"What the hell is this, fucking Hell Week all over again?" Martin "Magic" Brown had asked, his black face more curious than angry.
"How do you get a week jammed into two days?" Ron Holt had asked.
"With a fucking SEAL shoehorn," Jaybird had screeched, and they all had laughed.
The bus had rolled down the Silver Strand highway into Coronado. Murdock got mad when anyone called it Coronado Island. Even some of the people who lived there called it an island. They should have known better. Radio and TV newscasters were always calling it Coronado Island. Actually, it is a large bulge on the end of a long narrow strip of land that encloses San Diego Bay and is called the Silver Strand. Technically Coronado is on the end of a peninsula. A peninsula is described as a portion of land nearly surrounded by water and connected to a larger land mass by an isthmus. An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land masses. Murdock had long ago given up correcting people aboutcoronado. It irritated him, and he made sure that his men knew the difference, but he'd given up on the rest of the English-speaking world.
The bus had gone across the graceful Coronado-San Diego Bay Bridge, turned south on Interstate 5, and then slanted off on California Highway 15 north toward Interstate 8. Once on 8, the bus had nosed east heading for the desert.
"We going to the fucking desert?" Jaybird had asked.
"Now that you mention it, why don't we?" Murdock had rasped. "You guys haven't had a shot at the Chocolate Mountains in months now."
"I'm getting thirsty already," Ross Lincoln had said.
"Hold that thought," Murdock had said. "You'll be a hell of a lot thirstier before the next forty-eight hours are over."
"Forty-eight?" Doc Ellsworth had asked. "Sheeeet. We can do that without even changing our wad of chewing gum."
Jaybird had been more cautious. "L-T you didn't let me get in on the planning of this one. You got some secrets for us?"
Murdock had grinned and waved at him and closed his eyes. He'd been ready for a three-hour ride out Highway 8 past Boulevard to where it swept within a mile of the Mexican border at Jucumba, and on to Ocotillo and into the desert town of El Centro. From there it was a short run due north to Niland and the Navy's Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range.
Three hours later the bus stopped at the small headquarters building, and the L-T went inside to check in and confirm the time of stay. Then the bus moved out to the far end of the long bombing range and parked. This would be their home base for the next two days.
The desert was the same. A little scrub growth, sagebrush, cacti all over the place, and a dusky range of low rolling hills called the Chocolate Mountains eastward from the Coachilla Canal. The SEALS wore their desert cammies, and now put on their American Body Armor operations vests with pouches for ammo and radio and grenade pouches on the web belt. There was no bullet-proofing body armor as such on the webbing.
Each man had ammo to fit his issue weapon. Today all carried the HK MP-5SD, except for the specialists. One HW man in each squad had a Mcmillan M-88.50-caliber sniper rifle that could knock down a man from two kilometers away. The other HW men had the new-issue Heckler & Koch 21A1 machine gun. It fires the 7.62 NATO round at nine hundred rounds per minute. Two vest pouches held rounds. Range was up to 1,100 meters. And it would take any of the NATO loads from AP incendiary to tracers and ball.
Doc Ellsworth carried his favorite, a Remington 870 12-gauge pump shotgun with the barrel cut off at the end of the magazine and only a pistol grip instead of a stock. It held five deadly rounds of double-aught buck that could cut a man in half at twenty feet.
All had as backup the new Heckler & Koch Mark 23 Model 0 Special Operation Offensive handgun system. This double-action pistol had a twelve-round magazine of.45-caliber, and a decocking lever that silently lowered a fully cocked hammer. A screw-on Knight sound suppressor hushed the rounds, but added seven inches of length to the stock weapon, making it 16.6 inches long with a weight of four pounds.
It was big and heavy and extra long with the silencer on. Part of that could be solved by attaching the suppressor only when it was time to use the weapon.
Each man carried 50 more than the regular ammo issue for his weapon and one canteen of water.
Murdock had the men fall in, and put Jaybird in charge of the Second Squad.
"We'll start out with a casual little two-mile run. I know it's early and the place hasn't even started to heat up. It can't be more than about eighty degrees out, so it'll be a walk in the park for you guys. We'll all carry the new HK forty-fives, so get used to them. What's another four pounds for tough guys like us? Let's move out."
They did a mile out on a marked cross-country course, and a mile back to the bus. Their time was a ragged eight minutes a mile.
Murdock shook his head. "You pack rats are out of shape. Too much garrison life."
"Yeah, we been back all of four days now," Scotty Frazier popped off. They all laughed.
"One drink. Remember that canteen has to last you one hell of a long time. Next, Ron Holt is going to give us a refresher course on the HK forty-five hideout we carry. A sixteen-inch hideout. We'll go out to Range A for that little schooling. Ron, move these innocents out to slaughter."
There had been little use of the HK.45-caliber pistol in their last engagement in Lebanon. It was too easily traced to the U.S. and it had been too heavy along with all of the other large-caliber firepower they had packed along. So they had left it on the ship.
Now was the time to get intimately reacquainted with the little weapon that could be the last line of defense for the SEALS in some combat situation.
They sat in the sand near Range A, field-stripped the weapon, oiled it, and put it back together. Ron Holt walked them through the process and told them the strong points of the weapon and what to be careful of.
"This weapon has more of a recoil than the 9mm jobs we've been used to," he said. "Allow a scosh bit more aiming time. It's going to rise on you no matter how strongly you hold it. Remember, you've got twelve shots, so make each one count.
"Now, let's draw some ammo and see what you can do at twenty yards."
They fired for half an hour. Each man put more than a hundred rounds through his pistol before they all did a final shoot at paper targets with a case of beer on the line for the winner, when they got off duty.
"I'll fire, but I'm not in the competition," Holt said. "But if any of you wildmen can beat my score, I'll make that two cases of beer."
They fired six shots each on the test. Three men got all the shots in the bull. But Holt's rounds all touched each other to beat the rest. Joe Lampedusa won the contest. Holt turned the show back to the L-T.
"Gentlemen," Murdock said, "the fun is only beginning. We'll double-time out to the edge of the Coachella Canal, and get in some quality training time."
19
Tuesday, November 25
1134 hours
Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range
Niland, California
The fifteen men of the Third Platoon of Seal Team Seven struggled out of the Coachella Canal and flopped on the desert sand and rocks. They had just completed a half-mile swim against the six-knot current of the swift-flowing water.
Lieutenant Blake Murdock sat up and winced, then let out a small groan and waved for Doc Ellsworth.
Doc walked over and squatted beside his L-T, then sat down in the sand.
"Looks like you're about due, L-T," Doc said.
"Not so fucking loud, Doc. I could get you a bullhorn."
Doc took out an ampoule of morphine and Murdock rolled back his cammie sleeve for the shot.
Doc rubbed the shot spot with some alcohol and nodded.
"Damn good thing you talked Mr. Dewitt out of this picnic. He'd be in Balboa Hospital by now."
"Went to see his family in Seattle." Murdock rolled over on his stomach to relieve the burning in his buttocks and upper thighs. "Doc, how long is it going to take these damn things to heal up?"
"
Depends. Some are healed over now. The ones with shrapnel that has to work their way out of your butt are going to take longer, a month at least."
"Oh, damn."
Murdock let the men rest for ten minutes, then hand-signaled for Jaybird to come up. "You're up, Platoon Chief. Make a call."
"My choice?"
"As long as it's the CQB."
Jaybird sighed. "That's two miles the other direction."
"By then our cammies should be almost dried out and our weapons should be drained. Let's go. A nice easy seven-minutes-to-the-mile run. Easier than double time."
Jaybird heaved up to his feet and bellowed to the frogmen. They lined up in the two squads and moved out with Murdock and Jaybird leading them.
The Close Quarters Battle House was devised by the British in training their elite SAS troops. It provided training in room-to-room fighting.
When troops barge into a room they don't know who or what is inside, and they must have a plan to take down anyone there and neutralize the whole place in only a few seconds. There is no room for mistaking friend for foe, or mixing up who is covering which side of the room or how the hostiles will be handled. Everything must be planned out in advance, practiced and practiced until the procedure is so ingrained in the SEALS' minds that they act automatically with no time to think.
"If you have to stop and think in a combat situation, you're dead." A SEAL truism that has helped save a lot of SEAL lives.
The CQB was more affectionately known as the "Killing House," because that's what SEALS did in such a situation when on a combat mission. It always paid to practice.
The old Killing House at the gunnery range had been made from used tires stacked up and laid out in the shape of roofless rooms and halls. The tires had been filled with sand to help absorb the bullets and prevent them from ricocheting or go zinging off into the rest of the training area.
The new one was more like a real building, with walls of bullet-absorbing material, rooms, halls, even a roof.
The desert sun had half dried out the cammies by the time the men arrived at the CQB. Jaybird sent four men inside to set up plywood silhouettes of good guys and hostages. The hostages all had hoods over their heads and their hands tied.
The new rooms were better than the old roofless ones, because the roof and lack of windows made most of the rooms almost dark. Since the SEALS did most of their work in the dark, the training was more realistic.
When the British set up the program for the CQB, they worked out a firing stance that presented the shooter facing the target with his legs spread and arms extended in front and elbows locked. The weapon was held in both hands. The British advocated that the shooter not use the weapon sights. Rather the shooter looked over the top of the barrel, picked out a special spot on the target such as the chest, and fired.
The Americans modified the system when they put it into practice. Having the body squared and looking forward left too much of the attacker open to return fire. Like duelers of old, the Americans modified the British stance and stood sideways to the bad guys, leaving the side-view body as a smaller target.
The two-handed grip was used and the shooting arm was straight. The other arm rested against the chest for support.
When the targets were set up, Jaybird let the men divide into fire teams as they logically would entering a targeted room. This depended on where they functioned in the squad combat order.
They would use the rapid-aim fire technique. The submachine gun or pistol would be held with the barrel slightly elevated. When a target was found, the gunman put the front sight on it, centered it on the rear sight, and fired in a fraction of a second. It wasn't quite like firing from the hip, but much of the same eye-hand-target coordination was used.
Jaybird set up the first run through the three room with three-man teams. As usual, each man would take a third of the room. They burst through the door one at a time in quick succession. Jaybird was on the first team, and he led them into the first room. He burst through the door with his MP-5SD sub-machine gun at the ready and visually swept the left one third of the room. He found three terrorists near one hostage.
He had his MG set on three-round bursts, and blasted each of the three terrs with a burst without touching the hooded hostage.
Right behind him came Ron Holt, who had the center one third of the room. Before Jaybird had fired his second burst, Holt had found two terrorists holding automatic weapons. He fired two bursts into each one.
At the same time he fired, Magic Brown stormed in and checked the right one third. Only one terr was there, with a knife, about to kill a hostage. Magic put six rounds into the cutout and blasted it across the small room.
"Clear here," Jaybird said.
"Yeah, clear," Holt said.
"Clear and easy," Magic said.
Jaybird snapped on an electric light recessed in the ceiling. All of the terrs had been killed. He waved and turned off the light.
"Let's move to room number two."
Each team went through the three rooms five times with their MP-5s. Then Jaybird changed the signals.
"Now we do it with the HK forty-fives. Unstrap them and let's do it with the fucking long silencer. Remember that it's going to be different than using your HK Five."
Murdock had made the runs with two other men. He nodded as Jaybird made the change. It was a good idea. The more actual firing time they had with the new offensive little ass-kicker, the better. But it was going to be different.
Firing the new.45 was a disaster. On the first three men through, one of them shot a hostage, and one of them had the silencer on wrong and the silencer fell off. The third man hit one of his three targets and missed the other two.
"What the hell is the matter?" Holt bellowed at the men. He took them outside, and all of the SEALS practiced quick-aim firing for twenty rounds into the side of the CQB mockup.
"Now, let's see if you can at least kill a few terrs before they blow your asses into the Chocolate Mountains."
The second try, the men hit 80 of the targets.
Holt growled at them. "We'll have more work on the forty-five. I told you it takes a little more time to counter the recoil. This ain't no machine gun. You got to pull the fucking trigger every time you want it to go bang and get a chunk of hot lead to rotate itself out the end of the fucking barrel."
After five rotations through the three rooms, the platoon had reached a 95 rate of kills. Holt growled at them. "Yeah, ninety-five percent. So only three of you motherfuckers got yourselves killed. Ain't you damn proud of your little asses. I give up, L-T, they all yours."
Murdock sent three men back to the bus to pick up the two.50-caliber sniper rifles and four hundred rounds of ball ammo. The bus was only half a mile away. When the three came back, Murdock marched them another half mile beyond the Kill House to Range B. The targets were a thousand yards away, well over half a mile.
"Every man is going to fire twenty-five rounds on the Mcmillan M-88. I want you proficient with it, not just making noise. You'll each have a spotter with a twenty-power scope. I want to see the last ten shots at least hits on those man-sized targets out there.
"This weapon is lethal at two kilometers. That's over a mile and a quarter. If you can see it, you can kill it with this eighty-eight. This is your party, Magic. You work with Ronson first and I'll clue in on the second gun. When you get Ronson up to speed, he can tutor the rest of the squad. Let's do some shooting."
"I've done fifty rounds on the eighty-eight," Ronson said.
"Show me," Magic said.
Ronson settled down with the fifty and adjusted the bipod, then the Leupold Ultra MK4 16-power telescopic sight. He asked for the two-power converter, and screwed it on the end of the telescope moving the sight to 32-power.
He put five rounds into the magazine, inserted it into the weapon, and chambered a round. Then he settled down to aiming, and a moment later the big round went off. Jaybird held the spotting scope beside him and he saw the hit
. "Miss. A yard to the right. Watch that windage."
Ronson sighted in again and fired. Jaybird saw the hit in the permanent target.
"Hit," he said.
Magic cuffed Ronson on the shoulder. "Get out of there and let the homeboys have a turn. I'll use my weapon with the Second Squad."
Ken Ching, the new man, fired the big weapon four times and shook his head. "This is not an easy popgun to make go bang. Almost tore my shoulder off."
Jaybird put on his serious face. "Mr. Ching. That's because you held it too close to your shoulder. Allow about a half inch between your shoulder and the stock to absorb some of the recoil."
"Really?" Ching asked.
"Oh, yeah," Red Nicholson chimed in. "Helps a bunch."
Ching laughed at them. "Not a chance. Learned about that from my grandpa when I was twelve and he had a ten-gauge shotgun."
Murdock took his turn with the big fifty, and was impressed with the telescopic sight and how well it zeroed in on a man-sized target over half a mile away. He got his twenty-five rounds in in two sessions. It was easier on the shoulder that way.
It was nearly 1400 when they finished firing. They double-timed it back to the bus and Jaybird broke out the rations.
"Not those damned MRE horse turds," Ross Lincoln bleated.
"You don't want any, you don't get any," Jaybird said. "You should have tried the old C rations they used in WW Two and in Korea. Those were not the best. These rations are ten times as good."
Each man took one of the dark brown plastic pouches about a foot long and seven inches wide. They were marked "MEAL, READY-TO-EAT, INDIVIDUAL."
These were all the same "MENU NO. 6, CHICKEN ALA KING, ACCESSORY PACK C, CINPAC INC. CINCINNATI, OHIO."
The men cut open the pouches and looked at the familiar contents. Most of them had eaten more than their share of the MRES on combat missions and field exercises.
"How they expect us to make coffee when they don't give us no damned canned heat?" Al Adams asked. "Hear the old C rations had a little can of jellied gasoline you lit and it burned damned hot."
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