Chapter 3: SEALs and Pilots
"Over the years new weapons platforms have been developed to meet the requirements of the modern warfighter..." The new instructor explained, picking up a futuristic-looking rifle from the table behind him. "This is the Fabrique Nationale Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle Heavy, or if you like abbreviations, the FN SCAR-H, or if you like soldier terms, your rifle." It was an interesting weapon, one Richard had never seen before, it was tan in color and shared several visual similarities with the M4 Carbine platform he had been familiarized with in phase 3 of BUD/S, but was distinctly different in many ways as well. "This rifle fires the 7.62x51 NATO round out of a sixteen inch barrel using a gas piston automatic action both full and semi-auto..." Richard was intrigued, he owned a Ruger 10-22 that he had some fun with occasionally, but his only experience with a 7.62x51, or as it is more commonly known in the civilian world, .308, was out of his grandfathers old Remington 700, if this rifle was anything like his grandfathers he didn't see how anybody would think it was a good idea to put it into an infantry rifle.
Once out on the range and Richard had a hold of the gun, he was shocked at how lightweight it was, despite a strange looking scope on top of it, which he was told was a Variable Combat Optical Gunsight made by a company called Trijicon, it weighed less than the Remington 700 platform, only equaling that weight once a full twenty-round magazine had been inserted. "Let's see it Grayson, put a three shot group on the number four target" the instructor ordered.
Somewhat nervously Richard shouldered the rifle, put his sight on the appropriate target and pulled the trigger, he was immediately startled by the how loud the rifle was. "Holy shit this thing is loud" he thought out loud.
"That's what muzzle brakes do, directing the gases to the sides also directs the noise to the sides" The instructor explained.
"Muzzle brake?" Richard queried.
The instructor looked at him as if he'd just said two plus two equals five. "Yeah, that thing on the end of the barrel? That's a muzzle brake, not a flash hider like you typically see on M4's and other intermediate cartridge rifles, it reduces recoil by diverting expelled gases to the sides." Richard took a moment to look at the device in question, it looked like a small tube with jagged holes ripped, not cut, out of the sides. "We don't have all day, put those other two rounds downrange."
Richard shouldered the rifle again, aimed and fired, expecting the noise this time he was now surprised by how light the recoil was, something that escaped his notice on the first shot. "How the hell does this have so little recoil? This feels like something a lot smaller than a .308..."
"Newer, superior design, you notice it doesn't rattle like the M4 does either, it's just an overall better weapon, now get that last shot down there and you better put it right in between the first two."
Richard shouldered, aimed and fired again.
Rachael was getting mixed results from the simulator, sometimes it felt too sensitive and other times it didn't feel sensitive enough, it was making it difficult to perform the maneuvers she was instructed to. "Turn left one-eight-zero" the instructor ordered. Rachael pushed the collective left and the simulator responded as she expected, but as she approached her desired heading and pulled back right to correct her trajectory the simulator seemed sluggish, it didn't "right" itself as quickly as it should have. "You got a lot of work to do if you want to have any hope of passing this course" the instructor said, losing patience.
"It doesn't feel like it's me, control input response doesn't feel consistent, I bank left once and it responds exactly like I want it to, I bank left again later and suddenly I'm nearly turning around."
The instructor was not amused "Inconsistencies like that can happen in the field and you need to be able to compensate for them, if you think these things are bad you should have tried flying the helos during Korea."
Rachael shook her head slightly, are these helos just that haphazardly built? Poorly maintained? Is the instructor programming the simulator to give her these troubles? All questions she was left to ponder as she continued her training. Over time, she was able to adapt, if she told the virtual helicopter to do something and it was either too slow or too quick to do it, she responded appropriately. "About time we saw some progress Roth."
Begrudgingly, Rachael responded "Thank you sir."
"Ready?" Roy asked.
"Do it" Richard replied.
Roy used a handheld battering ram to break a door in, Richard immediately entered the room and moved to the right, firing at a cutout of a man with an AK-47 who was standing behind a cutout of an unarmed woman. Before he was done firing three more of his teammates had entered the room and covered the left and center. "Clear on the right" Richard called out.
"Clear on the left" another said.
"Clear on center" said someone else.
The group paused in place for a few seconds, sometimes a hidden target would pop out from behind a piece of furniture or an adjacent room as part of the exercise. In this case, no such target appeared, so the group walked back out.
Two instructors who were observing the exercise walked into the room, Richard could see they headed right for the two cardboard cutouts to examine them, after less than thirty seconds they came back out.
"Who fired their weapon?" One of them asked.
"I did sir" Richard replied.
"Did you shoot the woman?"
"No sir."
"Why not?"
Richard took a short breath. "She posed no immediate threat sir."
The instructor quirked an eyebrow "you sure about that?"
Richard hesitated, "yes sir."
The man asking the question looked at the other who had so far been silent, then turned back to face Richard. "Good call Grayson... Move out! Next door!"
Richard smiled, his confidence was building and he was finally starting to feel more comfortable in his role, more like he belonged there. It was his turn to breech, he took the battering ram from Roy and busted down the door.
After her first live flight, Rachael was relieved that the controls were much more consistently responsive than the simulator, but also annoyed that she now had to readjust once again. She was on her sixth training flight, but it was the first where she was paired up with a trainee gunner, who happened to be Karen Beecher. "So did daddy pull some strings?" Karen asked.
"He didn't have to, when I asked him about that he said the instructors talk to each other to see which recruits work well with which other recruits, they don't just pair people up randomly, we went to the same basic training class and developed a relationship, we trust each other, makes for a good partnership."
Karen smiled. "How do you know he didn't just say that to make you feel good about it and he didn't make a few calls anyway?"
Rachael shrugged, "I guess I don't, but I trust my dad so I believe him... Coming up on the hostiles!" She turned the nose of the helo to face the left, but banked right so as to keep it heading in the same direction. Karen hit the triggers for the side-mounted miniguns and sprayed the side of a building with a hail of bullets as the helo strafed by. The screen in front of her displayed around two dozen red diamonds meant to represent hostile forces and she watched as they disappeared one by one. Five seconds later all the diamonds were gone and she let off the triggers.
"Target one neutralized!" Karen called out.
Rachael pointed the nose of the aircraft back in the direction it was going, "Coming up on target two!"
Karen's screen now showed red outlines of two tanks, she tagged both of them with the computer and fired two missiles simultaneously, both hitting their marks perfectly. "Target two neutralized!"
"Negative! Enemy APC ten o'clock!" Rachael called out.
Karen immediately adjusted her screen's point of view and found the APC, tagged it and sent a third missile, destroying it. "Okay, NOW target two neutralized" Karen said.
"Moving to target three!" Rachael reported as she banked right at a near ninety degree angle.
Karen zoomed out on her screen for a wider view of the target area, about a dozen or so red diamonds and two tank outlines scattered throughout an area the size of a large sports stadium. "Rae, circle strafe counterclockwise!"
"Got it!" Rachael replied as she increased her altitude to about two hundred feet. Pointing the nose of the helo down she banked right into a circular pattern around the perimeter of the target area.
Karen tagged one of the tanks while using the left mounted minigun to engage two diamonds that were next to each other, once she fired her missile the two diamonds were gone. Switching to the right minigun she engaged another two diamonds that were next to each other while tagging the second tank. After firing a second missile she used the right minigun to engage a single diamond that was close to the previous two which had since disappeared. With both tanks out of commission and five red diamonds gone Karen assessed the situation, she counted eight remaining diamonds and they were moving, all of them seeming to go in a different direction. "Rae, center us over the target area!"
"Got it!" Rachael tightened the circular pattern she was flying in until the helo was over the center of the area. Karen flipped a switch and several bombs started launching from the sides of the helo in all directions. She watched as four of the diamonds disappeared then flipped the switch again sending another barrage of bombs down, three more diamonds disappeared.
"We got a straggler, turn us to heading three-one-zero!"
"Got it!" The helo spun almost completely around to the desired heading and Rachael pointed the nose down.
"Goodbye" Karen said as she fired both miniguns simultaneously at the last diamond, watching it disappear. "Target three neutralized!"
"Good work, I think... Heading back to base" Rachael said.
After landing, Rachael and Karen reported to the training office for an evaluation of their performance in the exercise. "I have to say ladies, that was an impressive run..." Said the older male instructor, "Most trainees don't get all the diamonds in one pass on target one and only about half catch onto the APC on target two... Target three you did it backwards from most guys, most guys use the cluster bombs first to thin the numbers then to a circle strafe, you did the circle strafe first and then cluster bombs."
"Was that wrong sir?" Karen asked.
The instructor shook his head, "nah, your time on that target was on par with our competitive standards, we don't much care how you do it as long as you do it within the timeframe... You're well on your way to becoming a very valuable air asset."
The two women made triumphant fists and proudly proclaimed "yes!"
Over twenty months of training had come down to this, Richard was now a full-fledged Trident-wearing Navy SEAL and he was waiting in a briefing room where he was going to meet his Master Chief for the first time. He had met the man very briefly prior but didn't catch his name, he was a very large man built like the Hulk, Richard wondered after the first meeting how all the enemies he had faced had missed such a large target. The waiting didn't last very long as he entered the room.
"Good evening gentlemen, for those of you who haven't met me, I'm Master Chief Victor Stone, I'll be your lead in the field..." He picked up a remote and pulled down a white nylon screen as someone dimmed the lights. "Now I'll come up and meet everybody once we're enroute to the insertion point so save your introductions... The mission to raid this structure..." A series of pictures of a three-story building appeared on the white screen. "We believe it is one of the safe houses of an ISIS General and British citizen named Slade Wilson..." A picture of a masked man who Richard assumed to be Wilson appeared on the screen. "We don't have any pictures of him without the mask but that doesn't matter, we don't believe he's occupying this particular safe house at this time, the objective is to gather intel, computers, files, anything that might give us information on his whereabouts, of course a picture of him without the mask wouldn't hurt either... Anybody you encounter in that structure is to be considered hostile, this is your first mission and it should be fairly simple, exfil will be the same way you went in just in reverse, any questions?" Nobody had any. "Alright, can I get a Mr. Mark Logan?"
"Yes sir?" Said the man who was sitting to Richard's right.
"You and your spotter are going to inserted here..." Victor said as an aerial photo appeared on the screen with a blue circle, red circle and yellow circle, he used a laser pointer to point to the blue circle. "Just west of the structure which is circled in yellow, you are the blue team, Mr. Ryuku Orsono?"
"Yes sir?" Said an Asian man seated two rows ahead of Richard.
"You and your spotter will be inserted here..." Victor pointed to the red circle "to the south of the structure, you are the red team, any questions?" Again nobody had any. Alright then, let's weapon up and move out!"