Talk:Active Service Unit

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PIRA does not employ the military terms Brigade and Battalion in a conventional manner; the entire strength of PIRA - as supplied above - approximated to that of one NATO battalion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxburgoyne (talk • contribs) 19:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Please don't put crap on talk pages that's been removed from articles for a very good reason. Do you want to know why you couldn't source it? Simple, it's not true. Would you like a couple of quotes from the British Army's own report on Operation Banner?

• Altogether about 10,000 people were involved in the IRA between 1969 and 1972.
• Between May and December 1973 1,798 members of PIRA were arrested.

And there's plenty more where that came from. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 21:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The articles states, ". . . in 2002 the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units". Units are not filled with historic members or those "involved" but only marginally so your point is not well made. Any 12 year old "dicking" troops would count as "involved" I took part in Op BANNER so do know what I am writing about. Avoid "crap" comments. Not that eloquent or adult is it? --MJB (talk) 22:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is well made. You're simply going by a figure from one moment in time yet ignoring various points. Namely...

1. The 2002 strength of the IRA has no bearing on its use of the term in the early 1970s.
2. The level of activity in the early 1970s (especially 1972) clearly demonstrates the number of active IRA members at the time, all sourced by the Operation Banner report.

Yet none of that changes the original point. No source has made the observation, because it's flat out wrong. I suppose the people who've written all the books, reports etc know nothing compared to you, is that it? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 22:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You are of course correct. There are 4000 plus people in a PIRA Brigade and I apologise for all the confusion I have caused. --MJB (talk) 23:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC) Also, the stength of the British Army is 100 million as I am going to include all historical members and supporters. --MJB (talk) 11:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)