by Andy McNab
The assaulters were the people with all the black kit on who go jumping out of helicopters and banging down doors; they tended to work in four-man teams, but this was flexible depending on the target. One of the assault groups was the M.O.E (method of entry) team, responsible for making up the explosive charges for the rest of the team to use.
There was also a signals setup. As well as look after the team's equipment they had to provide comms from anywhere in the world, as there were also commitments overseas. As some of them were required to enter a target with the team, they trained alongside us.
The medic carried the world's biggest trauma pack. If there was a man down, the firefight still had to go on; it was the medic's job to get in there and start getting some fluid into him and managing the trauma.
Until everything went bang and an attack went in, the sniper group were the most important people. They were on the target, giving the rest of us real-time information. They, too, were trained as assaulters.
The squadron HQ comprised the O.C, a major, and the SSM, a warrant officer, who were responsible for both teams.
I found being on constant standby no more of a problem than it must be for a doctor; we were on call and we lived with it. We each had a bleeper and didn't go anywhere without it.
Seven Troop was always part of the Red team, which was wonderful because the squadron HQ was next to the Blue. If there were any bone jobs to be done, the head shed would just nip next door; we were fifty meters away in our own hangar.
First thing in the morning we'd meet up in the crew room. Some would have run in or have already done their training in the gym. It was a personal thing; no one ever told us to do it; however, the day we couldn't do our job because we had lacked the self-discipline to go and train, we'd be standing on Platform 4.
Cycling was very popular at one stage, and some mornings it looked like the Tour de France coming into the main gate. I preferred to run in from my house, have a shower, then go and have a brew in the crew room.
It had the look of a seventies-built school staff room, with a TV and magazines that were six months out of date, army soft chairs with horrible colored nylon covers, and mugs that were badly stained by coffee. It stank of stale tea, coffee, and cigarettes.
One of us would go to the cookhouse in a Range Rover and pick up some tea in Norwegians and the packed lunches-brown paper bags that contained a typical school lunch of soggy rolls, Yorkie bar, and crisps. By eight o'clock we'd have eaten everything and would start discussing the day's training.
"What are we doing today then, Gar?"
Gar was in his mid-thirties, an ex-Green jacket, and had been in the Regiment for years. He was very experienced over the water and really switched on. Recently divorced, he was reliving his youth; he was immensely sociable, tailor-made for B Squadron. He wore Armani suits and jermyn Street shirts; even the sergeant major called him Champagne Charlie. At the same time, however, he was very sensible, and not the right bloke to get on the wrong side of. Everybody tried to be best mates with Gar; get in his bad books and you were in trouble.
There was no messing about; he'd just sort you out on the spot.
On 5 September 1972, eight men belonging to the Palestinian terrorist group Black September burst into a room in Munich housing eleven Israeli athletes. They shot two of them and held the others hostage, demanding the release of P.L.O prisoners held in Israel and members of the German Red Army Faction held in West Germany. They also wanted a plane to fly them to Cairo.
The West German government, which had no specially trained counterterrorist forces, gave in to the terrorists' demands after a day of negotiations. They were flown in two helicopters to a military air base, and as they prepared to board the aircraft, army snipers opened fire. Visibility was bad, and the snipers were positioned too far away.
The terrorists had time to blow up both helicopters, killing the nine Israelis.
In order to avoid such a debacle in the LJK, the British government turned to the Regiment. A CRW (counter revolutionary warfare) wing was set up that would be responsible for training every member of the Regiment in counterterrorism techniques-among other things.
CRW was still the continuity of the CT (close target) iding new equipment, training, and buildings. team, prov If there was no training requirement coming from CRW on a particular day-for example, going to see the London Underground, visiting an airport, or looking at major venues where heads of state were likely to meet-we would conduct our own.
Instead of the head shed running things, one of the team would be put in charge: "Right, Harry B, you organize a day in the CQB house."
The head shed could then spend time working alongside us.
The sniper team would go to the ranges or train with the assaulters. I loved the ranges, especially in the summer. We used the PM, a 7.62 sniper rifle, and Lapua ammunition, made in Finland. The targets were "Hun heads"-just a picture of a head. We always went for head shots, for two reasons: Any terrorist with more than two brain cells would wear body armor if he had the opportunity, and there was always a chance that the players would be on drugs and therefore more pumped up. If they were shot in the body, they could be so wired to the moon that they would still come forward or start to kill the hostages. If they had their heads taken off, they'd drop.
Within the Hun head targets was a circle, centered on the area of the nose. We'd start the session by firing just one round, at two hundred meters, as a confidence shot.
Some would do it standing, some lying, but we'd all have to hit the circle, dead center. It made us more confident to know that the weapon kept its zero, even when it had been packed and put in the wagon; at an incident we wouldn't be able to test-fire our weapons, so we had to be sure.
There would then be lots of moving target shoots as far away as six hundred meters, and a lot of OP training and urban sniper work.
The development of a counterterrorist role led to a number of changes at Stirling Lines. The CQB building or "killing house" was constructed to enable us to train in hostage rescue and covert entry with live amen ' ' unition, and make entry at any level-anything from a four-man assault group to a complete team with vehicles and helicopters. It was a single-story bull ding with a center corridor and rooms leading off-large rooms, small rooms, connected rooms-with movable partitions and a whole range of furniture. It was up to the individual to arrange the furniture the way he wanted it and then put up any barricades.
The smell of lead and gunfire seemed to cling to the walls. There were extractor fans, but they couldn't keep up with the amount of rounds fired. Even with the lights in the rooms fully on it was still fairly gloomy. Some rooms had bulletproof glass with little portholes so people could look in from outside or videotape us.
It was my turn to organize a day in the CQB house.
My team consisted of me, Dave, Fat Boy, and a new boy, straight from Selection, called Tim.
"Let's do a three-man snatch," I said. "Fat Boy, go and sort the room out-I don't want you working up a sweat, do I?"
He went off to arrange the furniture in the room and put up barricades for us to fight through and change the lighting in the room so we wouldn't know what to expect as we entered. He then went and sat down in the room as the hostage; the terrorists were simulated by Hun heads.
We started to move to the door. It was always a difficult time, because there must be absolutely no noise; the object of the three-man snatch is to get so much surprise and speed on to the target that it's totally overwhelmed.
Once we reached the door Dave and Tim placed the door charge; we were right up next to it to maintain the element of surprise when it went off. It was something that we practiced time and time again until we were used to being next to charges as they exploded.
Everyone was right on top of one another, really tight up, weapon leaning over the shoulder of the next bloke, ready to burst in.
When everything's quiet, the noise of the respirator sounds outrageous.
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sp; I could hear my breath rasping in and out and was trying to slow down and breathe rhythmically to cut down the noise.
I made sure my torch was working, my pistol wasn't going to fall out, and the weapons weren't banging together. As number one, once I was ready, I stood in position, safety catch off; the moment the door opened I could see into it and start to fire. I had my weapon in the shoulder, ready to go.- Tim and Dave were right up behind me.
Forward and peripheral vision from inside the respirator is good; all my concentration was focused forward; all I could hear was the noise of my breathing.
I could feel my face starting to get wet with sweat.
The command was given on the net: "Hello, all stations, I have control.
Stand by, stand by, go!"
As the second "stand by" was given, Tim took the door in. I was straight into the room to take on the first threat I saw. Reacting to the situation in a room is not so much a matter of drill as experience and training. The terrorists won't be sitting or standing where they ideally should be; they are not playing our game. It could mean going left or right, or I might have to fight through a barricade to get to a target. It could be dark, or the lights might go out just as I entered.
No more than a foot behind came Dave, the number two. He had to react to two different factors-me and the terrorists.
As we entered, we were firing at the heads. Dave was on auto; I preferred to fire rapid single shots. It was a matter of personal choice.
We were firing on the move, and the name of the game was to shoot until the target was dead. Because we were training and not dropping live bodies, I personally would fire until I could see enough holes in the target, and then I'd know that it was dead. Each man might get through twenty-five rounds every time he went in, more than he probably would in a real rescue.
I moved closer to the target, still firing. I had both eyes open so I could see everything that was going on.
The last thing any terrorist would see was my torchlight blaring down on him.
Once Dave was in and firing he might have to move around the room to protect the hostage and give cover for Tim to do his stuff. He came in with no weapons, apart from a pistol in a holster; he was shouting through his respirator at the hostage: "Up, up, up! Move, move, move!" as he picked him off the floor by whatever he could get his hands onollar, hair, head, anythingand. very aggressively dragged him from the room. There was no time to mess around. For a snatch to succeed it has to be all over in a matter of seconds, and the only reason it is so quick is because of the months-and in most cases years-of practice.
All four of us came back into the room for a debrief.
"A bag of shite!" Fat Boy said, smoothing down his ruffled hair after being manhandled by Tim. "Andy, the reason I put that target where I did was that I knew you'd go for the obvious, when in fact to the right of you was the real and immediate threat. As you came in, you should have seen that target straightaway. You fucked it up. Do it again."
I was more than happy to practice it again. If I had missed the immediate threat in real life, I would probably have been killed.
After practicing the same snatch again, we changed positions so that every time there was somebody in the room and three men outside.
After each session we had another debrief, perhaps watching a videotape of the proceedings so there could be no bone excuses, and drinking tea that tasted of lead because of the five thousand or more rounds that were fired in the building each day. The lead fumes get in the throat and nose and linger all day.
We trained for stoppages. It's not the most pleasant situation in the world for nothing to happen when you go to fire your weapon at a terrorist five meters away who's bringing his weapon up at you. There is no time to sort it out; you've just got to keep both eyes on the target and draw your pistol. You have to be quick or you are dead.
The reason we all went into the room as the hostage was so that we could give an honest account of what we heard and saw from the other side and gain confidence in the other team members. It takes total trust to sit there, sometimes in the dark, feelin the blast from the.
MP5s as these people burst in firing live ammunition all around you.
Given the high number of rounds that are fired every day-more than by the rest of the British Army put together-casualties are very low. All training, however, must be as realistic as possible.
It got to the stage where we were so confident with each other that we did quite outrageous things while training. There was a fellow called Mel from B Squadron, at that time a member of CRW, who was so confident in the other blokes that he would stand between two targets in a dark room while they came in with pistols and torches and fired at the Hun heads beside him.
Mel was a bit of a fruit. He was trying to get us to wear a new type of body armor, but we were very skeptical about its effectiveness.
In the end he said, "Look, I'll prove it works." He put the kit on, loaded a shotgun with solid shot, and told one of the blokes to shoot him.
It took him down, but he was alive. Mel felt he was vindicated.
On another team we were looking at some new Kevlar helmets. Mel was sure that they were a good bit, of kit, but we were saying, "We don't mind'the extra weight and discomfort of having this Kevlar helmet on, but will it take the shot?"
Mel put the helmet on and said to Mick, the 'ap-slapper, "Listen, Kevlar's a wonderful material. Shoot me in the head with a nine millimeter."
Mick said, "Fuck off, behave yourself and have a brew."
There were no other volunteers, so the event didn't happen. About three days later the Regiment got a letter from the manufacturers asking what we'd thought of the dummy helmet. Apparently what they'd sent us was just a mock-up to demonstrate its weight and the shape.
There wasn't an ounce of Kevlar in it. There was talk that a shot to the head wouldn't have made much difference to Mel anyway.
We'd practice procedures for Man Down. If one of our blokes was shot, we couldn't do anything about it immediately; the only thing that was going to save him was our taking that room or area as quickly as we could. If we stopped to sort him out, we'd all die; we must still carry out the task and, now that he was down, also carry out his job as well.
We trained for every eventuality-and trained and trained and trained.
There are so many different types of buildings, from high-rise blocks to caravans, and all sorts of scenarios in which people could be held.
Getting into an aircraft, for example, is a lot different from getting into an embassy; clearing a ship is a lot different from clearing a hotel. For a start, the ammunition's got to be different. If we started firing ball ammunitionsolid, full metal jacket rounds-it would be wanging around all over the place as it ricocheted off the metal structure; therefore it has to be able to fragment once it hits metal.
We, looked at all sorts of vehicles, from coaches to jumbo jets.
We practiced getting up to an aircraft, then making an entry without anybody knowing. The counterterrorist team has to know how an aircraft pressurizes, how it depressurizes, how the system can be overridden, how to open the escape chutes.
People came up with new ideas all the time. One of the team once said for a joke, "How about trying to climb up the tail and somersault down into the cockpit?"
We did.
There was progression every time a team took over.
The techniques never stayed the same because what we were trying to get into and defeat never stayed the same; the technology always moved forward.
As well as the assault and sniper groups practicing among themselves, the whole team would get together and train for the different "options."
One of these was called the I.A (immediate action), a plan that the 3 i/c had to organize. He had to get all the information available and be able to give orders to one of the teams thirty minutes after they arrived; the O.C meanwhile would be planning the deliberate options.
The I.A was continually upda
ted and changed as more information became available. If there was a drama and the terrorists started to massacre all the hostages, the I.A would go in as prepared as it could be.
One of the teams was always on standby on the I.A; within seconds it could be stood to, ready to go in on the target. Helicopters and Range Rovers were used to get the team on target as quickly as possible.
On days when we conducted our own training 'we would try to be finished by midafternoon. There were no breaks; we just cracked on until it was done. Then it would be back to the team hangar, clean the weapons, drink more tea, ensure everything was ready to go in case of a call out, and close down. Some of the blokes would then go training or go home and make an attempt at fixing their leaky guttering. Those of us with any sense would go downtown for a brew and talk about how close we were to our football pools syndicate winning on Saturday.
Another commitment for the team was to be ready at a moment's notice to go over the water to reinforce the troop. I used to enjoy this; it got us away for a few days or even weeks.
Sometimes if there was only a small number required, it was a case of first come, first served. There was a callout on a Saturday morning; I jumped into my aging Renault and screamed off to work; my foot was right down to the floorboards, gunning the vehicle at speeds of up to 50 mph along the straight.
I knew the Puma would be flying in to RP with the team who were going, and within ninety minutes we'd be in the province-as long as I got to the camp in the first place. As I approached the main bridge in town that crosses the river Wye, I had a bang, clipping a Mini Metro with my left-hand wing. The other driver insisted on doing all the paperwork, and there was no way I could run away or tell him who I was. just as we finished exchanging particulars, I saw the Puma lift off from the camp.
The CQB house was always on the list of tourist attractions at Stirling Lines, and visiting VIPs were generally given a demonstration of firepower and entry techniques. All chief constables were given demos so that they understood the Regiment's capabilities, as were the many other organizations that needed to know the type of product we could supply.