Since the military TV series "I Am Special Forces" became popular, film and television works with the theme of special forces have appeared on the screen, and more than half of the military TV series are about special forces. It seems that if you don't shoot special forces, you won't be able to make a military TV series. As everyone knows, the special forces are godly, and the existence of the special forces cannot be too deified.
The special forces of our army actually originated from scouts, and it can even be said that the early special forces of our army were scouts who performed special tasks, that is, the so-called special detectives. Later, after continuous development, it developed from scouts to special forces. Before the current round of military reform, the special forces of the PLA troops were distributed in the seven major military regions, the air force, and the navy, which were several units at the level of the Zhengda Military Region.
At that time, the seven military regions, the air force, and the navy each had a special forces, of which the seven military regions had seven special operations groups directly under them, and the air force and navy each had a special forces commando unit. The Beijing Military Region's "Ringing Arrow" Special Operations Brigade, the Shenyang Military Region's "Northeast Tiger" Special Operations Brigade, the Jinan Military Region's "Eagle" Special Operations Brigade, the Nanjing Military Region's "Flying Dragon Special Operations Brigade," the Lanzhou Military Region's "Heavenly Wolf" Special Operations Brigade, the Chengdu Military Region's "Southwest Cheetah" Special Operations Brigade, and the Guangzhou Military Region's "Southern Sword" Special Operations Brigade.
These 7 special operations brigades are all very famous units of our army, and they are also special forces that military fans are very familiar with. Now when it comes to China's special forces, the first thing that comes to mind for military fans is the seven special operations brigades directly under the former seven military regions. The Air Force and Navy also have special forces, but they are not called special operations groups, but commandos. The "Thor" commando of the Air Force Airborne Forces is the special forces of the Air Force. The "Jiaolong" commando of the Marine Corps is the naval special forces.
Before the military reform, the PLA had nine special forces, and the special forces were distributed among these nine special forces. The first waves of special forces in the army evolved from scouts. Before the division was converted into a brigade, the infantry division had a reconnaissance battalion, and the infantry regiment had a reconnaissance company. When the seven major military regions set up special operations brigades, they all select people from reconnaissance battalions and reconnaissance companies, and then, after training and selection, select qualified soldiers to join the special operations brigades.
Why are special forces selected from scouts? Because the two have a high similarity. So what's the difference between the two? The main work of scouts is to reconnoiter the enemy's situation and search and rescue intelligence information, they either go straight to the front line, or go deep behind the enemy's lines, and obtain relevant battlefield intelligence information such as enemy troop movements, deployments, and firepower allocations by means of manpower observation, technical reconnaissance, capture and capture, and sentinels, so as to provide intelligence support for their own troops. At the same time, it is also responsible for providing target guidance and evaluation of the effect of strike damage for long-range strike firepower such as air and artillery.
Who is the enemy, how many people are there, what ** equipment are there, where are they stationed, and are there friendly neighbor troops? Only by finding out the enemy's situation can we win the battle. Scouts do just that, they are an important branch of the unit commander to carry out military deployments, equivalent to the commander's clairvoyance and ears.
The functions of special forces are much broader, and they are used to carry out attacks on important enemy military targets and other special tasks, such as raiding and sabotage, reconnaissance behind enemy lines, intelligence acquisition, anti-terrorist operations, special guards, raiding enemy headquarters, and rescuing captured personnel. From the point of view of mission functions, there is overlap between scouts and special forces. But the tasks performed by special forces are much wider, more dangerous and responsible.
In other words, special forces can be scouts, but scouts are not necessarily special forces. After the division was changed into a brigade in the 90s, each infantry brigade (including the mechanized infantry brigade and the motorized infantry brigade) was a reconnaissance company, but at that time, the special forces of our army had already developed and matured, and special forces would no longer be selected from the reconnaissance company.
After the current round of military reform, the infantry brigade under the group army was restructured into a composite brigade, and each composite brigade had a reconnaissance battalion in its establishment (the main function is still to reconnoiter the enemy's situation and obtain intelligence, but there are more technical means). At the same time, the army group had not only a composite brigade, but also a special operations brigade. Of the 13 group armies and 13 special operations brigades, seven of these 13 special operations brigades were restructured from the special operations brigades directly under the former seven military regions, and the other six special operations brigades were newly formed.
The special operations brigade of the group army is relatively large, and its scale is obviously larger than that of the special operations brigade of the military region. The special operations brigade has 4 special operations battalions, as well as 1 UAV brigade, 1 *** detachment, 1 communications detachment, and 1 electronic countermeasures detachment. The core of the special operations brigade is the 4 special operations battalions, and only the soldiers of these 4 special operations battalions can be regarded as special forces. When special operations brigades perform special tasks, they mainly rely on four special operations battalions.
It can be seen from this that after the military reform, the reconnaissance and special forces of the PLA Army coexisted, and there are indeed certain similarities between the two, but there are still such big differences. In the case of army units, scouts are distributed in the reconnaissance battalions of composite brigades, and special forces are distributed in special operations battalions of special operations brigades.