Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Special Air Service

Special Air Service

Any article about special forces will be hard to find verifiable/reliable sources so this will never be an FA article. However I think it could be A Class but needs some outside thoughts. I have cut down all the action man and boys own hero stuff and the article has been stable for some time now. As ever any comments appreciated --Jim Sweeney (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D

This article is in reasonable shape. My comments are as follows:

• It needs a bit of a copy edit - I spotted some typos and missing punctuation
• The statement that 'Following the reformation of the Special Air Service, other countries in the commonwealth also recognised a need for a Special Forces type unit' is a bit simplistic - the decision to form the Australian SAS Company was inspired by the success of Australian special forces in World War II and the Army's experiences in Korea as well as the success of the British SAS in Malaya. This section should also discuss the non-Commonwealth SF units which were inspired by the British SAS.
• The SAS' Cold War role had war broken out in Europe should be discussed
• The statement that 'The Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces matters, therefore little verifiable information exists in the public domain' isn't supported by the citation given and I don't think that it's correct. A number of good-quality books on the SAS or covering their operations have been written and these are reliable sources of information, including on sensitive topics. For instance, the official history of the Falklands War discussed SAS operations on the mainland of Argentina during the Falklands War. The Department of Defence has also cooperated with authors of works on the SAS - I'm currently reading Mark Urban's Task Force Black and in the preface he states that the DoD allowed him to interview serving SAS soldiers (with what appear to have been pretty light restrictions) and read through the book before it was published to correct factual errors and remove material which could jeopardise ongoing operations (which apparently lead them to try to prevent the book from being published).
• The article doesn't really explain what the the SAS' current role is. Nick-D (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. SASR detail changed slightly and non commonwealth units added. MOD statement qualified and two better refs added. Have not read TASK FORCE BLACK yet does it have and good material ?. I have also been working on the History of the Special Air Service article which of course covers operations in more detail. Its a balancing act to judge how much to add to a history summery. Working though the other points. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 08:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Task Force Black provides surprisingly detailed coverage of the SAS in Iraq and, unlike many books on the SAS, seems pretty sober and reliable. Nick-D (talk) 09:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)