Read Online Bravo two zero by Andy McNab - Free Book Online

say,
        "but we don't really have a clue how to use it."
        Everybody had medical experience. The whole Regiment is trained to a high standard. Chris, being a patrol medic, was partly NHS (National Health Service) trained. Stan, of course, had a medical degree and a year of clinical experience. Search and Rescue is concerned mainly with trauma management, so people of our standard would be involved.
        The TACBEs would blend in with our story, but in my heart of hearts I knew it wouldn't hold up for long, especially if we were caught with the cache equipment. We knew we wouldn't get more than two or three days out of the story, but that would be long enough for the Head Shed to do their assessment of the damage we could do to OP SEC What do they know? our Head Shed would ask-and how can it affect our future operations?
        They would have to assume that everything we knew, we would have told.
        That's why we are only told what we need to know-for our own good as well as everybody else's. At best, we'd just be giving them time.
        It was about six o'clock in the evening now and time for another break.
        The room really stank, and you could see the signs of strain on people's faces. We went and had a scoff, and for a change we all sat together.
        Normally you'd be off with your own mates and doing your own thing.
        "I was in the doghouse for watching Apocalypse Now on the box the night before we left," Vince said as he stirred his coffee.
        "Me too," Mark said. "But there was nothing else to do: the pubs were shut."
        Most people had experienced that same horrible lull when it was the early hours of the morning and they were just sitting there and waiting.
        Jilly and I had spent the day and night in strained silence. Only Bob had had a different time of it, boogying the night away at the club, rather badly as usual, apparently.
        We talked about how good the task was and how much we were looking forward to getting on the ground, but the excitement was tempered a bit by the thought of how isolated we would be. We knew it was risky, but it wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last-after all, this was what we were paid for. We filled our flasks ready for the next session.
        The mood was more lighthearted now as I summarized twelve hours of planning.
        "Right. We fly in by Chinook to a OOP (drop off point) twenty kilometers south of the MSR, then tab one night, maybe two, depending on the terrain and population, to the LUP-cum-cache. From there we'll carry out recce patrols to locate the landline. This hunt might take two or three nights: we just don't know until we get on the ground.
        Initially we will be preoccupied with finding the landline, but at the same time we'll OP (put an observation post on) the MSR, watching for Scud movement. If we see the world's supply of Scud moving along the MSR, we will assess and call in an air strike. If we see a Scud launch, we'll take a bearing, locate it, recce, then carry out a target attack.
        We'll then move back to the LUP and carry on with our tasking. All of this is very flexible until we get on the ground. We might get a Scud launch on our very first night. But we'll do nothing about it until we are firmly in an LUP-cum-cache position. There's no point screaming 'banzai!" and getting our arse kicked just for the sake of a bit of bravado and a solitary Scud. Better to take our time and do more damage. So we sort ourselves out, then we go and give it max. After fourteen days we'll exfiltrate to a pickup point prearranged with the aircrew before we infil, or we will give them an RV with our Sit Rep.
        They will come and either resupply us and redeploy us, or bring us back for re tasking All very simple really."
        And so it was. You must keep things that way if you can; then there's less to forget and less to go wrong. If a plan has many facets and depends