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Special Forces Survival Guide

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Special Forces Survival Guide

Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

12 people are currently reading
236 people want to read

About the author

Chris McNab

378 books56 followers
Dr Chris McNab has written over a hundred books in a career spanning over two decades. He is a historian with a specialisation in military history.

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5 stars
31 (31%)
4 stars
26 (26%)
3 stars
36 (36%)
2 stars
5 (5%)
1 star
2 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
17 reviews
March 13, 2025
A classic! Found this on my shelf from when I was younger and never read it. Really good practical information!
9 reviews1 follower
January 12, 2018
The book Special Forces Guide: Wilderness Survival Skills from the World's Most Elite Military Units by Chris McNab is a very informational book about survival and good skills to learn in case of an emergency. The guy ken (example name for the guy) tells us skills for different terrain. The skills ken tells us are great and even if u think u won't use them there great to have. This book also is about special forces survival skills and their skills are different because they use them in battle.

I love this book because it taught me a lot about survival skills and kept me interested to keep me still reading this good book. The book was very filled up and had a ton of information.

I recommend this to everyone. I think it good people know these skills because if something happens you know what to do if something happens.

7 reviews
September 19, 2017
This is such a cool book. It teaches you all sorts of awesome survival tips, and at my grandmothers house, when I got the book, we made pine needle tea. It actually tasted pretty good! You should totally get this book if you're interested in survival in the wilderness, or nature.
Profile Image for Azrakoth.
23 reviews
May 12, 2020
Good foundational knowledge pertaining to survival situations and skills applicable within the civilian realm. Do note, however, that the pacing can, at times, be interrupted due to the addition of visual aids/diagrams that can, in some instances, take up multiple pages during the middle of a sentence within the book. The diagrams, however, are sufficient in presenting a good visual representation of their intended explanation. The "special forces" tips are usually just re-iterations of base-level knowledge that was already mentioned in the book.
4 reviews
February 29, 2016
My book is Special Forces Survival Guide: Wilderness Survival Skills from the World's Most Elite Military Units by Chris McNab. I think the Authors purpose of writing this book was to inform the readers on how Special Forces were taught, and are still taught how to survive in many different wilderness situations. The book contains many different types of survival techniques. The subjects vary from finding food, making a shelter, making a fire, leaving signs of life, and also how to find help. The book (as stated before) has compiled many survival techniques and facts from many Special Force teams across the world, such as the U.S. Air Force, or the Spetsnaz (the Russian Special Forces).
After being engrossed in this book till the very end, I knew that the theme of this book is “do everything possible to survive”. The book states that at certain points if someone is in a certain situation, to not quit trying to survive. Some examples of the book talking about how to get food can be a little complicated. An example concerning how to identify poisonous plants from edible plants teaches that someone might need to cook a plant before it is suitable for consumption. This also goes for certain meats; some meat (if that is the only suitable option) can be eaten raw. The book also mentions ways of hunting and also ways of tracking. Some ways of hunting may include trapping an animal. The book gave detailed instructions alongside pictures of setting up traps to trap many different animals.
As I said in the first paragraph, I believe that the author’s purpose of writing this book was to instruct and or inform readers on how to survive in many different situations. The book contains very useful information on surviving in almost every landscape and biome of the earth. To be honest if I could choose to bring anything with me on a stranded island (only one thing), it would be this very book. I’m going to be taking this everywhere I go from now on. Call me paranoid, but this book is very detailed in how to complete certain things to survive. Whether it’s making fires, fire placement, finding food, cooking food, hunting, making hunting weapons, making tools, etc. this book is the real deal, meaning because of this book, I could survive at least 1.75 months (just an estimate).
My conclusion and my thoughts on this book are as follows. This book is great and I would give it a rating of 10/10. This has been one of my favorite books of all time. It made me think of when I was a child, and when I would act like I was on a stranded island with my friends. I would always be the leader and tell everyone what to do such as gather firewood, or go hunting. It’s a great book and I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys hunting, or anyone interested in the military. The book was very thorough explaining what to do or when it was explaining instructions. But overall a very good book. In some of my other reviews on books I mentioned some books related to the book I was reviewing, but I’ve never really read a book like this, or a book about this kind of thing or subject. I believe the reason this book appealed to me was because I like historic articles and or books. And this book is full of ways the American soldiers in WWII would survive in Japan, an example being if your plane was going down. You shouldn’t make a fire in a very dense area, like lush forests. But as said earlier, very excellent book, amazing writing and I will definitely be reading it again every time I go on a trip.

Profile Image for Mike.
33 reviews5 followers
October 17, 2009
It does a cursory glance at every conceivable situation you could find yourself in. You definitely have to realize what it is (a cursory glance teaching you how to think, not what to actually do) to fully appreciate it.
Profile Image for Kate.
375 reviews11 followers
February 11, 2009
Simple. Practical. Now I can dig myself a shelter in the desert.
Profile Image for Marty.
8 reviews1 follower
March 3, 2012
The book is a cheap rip-off of the U.S. Army's FM on Survival. It's a good thing for Chris McNab that you can't by charged for plagerizing government work.
Profile Image for Fredrick Danysh.
6,844 reviews197 followers
March 14, 2016
This a useful guide of basic survival tips and skills gleamed from all branches of the US military. It would be useful to any outdoorsman.
Profile Image for Sam Bradley.
2 reviews
September 21, 2016
This is an informational book but it still is very good becaue it has a lot of interesting stuff in it
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews

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