I guess this is one of those classic who would win questions. So would win between SAS or Delta vs the Gurkhas? Who has the hardest training?
You are going to have to be a lot more specific about your circumstances. Gurkhas are excellent light infantry. SAS/Delta/etc. are trained to avoid being such.
I don’t know. Which has harder selection, training, etc.? Which produces the most dangerous individual soldier?
Well - there are a dozen or so Ghurkas in the SAS, so that’s one problem.
Ghurkas are specifically recruited from Nepal which is a very poor Indian state. Tens of thousands of young men apply for 200 places every year, so you could say that the selection is tough.
It started back in 1815 when the British were beating Napoleon in Belgium but losing to the Nepalese in Northern India and the Americans in New Orleans. They were so impressed by the Nepalese fighters that they started to recruit them. Originally, all their officers were British, but that no longer applies, although British officers still serve with them today.
Their reputation is one of ferociousness and loyalty.
Probably wouldn’t say that within earshot of a Gurkha, tbh. Nepal is an independent country. The Indian Army does recruit Gurkha soldiers though, in much larger numbers than the British Army does.
Well in 2017, one Gurkha took on 40 men in train, killed three, injured eight and the rest ran off. Plus he saved a girl from being raped. All with his Khukri! My money’s on the Gurkha! Armed With Only A Khukri This Gurkha Soldier Took On 40 Men And Saved A Girl From Being Gang Raped
I worked with a guy from Nepal who was a Gurkha, all 5’ of him. He and his wife were the nicest people. Once I jokingly asked him if he could kill a guy with his bare hands. He just smiled and quietly said yes.
If someone is willing to stay still long enough, pretty much everyone can kill someone with their bare hands. Just pinching the jugular on either side of the neck, for sufficiently long, I suspect would cause the brain to stop (which tends to cause everything else to stop).
I’ll correct that: Ghurkas are specifically recruited from Nepal which is a very poor state on the Indian subcontinent.
I think the phrase implies that the victim is trying to resist in some manner.
Etymologically Gorkha, is combined of two words : Gow (has the same Proto Indo European root as Cow) And Rakha translated means Defence.
So the word Gorkha means cow defender or protector.
The Gorkha are hill people from Himalayas and are known to be brave just like Sherpas (also from Nepal) are known for their mountain climbing skills.
Many Gorkhas in India take up security related jobs apart from Army regiments.
Former Indian Army Chief of Staff, Sam Manekshaw once said: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gorkha.”
Probably. But there is, in general, too much trust in the resiliency of the human body.
You can kill someone by wacking them in the head with a frying pan. That’s not quite “bare hands” but, if people think that you need to be able to squeeze a brick into powder with your bare hands to kill someone, they’re liable to conk someone on the head with a frying pan not realizing that it’s not quite that impressive a feat.
Anyways, off topic.
SFOD-D and the SAS have very specialized missions and training. Not anything the Gurkha regiments go through. It’s apples and oranges. A more apt comparison would be between the Gurkhas and the US Army Ranger Regiments. Similar types of missions and similar training. The Gurkhas certainly have the edge in propaganda but much of their reputation is deserved.
Conversely, a Gurkha with my training mission in Iraq negligently discharged a firearm into a (thankfully unoccupied at the time) chair, then through two sheet metal walls and (again, thankfully) into a sand-filled hesco barrier.
So the anecdotes are mixed.
I recall reading this a few years ago & found it. A good Daily Mail story about the Gurkha’s fierceness in battle and penchant for beheading, in this case a “high value” Taliban.
Needed a better safety than his index finger?
I’m surprised this hasn’t been moved to IMHO. Though I guess we can better define what the OP means by ‘who would win’.
Evidently, NDs are/were a wider problem in the military than I thought. See: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/05/13/negligent-discharges-one-subject-the-military-really-doesnt-like-to-talk-about/
Paywalled.
Anecdotes will always be “mixed”. There will be a fuck-up in every large group of people.
But the solid cast iron balls of this guy are amazing.
One of three guys defending a post during an attack by 200 Japanese. He starts picking up Japanese grenades and throwing them back till one explodes in his right hand shattering his arm, injuring his leg and eye, which he later lost. And putting his mates out of action. So single-handed (in both senses of the word) he loads his weapon left handed for 4 hours, and kills 31 of the attackers. His was the pivotal point, so if he had been overrun, his whole unit was buggered. Got the Victoria Cross.
I find it interesting that many CRUISE lines use them for security
Honestly, the idea of a warrior race sounds kind of, well, racist to me. I get that the OP was referring to a selected/non-representative group of people that end up in the British Army, but when you start expanding to private security for cruise lines, it smacks of racial branding.
Are Gurkhas really better fighters, or did their racist colonial overlords just use them that way in building and maintaining their empire and the brand stuck as a sort of racist caricature, no more worthy of being endorsed by present generations than, say, the stereotype of the happy go-lucky African American minstrel, longing for that old plantation home?
As I understand the narrative, they found out that the Gurkhas were bad ass in the course of trying to become their racist colonial overlords, and having a lot of trouble doing so.
The British had a lot of practice becoming colonial overlords, and in their opinion, the Gurkhas were much harder to overcome. I don’t know if that’s a stereotype, or collective experience.
It’s rather like Afghanistan, where “empires go to die”. Read what Kipling, a rather brazen apologist for colonialism, had to say about them. Read what the Soviets had to say about them a hundred years or so later. Read what is going on now.
If you have a thousand years of experience in killing people who try to conquer you (as well as each other) you tend to develop traditions about bravery and fierceness and so forth.
Some troops are better than others, for whole bunches of reasons.
That doesn’t mean every Gurkha is an invincible killing machine. OTOH, if someone with one of those big honking knives starts acting testy, it doesn’t hurt anything to ascertain the nearest exit.
Regards,
Shodan