SAS Encyclopedia

Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) is the most well known special forces formation in the world. Newly updated, the SAS Encyclopedia is a unique account of every aspect of this world-famous unit, listing the battles and campaigns, weapons and equipment, training and tactics, and every operation that SAS soldiers have taken part in up to the present day – including Afghanistan and Iraq. With the aid of hundreds of colour and black-and-white photographs, the majority taken by SAS soldiers on campaign, SAS Encyclopedia provides a stunning illustrative record of all the SAS’s wars.

The exciting photographs are complemented by a highly researched text that recounts all the Regiment’s history in full, and which also provides their political and strategic backgrounds, as well as detailed maps that show precisely where the action took place. Read of the birth of the SAS in the North African desert in World War II; the wars fought in the humid, snake-infested jungles of Malaya and Borneo in the 1950s and 1960s; the behind-the-lines actions during the Falklands War; and the counter-terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland. Coming right up to date, SAS Encyclopedia also includes the Scud-busting exploits of the Regiment during the first Gulf War, the intervention in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and the ongoing fight against terrorism that the SAS is currently waging around the world. The campaign chapters also include boxes that feature biographical details on the SAS commanders and soldiers who took part, while other boxes contain exciting first-hand accounts of the fighting.

But SAS Encyclopedia is much more than a detailed record of the SAS’s wars. It also examines the special operational tactics used by SAS soldiers, fighting skills that have guaranteed success time and time again for SAS soldiers in battle, often against incredible odds, and have ensured that the men who wear the Winged Dagger badge remain the best there is.

Good soldiers, especially those who undertake a wide variety of missions, need good equipment, and so SAS Encyclopedia features all the weapons and equipment previously and currently employed by the regiment, and why and how they are used by SAS soldiers in action – everything from the Minimi machine gun to attack Land Rovers and the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. With detailed appendices listing the selection and training courses run by the Regiment, organisational charts and links with other elite units around the world, SAS Encyclopedia is the most definitive record of Britain’s Special Air Service.