UKC

What’s that all about?

SAS who dares wins is on now, with Ant Middleton shouting a lot. They’ve just been abseiling down a pretty impressive piece of rock, but facing forward, down the rock face, rather than into the rock. What’s the advantage to them doing it that way? (is there an advantage...?)

Depends where the bad guys are.

Incidentally I recall that a lot of French Alpinists seemed to abseil facing down in the 80's.

It got banned in Scouting for a bit after a few injuries to people being stupid.

In terms of what they're doing it's probably just that it's scarier than going the conventional way round.

How so? If the bad guys are close enough that the direction you would face if you abseiled would matter, would you really be abseiling at all? You’d be rather exposed as you came down- surely a competent shot would have little trouble picking you off? Unless it’s just faster, but even then, seems like taking unreasonable risks, hard to envisage a situation where just not abseiling into hostile fire and finding another option wouldn’t be a better choice.

but interested hear what someone who knows more about it than me makes of it...

TBH, I think its just one of those things they do in the military that has no practical purpose but looks good and tests how big yer bollox are

In America, sport rappelling is quite common. I believe you score more points for forward rappelling! Stupid sport if you ask me, but that's americans, they have some funny ideas!

Yes, it had crossed my mind. But seeing as how Ant Middleton had spent the entire show shouting at the contestants about how mountain and winter warfare is deadly serious stuff where any mistakes mean certain death, I didn’t think they’d then engage in pointless stunts mainly because they look good on camera...

still happy to have any real advantages of the technique that make it a compelling addition to the special forces repertoire pointed out though 

I'd be careful trying to link what you are seeing on a TV show with anything approaching the reality of special forces training.

Yes, I’d reached that conclusion pretty early on. Not least from the amount of arbitrary shouting at participants that they were doing. 

I'm sure there are times, trying to force a doubled 11mil rope through a figure 8 descender, abseiling down a slab, when I've be forced to face out and stagger downwards like a drunk in a gale, just to get the rope through.

I think it has something to do with facing outwards and downwards is scarier than facing inwards and upwards. These tests are more to do with overcoming fear and staying in control of yourself than having any practical purpose. 

Brits in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!

If you can't face forwards, then when on tv it's important to do several big jumps and really put those anchors to the test. 

They said it was so you could see the enemy and if you came under fire you could return fire, presumably if you were facing in you would just be a sitting duck.

Didn't it used to be called "Australian abseiling", because it was done for backpacker tourists as an alternative too, or once you had done, a bungy jump, a tandem sky dive, a basic PADI scuba course etc.? I think going forward is meant to make it look cool.

From my battle experience in COD, I would think you could use it if descending into a compound stealthily and see what is going on, and either wait for the guard below to move off, or kill them silently.

They're doing it wrong - you're supposed to be firing a weapon and picking off the hapless baddies as they wake up in shock at your sudden arrival from an unexpected direction.

But seriously, we watched 20 minutes last night and what a pile of bollocks that programme is. The people who join the SAS or the SBS are the same as those who join the Foreign Legion, already experienced and battle-hardened in military conflict or the streets of France or the Maghreb.

What kind of abseil device were they using to absorb the heat?

It may sound stupid, but in conventional warfare it's common to loose 60 - 90% of menpower assulting a city for example. And as boots on the ground you can end up with order to abseil on the heads of enemy while your mates will support you with machine gun fire from the top so enemy would not dare to stick their heads out to shoot every one.

Abseiling while facing down with just the rope across your back was a bit of a right of passage in the Royal Marine Commandos back in the 70's.

Al

I'm pretty sure it is done to develop situational awareness as you approach an area.

Although I'm not special forces trained I find approaching most situations by walking forward preferable to shuffling backwards with my arse level with my widely spaced feet.

You ain't lived until you've burnt a hole in your sweater throwing yourself down the side of the Citadel in Plymouth

I know Plymouth girls aren't the nicest but there are easier ways to make your escape. I find distracting them with a pasty before making a hasty retreat much simpler.

off the back of this, when you see spec ops guys abseiling in fast are they just using normal fig 8's and letting the rope run through quick or is there an actual technique/device for fast roping?

Alas, back in the 70's, the girls down on Union Street were leaner, meaner and could move a lot faster than they can today!

Fast roping is on a fat rope, hand friction only.

Fast abseiling is just a fig 8 or similar.

Now that I think about it, this is also my preference when approaching a 'situation'. I'm off now to apply for the army, hopefully their recruitment website is easy to navigate and is user friendly...

Between xmas and new year 1969, as a fresh faced 16 year old, on my second winter day, I was on the top of helvellyn with a dozen or so cmc members, probably no torches and about 10% of us with axes or crampons, full on winter conditions, hard neve full cover and about ten minutes useful light left in the white out conditions.

Luckily we had Chris Woodall in charge.

Two half ropes tied together, probably to the trig point or maybe just Chris in a direct belay on the plateau. Instructions to wrap rope around arms and run down the grade 1 gully. 

Chris ran down in crampons last and coiled the rope as he did so.

We were all in the pub in about half an hour :-

Rooky lesson learned no.1

Always have a plan and options.

Rooky lesson no.2

Try a good plan first.

I couldn't see, but I'm not sure there was much friction heat anyway. It looked as if there were two safety ropes attached to the back of the harness, and that the "abseil" was in fact mainly a controlled forward-facing lower, quite slow on the clips shown, except for the initial demo by a DS.

Bear Grylls had Gareth Southgate doing this on his recent "mission" in Dartmoor. I couldn't see any good reason other than to make it more scary.

Stephen

I suspect it’s more often used in combat on very steep ground with lots of cover than a bare cliff face. 

Abseiling down a steep slope with lots of objects on it (vegetation?) into a firefight sounds like a recipe for rope snagging disaster... do you know if this has ever actually been done? 

I've done it quite a lot, on short, well protected pitches, mainly for the purposes of showing off!

It is a lot less stable, because the attachment point is higher in relation to your CoG and your feet tend to want to drop. I have seen people put their harness on back to front to try and counter this. I've also seen people wearing chest harnesses on back to front, as it's a heck of a strain on your back to do it for very far - ditto your abs!

It's also a lot less controlled, less forgiving and a bugger to do much with if something gets jammed, as all the gear is behind and above you. The biggest risk is not being clipped in properly - you really DO need someone to buddy-check you if you're going to give it a bash.

I'm sure many years ago I was chatting with one of the guys at Troll.  He mentioned how they had modified one of their lowering/abseiling devices to incorporate a "quick release pin". 

This was apparently for Saunders And Simpson furniture removers.

That is hardly a new idea, all you have to do using the classic abseil technique is let go. 

In action here youtube.com/watch?v=OnpKqFWsbSk&

Oh yeah, not work safe.