does anyone know how many people are in the SAS?

Answer 1

Official numbers of the SAS regiments and units are classified but you can work it out with a rough guess like this.

21 SAS Regiment (Artisans) – Former 22 SAS members only – split into 3 Sabre squadrons (A, C and E) and 1 HQ Squadron.

22 SAS Regiment – The “full time” unit – split into 4 Sabre squadrons (A, B, D and G), 1 HQ Squadron, the CRW Wing and L detachment.

23 SAS Regiment – The TA unit made up of volunteers – split into 3 Sabre squadrons (B, G and D) and 1 HQ Squadron.

Each Sabre squadron is split into 4, 16 man troops (Air Troop, Boat Troop, Mobility Troop and Mountain Troop)

Thus the 10 Sabre Squadrons have a total of 640 men (with 256 of those being in 22 SAS)

The HQ Squadrons are harder to define, however 21 and 23 SAS have an HQ Staff of around 50 each. 22 SAS has around 150 members, this number includes the Planning, and Intelligence Section, Operational Research Section and Training Wing.

The CRW (Counter Revolutionary Wing) consists of 2, 32 man Troops (designated Red and Blue) each split into an Assault Group and a Sniper Team. There is also a 3rd team labelled Pagoda, consisting of 2, 4 man teams based in North and South London and rapidly responds to any incident in the capital as required.

L Detachment is a TA unit assigned full time to 22 SAS and made up of former SAS personnel its sole role is casualty replacement and consists of around 20 men.

So with all the numbers added up the 3 SAS regiments add up to around 982 men, with around 498 of those in 22 SAS.

However having said all that those figures are based on the last press release on SAS Regimental layout release in 2000, in 2001 after 9/11 the Government announced plans to double the size of 22 SAS regiment and increase 21 and 23 SAS in size from 3 Sabre squadrons each to 4. As the SAS are the only Regiment in the British Army that does not suffer with recruitment problems if those targets have been met (and recent actions by large numbers of SAS troops in places like Iraq and Afghanistan suggest they have) this would add around 626 men to the SAS and bring the total number up to 1608.

But remember those numbers are purely estimates on info you can gleam from MOD press releases and statistics available on the MOD web sites. Only the SAS themselves no there actual numbers.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Very few. Three regiments only: 22 SAS Regiment, HQ's in Crendenhill, 23 SAS Regiment, HQ's Regents Park, and 24 SAS Regiment, HQ's Kingstanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service

Answer 3

The SAS is a regiment with 3 battalions, the 22 SAS battalion, 23 SAS battalion and 24 SAS battalion, each battalion has over 400 men in it and that's one formidable force working in teams of 8,16,32 or more, plus you have a signals battalion attached to the SAS regiment.

Answer 4

I think there are 3 regiments and 1 TA regiment. But within these regiments there will be cooks, clerks, store staff, MT and other personnel that wont be SAS trained but essential for the day to running of a regiment. And i think that an SAS regiment wont be the same size as infantry regiment.

Answer 5

Around the 200 mark. 4 squadrons with about 50 in each.

Answer 6

Any figures given here are estimates, only the MOD know the true figure and they are not about to release the info, but you can bet potential enemies have a good idea how many they would be foolish if they did not, as we would be foolish if we thought all our enemies were fools.

Answer 7

B Squadron Sas

Answer 8

I bet the heads of the British military and the intelligence do and probably the Prime minister other than that no one.

Answer 9

It is generally less than 300 personel but they have a retention manning as do all branches of the armed forces....

Answer 10

There are plenty of other countries who would like to know the answer to that !!!