Mike Coburn Soldier Five Pdf Download
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During the evening of 26 January, McNab's group of five commandeered a taxi by having Consiglio pretend to be wounded in McNab's arms whilst lying on the side of a road.[64] When the car approached, Pring, Lane, and Coburn came up from behind cover and surrounded the vehicle.[65] According to McNab's account, the group evicted all occupants from the taxi and drove until they reached a check point, where Lane shot and killed one soldier, while the others in the group killed two more.[66] According to Ryan's second-hand account (presumably taken from the Regimental debriefing), the group were driven to the checkpoint by one of the Iraqi occupants of the taxi. They exited the vehicle with plans to rendezvous on the other side of the checkpoint, but the driver alerted the Police, and the group were forced to continue on foot.[65] Asher's investigation supported Ryan's version of events with no reported armed contact and no reported Iraqi casualties.[67]
There's a book by michael asher called the real bravo two zero and also a tv documentary by him by the same name. Most of its bull *beep* but he does show the real LUP. and it was 20k they walked in the film. The most accurate account in my opinnion is "soldier five" by mike coburn the member of the patrol from new zeland. Whatever anyne says they are all heros in my opinion,
"There have been several attempts to discredit the story and both have fallen under some pretty heavy flaws. The action in the film is 100% accurate and true to the account told by the surviving members of the patrol(not just McNab)"
Even though I realise the message i am quoting is very old, but this messages is still prime example of the problem. This movie, contrary to the above popularly held belief is NOT accurate.
Both Andy McNab and Chris Ryan embellished their stories to make them more pallatable to a main stream audience, its not really that hard to understand if you actually think about it, the realities of war are much harsher than what is depicted on the cinemas, plus real life doesnt have all those extra camera angles and soundtrack that adds alot of the dramatic effect to the film, in order to make the film more convenient for a book and movie they exagerrated some details.
My issue with this movie extends to the actual operation itself, both the books and films completely ignore why the mission failed and instead try to blame it on Vince Phillips (Ray in the film), claiming he failed to kill a goatherder that compromised their position and that he'd "given up" when he started suffering from hypothermia.
First off I don't really think that anyone should need to be reminded that Vince like all other members of the team was a brave man serving his country, and like two of his comrades he died doing it, not enough that the British Army tries to put the blame on the unit itself and conveniently ignores the fact that command screwed up the initial deployment and basically dropped them on top of their target, not 12km away, also the local farmers had sheep, not goats and there was no shepherd that Vince was supposed to eliminate to prevent the team from being compromised, the team got compromised because they heard the sound of an approaching tank and took cover and set up anti tank LAW rockets, when the vehicle came into view it was a bulldozer being driven by a civilian which saw the prepared anti-armour team and immediately backed off, this caused the team to exfiltrate.
Furthermore claims from Peter Radcliffe that they never received a communication request for extraction (not helped by the fact the planning was rushed and cocked up giving the guys the wrong frequencies and wrong radios, so even when the radios worked they still couldnt reach HQ), when it's been proven that there were 3 transmissions that are very clear about the patrols request for extraction. Furthermore, the original mission plan was the exfiltration point to be the same as the original LZ at Saudi, it was the SAS command that made the decision for the team to redirect to Syria and "forgot" to tell the rescue units of the revised mission plan so what half assed attempts were made to extract the team were sent to the wrong end of the country. As if that wasn't enough when the surviving team members returned four having endured more than a month of torture, they are welcomed with the phrase "your CO has GRACIOUSLY decided not to court martial you".
Michael Asher is wrong. First off he's basing his theories off the unsubstantiated claims off local Iraqi civilians that were supposedly in the area, not to mention this would probably be the same farmer group who fire (so the claim) "warning" shots at the patrol who then returned fire being evacuating. Second even insinuating that 3 civilians could get the drop on an extremely well trained 8 man SAS team? Hell ludicrous just doesn't even come close to describing it, the same goes for Ashers claim that next to or no Iraqi casualties were inflicted, the casualties were exagarrated by Ryan and McNab but there were definitely Iraqi fatalities.
As for the amount of armour encountered, before the group split there is confirmation of at least one APC and attacks from numerous Iraqi infantry plus the presence of a 12.7mm DShK heavy machine gun, Chris Ryan says he didn't see that but estimates at firing off a good 70 rounds during the firefight. Now given that SAS soldiers are well trained as their selection training is 6 months long with a 36 month probabtionary period after selection training, not to mention the prerequisite minimum of 3 years regular army service before you can even apply for selection training, so you have 8 guys THAT well trained, using pretty much all the ammo they have with and they what? Don't hit anything? Yeah sure.
As for how the three team members died, Bob Consiglio (Tony) was shot and killed during a firefight when he ran out of ammunition, Vince Phillips (Ray) and Steve Lane (Baz) both died of hypothermia.
If you want the real story of the Bravo Two Zero mission then get yourself a copy of Mike Coburn's "Soldier Five", that sets the story straight for Vince Phillips and points out the failures of command that directly resulted in the deaths of 3 soldiers, the torture of 4, and extreme climate conditions for the last team member who had to leg it out 200 miles on foot (fyi regarding the armour Chris Ryan encountered on his own, this was two jeeps he opened fire on an disabled while waiting for Stan to return (who of course didn't having been captured).
Oh by the way, although "Soldier Five" is the better purchase for what really happened, another bit of info for those that don't know just how much the UK government have shafted their own soldiers, Mike Coburn had to fight a five year court battle to get his book published as the MOD tried to claim it as being classified despite their being several other books out beforehand, the bill for this 5 year legal proceeding came to 7 million (GBP) and came out the UK tax payers pocket, on top of that, when the MOD didn't get their way to ban the book they instead took Mike Coburn back to court to demand ALL (not sum, all) of the profits from the sale of HIS book and he has to pay his legal expenses himself as well (about 100,000) which he doesn't get to use any of his book sales for (not like he's getting any money from that anyway).
Oh one last note as well, that really underscores just how sickening the treatment to these guys have been - The proceeds of Mike Coburn's book was to be divided amongst the families of the men who died in the operation and between the other guys who were captured and tortured, not only did the MOD foot the 7 million bill for legal fees to the UK tax payers but they also didn't pay any of the the profits of the book sales as compensation to the families that were quite literally destroyed over how Vince Phillips name was slandered, because of how Ryan and McNab embellished their stories, and the governments flat out refusal to come clean about their *beep* up, Vince Phillip's brother suffered a nervous breakdown, his father died a broken man who was seriously depressed with the things beinng said about his son, Vince's own children even got the other kids and school making fun of them calling their dad a coward.
Its really does make me sick to see how these guys were treated after everything they sacrificed for this country. Oh and incase anyone is planning on using the "they already knew they were expendable it goes with the job", well that's actually where you would be wrong. The operating procedures and planning for missions changes dramatically based on the circumstances surrounding the mission and its objective. The bottom lines is the SAS command is responsible for what happened and is trying to defame the name of a good soldier and destroy his remaining family so they dont have to have the humiliation of saying "sorry" on the news and then paying the due compensation to the families and survivors of the interrogation.
I think I could safely say even the surviving members of Bravo Two Zero feel that the Iraqis treated them better than their own government.