90% of the candidates for British Joint Special Forces Selection drop out during the famous aptitude or “hill phase” in the Brecon Beacons mountains.
This is not because tabbing (Tactical Advance to Battle or speed marching) is so difficult to master in itself, but because the Brits are doing it on purpose. This is where they set the bar the highest.
There are a lot of other challenges during selection, and theoretically, you could set the bar somewhere else—for example, so that the majority of candidates drop out when they have to run, swim, or complete any other task. However, tabbing (and navigation as well) is the number one critical skill you need to master when you’re in enemy territory.
It cannot be overstated how much more important it is to be able to carry a 100-pound load over difficult terrain for many miles than anything else a Special Operations Forces soldier needs to do.
It’s not only the SAS using tabbing to weed out the candidate field during selection. Pathfinders of the 16th Air Assault Brigade in the Brecon Beacons. (Picture: 16th Airborne Brigade Combat Team)
If you’re not the very best shooter, your comrades may compensate for it, and if you suck at hand-to-hand combat, nobody cares.
However, if you can’t carry your load anymore, your whole team is f*cked. You jeopardize your mission and the lives of your buddies. Of course, this is an absolute no-no.
In addition, every soldier (many come from the Parachute Regiment) who applies for UKSF selection knows exactly what is expected of them. Hell, there are books and online tutorials titled How to Get Into the SAS?
So, if you fail at an activity that requires nothing from you except discipline and preparation, you’re probably not the right person for the SAS in the first place. There’s no luck involved in tabbing—you either have what it takes or you don’t.
This is why the hill phase eliminates so many candidates from the selection process. The guys who pass, on the other hand, are the ideal material to become Special Operations Forces soldiers.
One of my postings with my first Corps before I transferred was with the flight that provided Casevac for SAS selection, so I got to see quite a bit of what they go through.
Let me just say from the outset, this is purely from an observational point of view, at no point in my career did I ever attempt or consider selection and there is only one guy that I had known from the very beginning of my career that did it, I met others afterwards but they were already badged and just happened to be on the same camp. Actually we were on their camp but I digress.
As we had helicopters we were sometimes commandeered as a taxi to give the Regiment guys lifts around the training area, some of them would chat, some wouldn’t.
On one ride we had an SAS Sgt on board that got chatting with me and asked if I had ever considered going for selection, I told him the truth that I did not think I was fit enough and neither did I ever think that I could get fit enough. What he told me is the answer to your question.
It is not about fitness, it is not about carrying those weights over that distance in that time, it is about having the mental toughness to overcome your bodies desire to jack it in early (athletes call it “the wall”) and to mentally force yourself to finish in the time allocated. He assured me that anyone that could pass an ICFT (Infantry Combat Fitness Test, what used to be the fitness benchmark for Infantry soldiers) could pass the physical aspects of selection if they had the mental fortitude to do so and it is that mental fortitude that they are looking for.
Now from what I saw with my own eyes, I doubted that BUT, it was being said to me by someone that had been there, seen it and done it and was now testing others to see if they could do the same, so I am going with his explanation.
Tabbing (rucking is what you do if some miscreant is lying on top of the rugby ball and needs to be shown the error of his ways) is a useful skill. Other people have discussed this in some detail but a man with a heavy backpack can go places faster and more sneakily than any other option.
This is the Pen Y Fan (which is apparently Welsh for “top of the peak”). It’s the hard but of a 16 mile out and back route with a bit over 400 vertical meters on each side. If you want to have any hope of being an SAS trooper, you’ll complete those 16 miles in less than 4 hours 10 minutes while carrying 40lbs or more.
Why is it so effective at making candidates drop? Because it’s physically hard. Banging a bloody great weight on your back and walking fast takes great fitness. It’s also mentally hard. You’re operating at a high intensity for a long time. Anyone with a propensity for quitting is going to listen to that little voice that says “just sit down for a few minutes”.
The Fan Dance is the first real test. It only gets harder from there (so I’m told – my days of pretending I could train up and do selection are long behind me)
The SAS have a main focus of conducting direct attack missions far behind enemy lines. They are a long way from safety and can’t always just call in a helo to pick them up.
When they are so far behind enemy lines you have to carry everything you need on your back, like a massive turtle does…..
Now that isn’t an SAS soldier but it just shows what they carry, a bit. You can probably double that in size and weight and you might be closer to what they do carry. Food and water for a week is heavy.
You need a fuck ton of ammunition because if you need to fight your way out of trouble there’s a great chance you going to be seeing a ton of enemy and not many friendlies.
After missions were completed in WW2, at times they planned to walk to safety. When missions went wrong they planned to walk to safety. Carrying the kit. For days.
If you bring someone along that after 2 days and a couple of contacts starts saying that they can’t go any further because they’re tired then you’ve got the wrong guy.
The hills phase of SF training weeds out those people. They end with the guys that will just keep going, fast. Actually fucking fast. The guys are superhuman fit almost and they have the mindset to just keep going.
That’s what you need when you’re 200 km behind enemy lines and need to walk to safety after you’ve finished your mission.
And that’s why they spend weeks making you yomp around the Brecons with progressively heavier weight on your back, going longer distances until you either get it all done or quit.
