Carl...
If you add up the dead, wounded, missing, and captured....and compare it to the numbers of troops serving in special units....you might find the numbers telling. The argument that by taking the best of one's troops and putting them into special units thereby harming the conventional unit's has been the crutch used by those who do not like "unconventional units".
The British Army had fought a long hard war since '39 and had been bled white....conscription was drawing from the very last resources....enlistments were tailing off due to the lack of men available to serve.
One source suggests the British (including the colonial armies) had lost 519,000 dead or missing....and 488,000 wounded...and no telling how many being held POW by the Axis powers.
Just how many were Special troops?