantry and were highly successful in their tasks. Many of them volunteered for extreme right formations in the turbulent years after the war (the Fascist Party took pride in this and adopted the style and the mannerism of Arditi), but some of different political persuasions created the "Arditi del Popolo" (People's Arditi) and for some years held the fascist raids in check, defending Socialist and Communist Party sections, buildings, rallies and meeting points.

During the Liberation of Rome in 1944, US troops broke into the Italian Ministry of Defence building in the Italian capital and seized all the WWI materials and documents pertaining to Arditi units in the archives.

Italy's most renowned commando unit of World War II was Decima Flottiglia MAS ("10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla") which, from mid-1940, was responsible for the sinking and damage of a considerable tonnage of Allied ships in the Mediterranean.

After Italy surrendered in 1943, some of the Decima Flottiglia MAS were on the Allied side of the battle line and fought with the Allies, renaming themselves the Mariassalto. The others fought on the German side and kept their original name but did not operate at sea after 1943, being mostly employed against Italian partisans; some of its men were involved in atrocities against civilians.

In post-war years the Italian marine commandos were re-organised as the "Comsubin" (an abbreviation of 'Comando Subacqueo Incursori', or Underwater Raiders Command).