Sniper Elite

by Rob Maylor

  The successful stalk is getting into an area undetected, finding the target or observers, finding a suitable hide or concealed position and calculating the correct firing solution to the hit the target. You may even have to construct your hide from foliage or material brought in from some distance away, always making sure you remain concealed and that the foliage is the same as your surroundings. You build your fire position checking you have a clear path for the projectile’s course. You adjust for wind if you have to, add the range then, using all the marksmanship principles correctly, fire the shot–obviously you’re using blanks. The sniper is being assessed on his application of field craft and his understanding of weather conditions and distance with only his binoculars and rifle scope as aids.

  If you have been detected by an observer at any stage during the stalk a walker is coached on to the suspected sniper position via radio. The walker will not assist the observer in any way, and will only act on instructions he is given until he places his hand on the suspected sniper.

  Army and Royal Marine snipers are awarded the same qualification badge: crossed rifles with the letter ‘S’ to be worn on the left sleeve of the dress uniform. A Royal Marine sniper is also accredited with the Platoon Weapons 3 (PW3) qualification.

  From our course of 16, eight of us passed–a 50 per cent pass rate is quite common. There had been previous courses where only one bloke had passed, which was pretty tough on the lads who had performed well all course but then had one bad day when the pressure was on. As a sniper on an operational task, you can’t afford to have one bad day. This may sound tough, but you are the most hunted and feared opponent of your enemy, and there is nothing they’d like more than to kill a trained sniper. And a lack in concentration or laziness will give them this chance.

  During the course of my time in BPT I had submitted my notice for discharge, which back then was 18 months notice. So in March 1996 I went back to 40 Commando and then joined them in April for the final six weeks of their Northern Ireland deployment. This time we were based in County Tyrone, but a ceasefire had been called and the tour wasn’t as active as the 1993 trip. The patrolling and security programs continued as normal but my heart really wasn’t in it.

  For the six weeks I was away I really missed George. When we returned to Taunton it was terrific to be back with her again but the truth was I’d had enough of living in the UK. I’d been there seven years and it was time to go home.

  George and I began planning our future together. I had an idea for an outdoor lifestyle operation in New Zealand where I’d be able to put all my training to good use. I thought about buying a few acres to set it up as a training ground getting the young and adventurous fit, and older people back into shape. There was an area on the Coromandel Peninsula, a short boat ride from Auckland Harbour that I reckoned was just right. So in late 1996 I headed back to New Zealand for five weeks leave. George would follow a few weeks later when her holidays came through. It would give her the chance to look the place over before we made any final decision about where we’d make our life together. What I didn’t see before I got there was that New Zealand had recently been the subject of a property and housing boom and land was now well out of my reach.

  While I was waiting for George to arrive I took the opportunity to do some hunting with my mates and had an absolute ball. When George arrived she took to New Zealand immediately and after two weeks of showing her around we flew to Fiji where we’d decided to get married. The honeymoon came first, at Musket Cove resort on an outlying island, Malolo Lailai. We snorkelled, scuba dived and enjoyed the friendly island life. The wedding day started with a flight back to the Fiji mainland, and we made it official on 16 December 1996 at the Nadi registry office. I didn’t make it the best experience for George as I was suffering a huge hangover at the time given to me care of the two-dollar bar. The subject does surface from time to time.

  By this stage we had definitely made our minds up to move to New Zealand and to make a go of it. Once back in the UK we celebrated our marriage with a big party at the rugby club’s function room with friends and family. Over the next few weeks we talked for hours into the night about what we were going to do when we reached New Zealand and came up with a loose plan. I didn’t have any real savings behind me and I knew I’d have to work hard for a while to save up a deposit for that block of land.

  8

  Cold Comfort

  Arriving back in New Zealand was like falling out of bed and hitting the floor with a thump. In the seven years I’d been away land prices had gone through the roof. They had even increased since we were there last on holiday six months earlier. Now not only was the Coromandel totally out of the question, I didn’t even have a deposit for a house. All of a sudden I found myself thinking, ‘Have I made the right decision? Now what am I going to do?’

  We quickly went to work on a Plan B. The New Zealand defence force wasn’t really an option. They didn’t pay anywhere near enough, and had next to nothing on the operational front. Opportunities were very restricted. The best alternative seemed to be the police force, since they had a counter-terrorism unit, the Special Tactics Group (STG). I had all the necessary qualifications to become a Kiwi copper. The only problem was we didn’t have the savings to see us through to the start of police training, so to build up a bank I had to look for a job as a mechanic to cover the gap and pay the rent. Fortunately, that wasn’t too difficult and at the same time George got a nursing job in Intensive Care at Middlemore Hospital, South Auckland.

  Recruit training at the police college couldn’t come quick enough, and as soon as I got a date the mechanical workshop where I was working couldn’t see me for dust! Unfortunately I can’t say that I enjoyed my time at the police college in Porirua and was glad to see the back of it. I was posted to the Wiri police station in Manukau City, South Auckland, the busiest station in the country, but also spent some time working out of the Papakura station, all familiar ground to me. Shortly after starting at Wiri we moved into a rented police house, George became pregnant and her parents came to New Zealand to spend six months with us.

  One of the first guys I got partnered with in the police, Russ, was part-time STG and he organised an interview for me with the inspector in charge of Auckland STG; Russ would also be present at the interview. He was the sniper supervisor and was interested in my sniper background from the marines. For a while prospects looked pretty good. However, I had a gradual falling-out with the inspector. He told me a few porky pies and then took somebody else on when a position became available within STG. He once said to me, ‘There’s a sniper course coming up; what gear have you got?’ I told him I had the lot. ‘Put it all in a pack and bring it. You’re on the course.’

  When I turned up the bloke running the course, Russ, said, ‘What’s in the pack, mate?’ When I told him he said, ‘Well, you’re playing enemy. Sorry mate, you’re not on the course.’ I took a deep breath and thought, ‘That bloody arsehole inspector has really led me down the garden path,’ not to mention also embarrassing me. Furthermore, it wasn’t even a course; it turned out to be a sniper concentration involving STG snipers from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

  The idea was to amalgamate all their skills and keep everybody up to speed. There were scenarios where the ‘enemy’–me–could be involved in a hostage situation or be a guy with a gun who was very threatening. I played the game and took it seriously and it played out well. Some of the other ‘enemy’ guys were prospects for STG also and they saw it as a chance to make a good impression. So at the end of the day’s training we were all asked for our comments. They all said, ‘Yeah, great, good training.’

  I stuck my hand up and told them a few home truths about some of the very basic tactical errors they were making during the exercise, like not to silhouette themselves and using depth for cover. Just because they were police snipers, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t become a target. I also shared other tactics that I had learned in the Royal Marines. Maybe
I shouldn’t have done it because it didn’t sit well with them, but they asked me for my thoughts and I passed on my experience.

  As it happened I was called away from the concentration because George had gone into labour. Our daughter Lauren came along on Tuesday, 27 October 1998, and although I hated to see George in pain, it was pretty special to be there for the event. Lauren was born in the same South Auckland hospital as my son, Lee, who had remained in the UK with Carla, now remarried. I stayed in touch but tried not to interfere and cause any problems for him or his mother.

  The police gave me two weeks compassionate leave to look after George. I tried to help as much as I could but her mum was doing a great job fussing over her, so I sat back and took it all in.

  Back at work I realised that as well as my falling out with the inspector, the Auckland STG team were very tight and resentful of outsiders; whereas the Wellington crowd and the Christchurch boys were a great bunch of blokes. However, I was stuck in Auckland and it looked as though I’d have very little chance of moving into the area where I had most to contribute.

  I quickly became disgruntled with day-to-day policing. You could virtually set your clock every weekend for domestic violence, the fights in the pubs and the burglaries. The majority would start at the same time every weekend and you’d tick them off one after the other. I found the domestics tough–obviously, you’ve got to protect the woman from harm but half the time it was the woman causing the dramas; and once you step in you can cop it from both sides. There was one time I really felt sorry for this guy–a Maori fella–he was a truck driver doing extended amounts of time on the road trying to raise some capital to buy a house. They had two lovely kids, and twice his wife took the savings from the coffee jar and went to the casino and blew the lot. The second time she was gone for four days.

  When she finally came home he went ballistic and knocked her around bit. It a was hard one but I had to arrest the guy because he’d committed an assault. And since it was ‘male assaults female’ the offence was a lot more serious than a normal assault. He got remanded for 24 hours and then had to front court, pleaded guilty, copped a fine of $2,000 which he couldn’t pay, so went further into debt.

  There are some fantastic blokes in the New Zealand police, but it just wasn’t the road for me. At heart I was a soldier. It wasn’t my place to reason with people and show compassion. I had become accustomed to a life lived by the sword shown to me by the Royal Marines. And I also needed more. I couldn’t just settle for staying as an ordinary infantry soldier. So that meant Special Forces, and for me the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) was perfect. I knew of their reputation through the Royal Marines, and knew they were originally modelled on the British SAS and that they had the same motto: ‘Who Dares Wins’.

  They had a history of their own from the ‘Z’ Special Force that did some terrific work behind the Japanese lines in World War II. Their biggest win at that time was Operation Jaywick in the converted Japanese fishing boat Krait in 1943 when they quietly slipped into Singapore Harbour in kayaks and attached limpet mines to seven enemy ships, blew them up and escaped back to Australia. It was reminiscent of Operation Frankton in 1942 by the Royal Marines who severely damaged five German ships in the port of Bordeaux. These men were called the ‘cockleshell heroes’.

  ‘Z’ force returned the following year on Operation Rimau but this time their luck ran out and all were either killed in action or captured and later beheaded just as the war was about to end. There were other ‘independent’ Special Forces companies operating in the South Pacific and they too had a great record. But the Australian SAS wasn’t officially established until 1957, and even then it was only a company. They later expanded into three Sabre squadrons and were given regimental status in 1964. The regiment saw action during the Indonesian ‘confrontation’ the following year in north Borneo where according to the official history they ‘inflicted at least 20 kills on Indonesian forces’ through ambushes and contacts on both sides of the Malaysian border. Three SASR operators were killed during their time in Borneo: two drowned in a river crossing and one ‘gored by an elephant’. What a way to go.

  However, it seemed that they really came into their own during the Vietnam War when 3 Squadron SAS deployed as part of the 1st Australian Task Force. They operated mainly as a reconnaissance force acting as ‘the eyes and ears’ of the task force. And I was pleased to see that the Kiwi SAS had sent a troop to work alongside the Australians, keeping up the Anzac tradition.

  The squadron rotated through Vietnam with deployments lasting a year and they became known as ‘the phantoms of the jungle’ because of their field craft. The Kiwi SAS were known by the enemy as ‘the Grey Ghosts’. The Australians and Kiwis were responsible for taking out somewhere between 492 and 598 of the enemy and lost only two men in action, and unfortunately three from friendly fire. Despite this, it was a fantastic record.

  The main problem for me was that you couldn’t apply directly to join the regiment because all recruits had to come from the Australian Defence Force. So there was nothing for it but to apply to join the Australian infantry. George and I talked about it and she was all for it so I sent in my papers in late 1998.

  The process seemed to take forever. I had to travel to Sydney in March 1999 for a week of testing and interviews. I took the chance to shoot up to Brisbane to catch up with Craig and head over to Stradbroke Island for some fishing and copious amounts of beer. Craig was now a plumber with his own business.

  When the good news finally came through I signed all the official papers on 6 June 1999 at army headquarters in Oxford Street, Sydney–my own D Day exactly 55 years after the Allies landed at Normandy. After a rollcall and some last minute admin, I was one of 22 brand-new recruits on an army coach bound for Kapooka, outside Wagga Wagga, in southern New South Wales.

  Kapooka is the army’s all-corps training centre, so everyone who joins does their initial training there. Sitting on the coach watching the countryside go by, I remember feeling a distinct lack of anticipation or nerves, unlike when I joined the Royal Marines. The other young new recruits on the coach reminded me of that day back in ’92 as I headed off to Lympstone.

  Wagga is about 370 kilometres in a straight line from Sydney, and the coach journey took about six hours. We arrived late in the afternoon and were met by most of the training staff. The first thing that caught my eye was a big feather that was stuck in the hat of a SNCO’s parade uniform. It turned out to be an emu plume, first worn by the Queensland light horsemen in the late 19th century. It was later adopted by all light horse units in Australia, and is still worn today by the armoured units of the Australian army.

  As we stepped off the coach the shouting and assertiveness from the DS started, which didn’t have the same effect on me this time round. But I was back in the forces now and had to comply with their demands all the same. They got us into three ranks as quickly as they could and called the roll, separating us into two groups.

  They showed us our accommodation then marched us down to the mess for dinner with the instruction that we could only choose just one of the meat courses on offer. This provided a good opportunity for the young cooks behind the bain marie to exercise some authority that they didn’t usually have. And the spread was quite a shock to the new recruits. All they could see was free food and stacks of it, so naturally they wanted to gorge.

  The first bloke through loaded his plate with every type of meat. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ came the cry from behind the bain marie. ‘One choice only. Listen to the brief next time!’ I had my eye on the lasagna, which looked very tasty but as I got closer the guy in front of me got the last piece. ‘Is there any more lasagne, mate?’ I said politely to one of the cooks.

  ‘Is there any more lasagne…private!’ he replied snidely.

  ‘What!’ I said.

  ‘You will address me as private!’

  Fuck you, I thought. There was no way on this earth I was ever going to addres
s anyone as ‘Private’. I looked him in the eye and leaned forward slightly and said, ‘Is there any more lasagne…mate!’

  I could see the anger building up in this bloke, but the poor fella was at a loss to know where to take it next. A corporal nearby heard and saw what was going on. He approached me and said, ‘There’s more coming out.’ Then he asked, ‘Have you been in before?’

  Since I was now 32 and was the oldest of all the new recruits, I said, ‘Yeah, mate, I was in the Royal Marines.’ I didn’t bother acknowledging the young private as he was now probably feeling a bit sheepish. It dawned on me there and then that my time in these training establishments was going to be very painful.

  Luckily the army was trialling a six-week training course instead of the usual 12. This suited me down to the ground but six weeks is nowhere near long enough to convert a raw civilian into a soldier. In fact, the training was slack by comparison with the marines and I guess I didn’t handle it very diplomatically.

  However, the initial process was quite similar to that of Lympstone in regard to kit preparation and maintenance, drill lessons, weapons training, fitness programs and history lessons. One thing that did stand out was the PT regime and just how much focus the instructors placed on showing us the correct techniques to tackle an obstacle. This was to minimise the risk of injury, not just during training but hopefully on operations as well. I totally agreed with this, as injury would only prolong my agony at Kapooka.

  It was quite an eye opener for me seeing these young civilians ever so slowly getting turned into something that resembled a soldier. It triggered memories of my Lympstone days but without the fear of pain. I put myself in their shoes from time to time and knew exactly what they were thinking.