SFC Private RallyPoint Member 492104 <div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Once upon a time, not so long ago, one of my fellow Soldiers mentioned it a few times about Sapper school being harder than Ranger&#39;s. <br /><br />What&#39;s your thought on this? 2015-02-22T22:01:10-05:00 SFC Private RallyPoint Member 492104

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Once upon a time, not so long ago, one of my fellow Soldiers mentioned it a few times about Sapper school being harder than Ranger&#39;s. <br /><br />What&#39;s your thought on this?

2015-02-22T22:01:10-05:00 2015-02-22T22:01:10-05:00 COL Jean (John) F. B. 492131

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div><br />I would find it very hard to believe that the Sapper Course would be as tough as Ranger School, however, since I have not attended Sapper training, I am in no position to make an informed decision about it. Neither is anybody else who has not attended both courses.<br /><br />I would be interested in the comments from folks who have attended both. Others simply have no basis for comparison and would only be making uninformed opinions with no basis to do so.

2015-02-22T22:25:15-05:00 2015-02-22T22:25:15-05:00 SGT Gideon Smith 492646

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>My older brother has made an attempt as sapper, I have a Ranger tab. He claims sapper to be harder, but knowing my brother, there is no way he could even get into Ranger school. I am of the opinion that this claim is just another bit by engineers to claim they are basicly infantry or their jobs are harder than infantry

2015-02-23T08:45:29-05:00 2015-02-23T08:45:29-05:00 PFC Tuan Trang 658149

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Each program have they own excersise, learning and task. Is up to you if you work hard and put your mind to it. Nothing is easy or hard, is the individual that make it look like it.

2015-05-10T22:31:59-04:00 2015-05-10T22:31:59-04:00 SFC Michael Hasbun 658226

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Well, I can say I&#39;ve seen tons of Ranger tabs walking around, and maybe a handful of Sapper tabs...

2015-05-10T22:58:17-04:00 2015-05-10T22:58:17-04:00 SFC Private RallyPoint Member 758308

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Having to have gone to both and successfully have earned both tabs my opinion is each school had its own &quot;degree of suck&quot;. Granted Ranger School was a marathon focusing on mainly ones own people skills and the mental toughness to not quit Sapper being the sprint is a &quot;fire hose&quot; of information being given in a short period of time and being able to retain whats being taught and applying it to combat situations.....In all both schools have earned my respect and im proud to wear both tabs

2015-06-19T13:55:35-04:00 2015-06-19T13:55:35-04:00 SFC Michael Hasbun 845422

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Only people who've earned both tabs could give you an honest, accurate assessment. Anyone else is just guessing or crowing...

2015-07-26T17:18:36-04:00 2015-07-26T17:18:36-04:00 CPT Private RallyPoint Member 845549

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>It has been a while and I don&#39;t know what I said last but being Ranger qualified it is possible. Some people struggle in some areas. I think it is possible for a person to struggle in Sapper than in Ranger. I think it would be extremely odd but then you can&#39;t judge their personal experience.

2015-07-26T18:27:50-04:00 2015-07-26T18:27:50-04:00 1SG Private RallyPoint Member 3170403

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Okay. So I have the privilege of having been a sapper instructor, who is ranger tabbed, and I also got to teach at PreRanger in Hawaii, so I may have a good grasp on this. Sapper is the smart sprint, and we have failed those who have passed Ranger a few times. It is also much smaller, usually 40 students a class at 15 classes a year. You are constantly learning new things in Sapper School. For some this is challenging and to others, impossible. Ranger is a dumb marathon. You learn infantry tactics, Raid Recon and Ambush, and how much suck you can endure on a &quot;holy hell, this is retarded, I just want to sleep / eat&quot; level. It is more taxing on the body due to its length, 62 days. Sapper is only 28. Sapper is intense nearly every day, whereas Ranger, I do recall standing on rocks just wishing I could eat or sleep often. Ranger also has about 10 classes a year but graduates around a hundred each class. My class had a 182 graduates and the class before had just 85. In Sapper, we would graduate a class of 30, and the next class graduate a class of 6. My last class we graduated 1 student out of 48. How hard is each school? Depends on the person attending.

2017-12-14T00:08:32-05:00 2017-12-14T00:08:32-05:00 MSG David Johnson 3178196

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>When I went through the course, none of those who were Tabbed Rangers graduated the Sapper course. We had some great instructors who were either Ranger, or SF qualified. I went through in 1987, the course was still in its infancy. We had lots of demo, we got to blow a building at the end of the course and heloed into the graduation ceremony. We were a leg unit from Ft Lewis, Washington, airborne units jumped in from my understanding.<br />The joke going around at the time was this &quot;What&#39;s the difference between Sapper Leader Course, and Ranger school? 30 days, and Sappers didn&#39;t have to jump out of airplanes!&quot;<br />Back then it was a Leaders Course, to my understanding it is now a school. I may be wrong about that though.

2017-12-16T22:56:00-05:00 2017-12-16T22:56:00-05:00 CPL Michael Gulde 4707607

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Being an Airborne, Air Assault , Sapper served in both 82nd and 101st Airborne and knowing many buds in both Combat Engineers and Infantry who have done Ranger and Many of us in Sapper School back in the day when there was no Buddy partner like now to help and dumb you down. Ranger is just a starvation and sleep deprivation and suck. Most Ranger students fail by actually getting hurt and combined with little food or sleep. They lose about 20-30 lbs during the course and usually get double meals or.rest time off after the course if that explains it<br /> Granted they do advance commando ops. However Sapper has a shorter duration, 10x skill retention and demo equations and tests, one of the hardest Land Nav courses of day and night, the more variety ops and tactics and need to have knowledge of advance light commando engineering expertise base as well as Ranger tactics all combined into one month course. The wash out rate is very high and small classes. We lost half the class just on Land Nav. Lost many on Waterborne ops, then u have Ranger ops, mountaineering &amp; rappelling , survival training. If you pass all of those with physical and mental retention You just might earn a Sapper Tab by graduating. Rangers still have my respect and great breed of guys. But both guys tabbed will say Ranger is endurance, suck . While Sapper is knowledge and short major physical suck. Both are unit benefit specific. All combat units would benefit any of those tabbed in either .

2019-06-08T23:08:09-04:00 2019-06-08T23:08:09-04:00 SFC Casey O'Mally 5595262

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>Well.... According to my instructors at TSAAS, Air Assault is harder than either of them...<br /><br />Bwahahahaha. (Yes, they actually said that.)

2020-02-24T14:09:20-05:00 2020-02-24T14:09:20-05:00 SGT Private RallyPoint Member 6039840

<div class="images-v2-count-0"></div>It&#39;s all in the mind, to each his own.

2020-06-24T17:12:13-04:00 2020-06-24T17:12:13-04:00 2015-02-22T22:01:10-05:00