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Bravo Two Zero (B20) was the callsign of an eight-man British Special Air Service (SAS) patrol that was tasked with observing the M.S.R. (Main Supply Route) between Baghdad and north-west Iraq and finding and destroying Iraqi Scud missile launchers and their fibre optic comms lines in 1991 during the Gulf War. The abandoned patrol is famous for one member covering over 180 km on foot to reach the safety of Syria. The patrol is the subject of several books and two television movies. In broadcasting and radio communication, a callsign or call sign (also call letters) is a unique designation for a transmitting station. ...
The Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) is the principal special forces unit of the British Army. ...
Baghdad (Arabic: ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ...
For other uses, see Scud (disambiguation). ...
Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ...
Combatants United States Saudi Arabia & US-led Coalition Republic of Iraq Commanders Norman Schwarzkopf Saddam Hussein Strength 883,863 360,000 Casualties 240 killed in action, 776 wounded in action, 30 taken prisoner Est. ...
“Telefilm†redirects here. ...
The patrol
Insertion After staging out a forward base in Saudi Arabia, the eight man team known as Bravo Two Zero was inserted into Iraq by a Chinook helicopter on the night of January 22, 1991. Andy McNab, the patrol leader, claims the team moved across 20 km (over 12 miles) of Iraqi desert and found a wadi (dry river bed) in which to hide during the day, but eye witness accounts and later recreations suggests a distance of only 2 km. Coburn's account also suggests that the patrol was dropped far closer to their intended location due to a navigational error by the R.A.F. Asher's account says that the local Bedouin heard the Chinook helicopter landing as it deployed Bravo Two Zero - such was its proximity - something which Coburn highlights as a particular concern to the patrol. The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a versatile, twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter. ...
is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ...
km redirects here. ...
A mile is a unit of length, usually used to measure distance, in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, United States customary units and Norwegian/Swedish mil. ...
Wadi alMujib, Jordan A wadi (Arabic: ) is traditionally a valley. ...
As soon as they were in position the patrol realised that they had severe communications problems. Repeated attempts on the patrol radio and later on satellite communication (equipment whose use was intended to be extremely limited due to the perceived skills of direction finding by Iraqi forces) failed to make any reliable contact. It would later transpire that they had been issued with the incorrect radio frequencies for the area (the ones they were supplied were for Kuwait City) due to an error. Former SAS Regimental Sergeant Major Peter Ratcliffe lays the blame for the incorrect frequencies not being detected at the feet of patrol leader McNab as it was ultimately his responsibility to confirm that they had the correct frequencies before leaving on patrol.
Discovery The patrol believed that it was stumbled upon by a young goatherd whom they let escape and who then reported them to the Iraqi authorities. Believing themselves thus compromised the patrol decided to exfiltrate, leaving behind excess kit. As they were preparing to leave they heard what they at first thought was a tank begin to approach their wadi position. The patrol took up defensive positions as best they could (preparing M72 LAW anti-tank rockets) and waited for it to come into sight. Once it did it became clear that the 'tank' in fact was a bulldozer, driven by a local man, which reversed rapidly and clumsily away from the patrol once it had sight of them. Realising that they now had definitely been compromised the patrol quickly withdrew from their position, following the course of the wadi away from their position. Shortly afterwards, as they were exfiltrating, a shootout with Iraqi armoured and other forces developed although the nature and size of this contact is hotly disputed. A goatherd is a person who herds goats for a living. ...
Michael Asher interviewed the Bedouin family that discovered the patrol. They claimed that the young shepherd (not goatherd, as they only have sheep not goats) was near the patrol, but never saw them and that they were in fact only spotted a short while later by one of the men on the bulldozer. The family weren't sure who the men were and followed them a short distance eventually firing several warning shots on the patrol whereupon the SAS team returned fire and evacuated. For Asher, the terrain and position of the Iraqi military would seem to support this version of events and excludes an attack by "Iraqi soldiers" and/or "armoured personnel carriers" as claimed by McNab. However, Coburn at least partly supports some of McNab's details, specifically the presence of one A.P.C. (and describes coming under fire from a 12.7 mm DShKA machine gun) numerous Iraqi soldiers and additionally describes the presence of two white, Toyota-style pick-up trucks. In regard to the presence of Iraqi armour, Ryan's account says 'Somehow, I missed that.' but also suggests a sizeable and intense firefight in which he estimated that he'd fired some 70 rounds. A Bedouin man on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ), a name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western...
East German BRDMs on parade during celebrations of the 40th anniversary of East Germany in 1989 Armoured personnel carriers (APCs) are light armoured fighting vehicles for the transport of infantry. ...
Emergency pickup According to standard operating procedures of the time the team would – in the case of emergency or no radio contact known as a 'Lost Comms Procedure' – return to the original infiltration point where a helicopter would again pick them up 24 hours after the original insertion. This was complicated by the apparently incorrect location of the initial landing site
The team reached the designated emergency pickup point, but the helicopter never appeared. Former SAS Regimental Sergeant Major Peter Ratcliffe later revealed that this was due to an illness the pilot suffered en route.
Meanwhile, allied aircraft were aware of the patrol's dilemma and unable to raise them, but flew many sorties in the last known position of the team and expected exfiltration route in attempt to locate them and hinder attempts by Iraqi troops trying to capture them.
Exfiltration route Before any mission the teams decide upon an exfiltration route should something go wrong. Such plans are filed before the mission so that rescue efforts can later be coordinated along this route. The plans filed by the team indicated a southerly route to Saudi Arabia. Instead the lightly-equipped patrol began a gruelling march of nearly 300 km (over 186 miles) to exfiltrate northwest to the Syrian border while trying to avoid perceived effort by the Iraqis to locate them. Coburn's account, however, suggests that during the pre-planning phase of the mission, Syria was the agreed upon destination should an escape plan need to be implemented. He also suggests that this was on the advice of the Officer Commanding of B Squadron at that time.
According to Ratcliffe, this change in plan nullified all efforts over the following days by allied forces to locate and rescue the team.
Andy McNab has also been criticised for refusing advice from superiors to include vehicles in the mission (to be left at an emergency pickup point) which would have facilitated an easier exfiltration. Another S.A.S. team successfully employed Land Rovers in this role when they also had to abandon a similar mission. However, it is also suggested that the patrol jointly agreed not to take vehicles because they felt they were too few in number and too small (only short-wheel base Land Rovers were available) to be of use and were ill-suited to a mission that was intended to be conducted from a fixed observation post. Land Rover was the name of one of the first British civilian all-terrain utility vehicles, first produced by Rover in 1947. ...
Separation During the night - whilst trying to raise a passing, high-altitude Coalition aircraft via TACBE emergency beacons - the team became separated after losing contact due to a miscommunication. The patrol was thus split into two groups. Despite attempts the two parts of the patrol were unable to locate each other again in worsening weather conditions. Both separate groups continued to implement their Escape and Evasion plan whilst experiencing unexpectedly harsh freezing weather, including snowstorms. The teams were ill-equipped for the cold winter nights of this desert region carrying only their belt order, due to having ditched their bergens (rucksacks) and thus the majority of their kit during the firefight as they exfiltrated from the wadi position. The cold weather would eventually contribute to the death of two team members - Vincent Phillips and Stephen Lane - (a third, Robert Consiglio, was killed in a firefight with Iraqi troops or police). Other surviving S.A.S. members (some of whom had undergone Arctic Warfare training in Norway) would subsequently claim that the conditions were amongst the coldest they had ever had to endure. The death of Phillips, a veteran of a number of these Arctic Warfare courses, indicates the severity of the conditions with which both groups had to contend. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...
Chris Ryan led a group of three even though it included the more senior Vincent Phillips (who was already beginning to suffer with hypothermia) while McNab led the other group of five. Ryan's group was bolstered by the presence of an N.V.A. (Night Viewing Aid) in the form of a Kite Sight.
Capture The larger of the two groups, led by McNab, commandeered a taxi to get closer to the border, but had to abandon it at a checkpoint. Of this group, one died of exposure, one was shot and killed and three were captured. In Ryan's group, Phillips died of exposure and the other member ('Stan') was captured after soliciting help from a shepherd. Only Ryan reached Syria after a remarkable eight days of evasion, suffering from exhaustion, starvation and dehydration. Dehydration (hypohydration) is the removal of water (hydro in ancient Greek) from an object. ...
The captured soldiers were moved numerous times, enduring torture and interrogation at each successive location. They were last held at Abu Ghraib Prison before their release. Abu Ghraib cell block The Abu Ghraib prison (Arabic: سجن أبو غريب; also Abu Ghurayb) is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km (20 mi) west of Baghdad. ...
Patrol members Except as noted, these names are pseudonyms or nicknames used by McNab and subsequent authors. A pseudonym or allonym is a name (sometimes legally adopted, sometimes purely fictitious) used by an individual as an alternative to their birth name. ...
- Andy McNab (pseudonym) – former Royal Green Jackets. Captured by the enemy later released. Currently security advisor/lecturer and best-selling author, including Bravo Two Zero
- Chris Ryan (pseudonym) – The only member of the patrol to escape capture, now a security advisor and best-selling author of The One That Got Away
- Bob Consiglio (real name) – former Royal Marines. Killed by enemy fire in the line of duty
- Steve 'Legs' Lane (real name) – former Parachute regiment. Died of hypothermia during action
- Vincent Phillips (real name) – former Ordnance Corps. Died of hypothermia during action
- Rob M (pseudonym -"Dinger") – former Parachute Regiment. Captured by the enemy, later released. Currently lives in Hertfordshire, England.
- Malcolm 'Stan/Mal' McGown – Captured by the enemy, later released
- Mike Coburn (pseudonym) aka 'Mark the Kiwi' – captured by the enemy later released. Currently living in Australia and author of Soldier Five
Andy McNab DCM MM (born December 28, 1959) is a British former soldier turned novelist. ...
Bravo Two Zero is a 1999 film based on the British SAS patrol of the same name charged with finding Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War. ...
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The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book by Chris Ryan. ...
Literary accounts - The first public mention of the patrol was in the autobiography of Lieutenant-General Peter de la Billière, the commander of the British Forces during the Gulf War. The autobiography entitled Looking for Trouble: SAS to Gulf Command - The Autobiography (ISBN 0-00-637983-4), only mentioned Bravo Two Zero in passing, but it broke the ground for further books to be written on the patrol.
- Soon, Chris Ryan published another account, The One That Got Away (ISBN 0-09-946015-7). It criticized McNab's leadership of the patrol and was particularly hostile in tone to the conduct of Vince Phillips. In a later TV appearance Ryan (and perhaps in partial retraction) may have alluded to Phillips' memory saying he had once seen 'a very brave man' dying of hypothermia.
- Both the above accounts are critiqued in a book by SAS reservist veteran Michael Asher, The Real Bravo Two Zero (ISBN 0-304-36554-8), where in post-war Iraq, he followed the path of the patrol and interviewed local Iraqis who witnessed the events.
- A further account, Soldier Five by Mike Coburn (ISBN 1-84018-907-X), published in 2004, aimed to "set the story straight", especially with reference to criticism of some of the deceased team members in previous publications.
- The ex-SAS warrant officer 'Gaz Hunter' (pseudonym) was the leader of B Squadron SAS at the time of the gulf war, and wrote about it in his autobiography "The Shooting Gallery". In particular he criticises the way that he and his fellow B Squadron staff sergeant were sent to Colombia to help the Colombian military in combating the drug cartels while their squadron was sent to the gulf without them.
General Sir Peter Edgar de la Couer de la Billière KCB, KBE, DSO, MC & Bar, Legion of Merit, (b. ...
Bravo Two Zero is a 1999 film based on the British SAS patrol of the same name charged with finding Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War. ...
The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book by Chris Ryan. ...
Film accounts Independent Television (generally known as ITV, but also as ITV Network) is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting...
The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book by Chris Ryan. ...
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The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ...
Bravo Two Zero is a 1999 film based on the British SAS patrol of the same name charged with finding Iraqi Scud missile launchers during the Gulf War. ...
Shaun Mark Bean (born 17 April 1959 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England) is an English film and stage actor. ...
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Controversy The events of the patrol are disputed since the facts in two books written by two members of the team, Andy McNab and Chris Ryan do not always correspond. Their accounts have been criticised by a third member of the team, Mike Coburn, in a book titled Soldier Five: The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission. Michael Asher, himself a former SAS reservist, travelled to Iraq to interview witnesses and recreate the patrol. His findings were published in a book titled The Real Bravo Two Zero: The Truth Behind Bravo Two Zero and he also raises serious questions of the accounts given by both McNab and Ryan. Andy McNab DCM MM (born December 28, 1959) is a British former soldier turned novelist. ...
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Most of the controversy surrounds the blame placed on one team member, Vince Phillips, for the discovery of the patrol, particularly by Chris Ryan. Eyewitness accounts by the Bedouin family that discovered the team and contradictions in the accounts by McNab and Ryan seem to refute this claim. Surviving members of the patrol (whilst still serving with the regiment) were later permitted by the S.A.S. to write to the Phillips family rejecting Ryan's accusations and condemnations of Vincent Phillips. Both Asher and Coburn are quite specific that a significant factor in the writing of their accounts of the patrol was the desire to exonerate the reputation of Phillips who was a popular and greatly experienced soldier. A Bedouin man on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ), a name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western...
It is also accepted that McNab and Ryan (to a lesser extent) exaggerated the size of enemy forces and number of enemy killed. By most accounts they never encountered military opposition only exchanging fire occasionally with police or civilians – albeit commonly armed with AK-47s. However, Coburn's account does suggest that the patrol endured a brisk contact after it was compromised and began exfiltrating from their wadi position. Coburn also agrees that they came under fire from a distant S-60 (57mm) anti-aircraft position, a claim which the Bedouin rejected. According to Coburn the incoming rounds were identified as such by Rob ("Dinger") who had experienced them before (in a ground attack role) whilst fighting in the Falklands Conflict as a member of the Parachute Regiment. Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947 g. ...
57 mm AZP S-60 (Russian: , abbrev. ...
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References - Asher, Michael (2002). The Real Bravo Two Zero: The Truth Behind Bravo Two Zero. Cassell military. ISBN 978-0304365548.
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