Spetznaz

From ARRSEpedia
spetznaz.jpg
Specialnogo Naznacheniya

Bears

Soviet (or Russian) special forces. Made up from fat, smelly, overgrown, bear-eating/vodka-drinking meatheads, these were the elite of the Soviet military establishment. They wrestle with bears, bottle each others' heads, and live on frozen piss... allegedly.

Gimps

Spetznaz training consisted of jumping repeatedly over a bonfire in a gimp suit - or rather that's what the one & only picture available in the West suggested. So prolific was this particular image in the various defence journals of the 1980s, a school of thought arose that suggested that the whole Spetznaz thing was dreamt up to stop squaddies falling asleep on stag, as there was no way anyone wearing such a gay NBC suit could pose any threat to Western civilisation.

Ruperts

The rumour mill went in to overdrive in the 1980s: there were Spetznaz operatives watching you checking vehicles at the main gate, making notes of all the Ruperts you saluted, so they could log their plates and follow them home after work, before slotting them with a Ninja death stare - thus depriving the British Army of one less vital cog in the machine of command, or one less Flight Lieutenant to fly a Jaguar. All very paranoid it was. It might even have been all true!

Village People

There were apparently English villages lovingly recreated in the Ukraine, where Spetznaz operatives could practice their language skills - no doubt ingrained after endless showings of Brief Encounter in the Training Wing. There were Post Offices where these steely-eyed killers could practice cashing their faux Giros. Every aspect of English life was replicated perfectly - apart from trashing everything after eight pints of Stella. This omission of vital skills may well have blown their cover in the real Blighty had push really come to shove.

Carpet Munchers

They were even rumoured to have infiltrated the militant wing of the Lesbo-Fascist 'peace movement', so any one of those unwashed harridans outside Greenham Common or Molesworth could have been a highly-trained Communist assassin watching my every move. Well if they were watching my every move, they must have spotted me cracking one off behind the perimeter floodlights - and there's me thinking I was unnoticed.

Ninja Death Stare

Be afraid: Oooh, I'm scared!

After Glasnost

Due to the economic conditions in the former USSR, THEYski now moonlight as bodyguards, debt collectors, organized crime hitmen and the most heavily armed bouncers in civilization (apart from bouncers at clubs near Hereford).