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Frogman is a popular term for a Scuba Diver . The word arose around 1940 from the appearance of a diver in shiny wetsuit and with large fins on his feet. The term preferred by Scuba users is 'diver', but the word persists in usage by non-divers, especially in the media, often to refer to professional scuba divers in organizations such as the police. Usual usage of the word "frogman" implies diving for action, often in combat; such divers are also sometimes called combat diver or '''combat swimmer'''. A few Sport Diving Club s have included the word "Frogmen" in their names. In Britain, Police divers have often been called "police frogmen". The first British police diver was a policeman who, needing to search underwater for evidence or a body, did not use a Drag but went home and fetched his sport scuba gear. See also Ian Edward Fraser . Some countries' frogman organizations include a translation of the word "frogman" in their official names, e.g. Denmark 's "Frømandskorpset" and Norway 's "Froskemanskorpset"; others call themselves "combat divers" or similar. Others call themselves by indefinite names such as "special group 13" and similar. See Anti-frogman Techniques for details of detecting and combatting unwelcome frogman and Scuba Diver incursions. TYPES OF ARMED-FORCES DIVERS Military diving is a branch of Professional Diving carried out by world Armed Forces . There may be intergrades between combat divers and other divers, such as when naval work divers (called Clearance Diver s in the British Navy and Royal Australian Navy ) are the nearest available divers to call on to investigate intruding unidentified divers and if necessary use force to arrest them and make them surface; see Anti-frogman Techniques . Many nations and some irregular armed groups use or have used combat frogmen. FROGMAN TRAINING Training armed forces divers, including combat divers, is far harder, longer and more complicated than civilian sport scuba diver training, typically takes several weeks full-time, and the trainees must be at full armed forces fitness and discipline at the start. It needs much higher levels of fitness, and during the course there is often a high elimination rate of trainees who do not make the grade. For more details see the articles on each nation's frogman group below and their external links. This contrasts with civilian sport scuba diving training which tends to be one evening a week, being 30 to 60 minutes Swimming Pool time, followed by two hours or so of dry meeting (often in a social-club-type environment with an open Bar ). The club's rules allow diving in outside water when the Trainee has reached an "open water" standard defined in the rules. The general environment at sport dives is liable to encourage what a naval frogman-trainer would call "a casual tourist-type attitude to being underwater". EQUIPMENT For scuba diving gear in general, see Scuba Set . Breathing sets Frogmen's breathing sets on covert operations should have these features:-
USA frogmen's rebreathers tended to have the breathing bag on the back before enclosed backpack-box rebreathers became common. The Russian IDA71 as a frogman's breathing set The Russian IDA71 is well designed for fights underwater:-
Open-circuit scuba as a frogman's breathing set The common sport Open-circuit Scuba is not recommended for combat action, particularly in a fight against a trained naval or combat diver, because:
Combat frogmen sometimes use open-circuit Scuba during training. Masks Most frogmen use a Fullface Mask instead of separate mouthpiece and mask. The older type of British frogman's and naval Diving Mask was fullface and had a mouthpiece inside it. See Full Face Diving Mask for more information including requirements if there is a risk of underwater fights. Some frogmen use a mouthpiece and noseclip or a mouth-and-nose (oro-nasal) breathing mask instead of a diving mask with eye windows, and special Contact Lens es to correct the vision Refraction Error caused by the eyeballs being directly submerged. This is to avoid a Searchlight or other lights reflecting off the mask window and thus revealing his presence, but it exposes the Eyeball s to any Pollution , Poison or Organism s in the water. Fins Another problem with a frogman who may have to come ashore and operate on land is the awkwardness of walking on land in Fins , unless he plans to discard his kit and return to base by some other way than by diving, or if the frogman plan to take and hold a position until other troops arrive. Some sport diving fins have the blade angled downwards for more effective swimming, but this makes walking on them even more awkward. The usual solution is for the frogman to take his fins off and carry them, but that takes time and occupies a hand carrying them unless he can clip them in to his kit, or thread an arm through the fins' straps. There has been mention of a type of fin with a lockable hinge which on land can be unlocked to allow the fin blade to hinge up out of the way when walking. The first type of British naval swimming fin had a short blade which was even shorter at the big toe side: this made walking on land easier for such purposes as creeping up on a sentry from behind on land, but reduced swimming speed. Diving suits The frogman's diving suit should be a tough scratch-and-cut-resistant Drysuit (perhaps reinforced with Kevlar ), and not a soft foam Wetsuit . A wetsuit can be worn under the drysuit as a warm Undersuit . In very warm water, a thin tough drysuit can be worn with no Undersuit . It should not have obvious bright colored patches, Unit Badge s or the suit maker's Advertising ; but diving sea- Police types may find that a unit badge is useful. Tools and weapons carried underwater Weapons that can be carried by a frogman include:
Transport for frogmen Frogmen may approach their site of operation and return to base in various ways including:-
TYPES OF FROGMAN OPERATIONS
DERIVATIVE WORD USAGES
ERRORS ABOUT FROGMEN Wrong use of the word "frogman" A new English translation of the book " Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea " uses the word "frogman" uniformly and wrongly to mean a diver in Standard Diving Dress or similar (for French ''scaphandrier''). Supposed ancient scuba divers/frogmen Ancient Assyrian Stone Carvings show images which some have supposed to be frogmen with crude breathing sets. However, the so-called breathing set was merely a goatskin float used to cross a river, and the "breathing tube" was to inflate it by mouth. Mistakes in fiction: open-circuit scuba used by combat divers Many Comic s have depicted combat frogmen and other covert divers using two-cylinder twin-hose open-circuit Aqualung s, even Anachronistically in stories set during WWII when in reality aqualungs were unknown outside Cousteau and his close associates in Toulon in south France . All real covert frogmen use rebreathers. The movie The Frogmen made this mistake too, but with three- Cylinder ed aqualungs. Mistakes in fiction: wrong depictions of open-circuit scuba There have been thousands of drawings (mostly in for the correct layout. MOVIES AND FICTION Frogman-type operations have featured in many Comic s, Book s and Movie s. Some try to reconstruct real events; others are completely fictional. Some make the mistakes described above. See also:
NATIONS WITH MILITARY DIVING GROUPS Italy started WWII with a commando frogman force already trained. Britain , Germany , the USA , and the USSR started commando frogman forces during WWII . Argentina The Buzos Tácticos is Argentina 's combat frogmen force. Australia The Clearance Diving Team (RAN) is Australia's combat frogman and underwater work force. Brazil See Brazilian Commando Frogmen . Britain See British Commando Frogmen . See also Royal Engineers Specialist - Diver , Naval Clearance Divers and Clearance Diver . Denmark See Danish Frogman Corps Eritrea During Eritrea 's war of independence against Ethiopia , the rebel forces had a combat frogman force. After the war, some of those frogman were retrained as Dive Guide s for the sport scuba diving Tourism trade. France See French Commando Frogmen Germany See German Commando Frogmen India The MCU is the elite naval special operations unit of the Indian Navy that undertakes underwater combat. See MARCOS . Indonesia The TNI-AL/Indonesian Navy Underwater Combat Unit is called Kopaska . Israel It is reported that Israel 's combat frogmen are among the most effective compared to their numbers and are said to have been in many operations. They started in 1948. See Shayetet 13 . Italy See Italian Commando Frogmen Malaysia Malaysia has a special-forces naval unit called Paskal . It includes frogmen. Mexico See Fuerzas Especiales . Netherlands The Netherlands 's Amphibious Reconnaissance Platoon is part of the Special Forces unit of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps . Norway Norway 's commando frogmen corps is called Froskemanskorpset . Philippines For the Philippines ' military frogman corps, see Special Action Force . Russia See Russian Commando Frogmen . United States See United States Navy SEALs or its WW2 and Vietnam era precursor the Underwater Demolition Team EXTERNAL LINKS
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