Romanian special ops units

[five]

what do you know about this subject?

[Victor]

They are currently creating a special forces battalion. It will probably be the old 404th Paratrooper and Special Ops Battalion with improvements.

[Dr_V]

Can you be more speciffic?

What do you mean by special ops? Commandos or other special units or the counter-informations (espionage) services?

There are many special units in Romania, from the rangers [(?) jandarmi] anti-drug and anti-terrorist special brigades to army commandos and independent special units of various kinds. The army units that have most numerous commando-like platoons are the paratroopers and the mountain troops. The Navy has also units of fast landing troops, but I'm not sure if they're designated as special units (they act somewhat like the American marines). If you also count the nuclear protection, chemical protection and transmissions monitoring army units you get to quite a number of special forces.

As for the espionage and special operations of that kind, they do exist, but little (if something) else is known about them and their activity. I believe that means they're doing their a good job, if everybody would know their whereabouts they won't be effective anymore. Anyway, some of the successes of the Romanian police and border patroll are related to the activity of those blury special informations units.

Maybe Victor can give you a more accurate picture about this matter.

[five]

special operations: special recon,direct action,unconventional warfare,combat serch and rescue,counter terror and so on.Basicaly small groups behind enemy lines tasked with important and risky missions: airborne pathfinders, recons, combat divers,some of the mountain warfare troops..The military police units and the security forces trained to hunt down specops troops are special forces too.Finally,some of the police swat-type units could be considered as special forces even if their missions are normaly domestic.
So,Victor,the 404 Batt would be transformed ?
Does someone knows about the evolution of romanian recon units before 1989?

[Victor]

Are interested in recon units or special forces?

The 404th Battalion was subordinated to DIA before 1989 and its involvement in the the events in December is unknown, but there are many rumors.

I recently read an article which said that on the base of this unit, with the help of US and Israeli advisers, the new Romanian special forces will be created. The article also said that until now we did not have any special forces, which was not exactly true. The scout units, the cercetasi are well trained to operate as infantry, paratroopers, marines, mountain troops etc, etc and to operate well behind enemy lines. I suppose that the special forces status was probably also associated with the anti-terrorist capabilities, which they lacked.

[Dr_V]

I can tell you for sure that even if we still lack a special forces commandment (or task-force if you wanna call it thatway) we do have small units with special forces training spread in the army and rangers.

I have 2 friends directly involved in such operational training and I can describe you those 2 units I'm talking about. Maybe thisway you'll get an idea about the current situation.

One of my friends is a helicopter pilot at the Alexeni airfield in Ialomitza county (now they're moving to Baneasa military airfield). He's specially trained to carry a small special unit of paratroopers. The unit is a kind of airborned commando (12 men, paratroopers ) that was formed experimentally 3 years ago. They specialised in infiltrating in hostile territory for a speciffic quick task that can be even blowing up a bridge or an enemy HQ. In theory and training (they were yet never used in actual combat) my friend is flying them in his helicopter below RADAR level of detection, they jump off the helicopter by ropes on the objective, do their job and leave on foot or are extracted by air if possible.

The other is a rangers (jandarmi) captain, martial arts expert, officially assigned as close combat instructor. He leads a squad speciallised in anti-terrorist fighting in hostage taking situations. The interesting thing is that they don't use the normal combat gear and weapons for that. They don't wear bullet-proof vests, nor any heavy gear, but special camouflage clothes and "exothic" weaponry. Their only firearms are handguns (+ silencers), hold as a last resort, but they use special batts, knifes, shurykens, steel wires and silent smoke bombs. They're all trained in martial arts and their tacticks are based on the quiet infiltration and surprise effect, without fiering bullets that might endanger the hostages. These guys did saw action in "domestic" police actions, mainly as live training, as the situations they really are trained for never happened here yet.

[five]

Yes,indeed,Im interested in recon and specops.
Dr_V: it seems your friend,the heli pilot, performs infiltration/exfiltration for direct action type missions.
Well,its interesting that approach for hostage rescue scenarios.A japanese police unit employed such tactics some years ago,in an aircraft,but it was a single hijacker,armed with a knife.The major CT teams (UK, US, Israel,Germany,and France) always use firearms.
Or maybe your friend is a member of the scout team of that counter terror unit.
Thanks.