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

on split second timing-and sometimes it does-it's more likely to fuck up. Plenty of plans have to be like this, of course, but you must always try to keep it simple. Keep it simple, keep it safe.
        We had a patrol radio for com ms between the FOB (forward operating base) in Saudi and the patrol. There was unlikely to be room for a spare because of the weight. Having just one was no problem because we were working as one patrol. We also had four TACBEs; it would have been ideal to have one each, but the kit just wasn't available. They are dual-purpose devices. Pull one tab out, and it transmits a beacon which is picked up by any aircraft.
        "I remember a story about a unit in Belize," I said. "Not from the Regiment, but they were jungle training. They were issued with TACBEs while they were in the jungle. One officer put his TACBE in his locker, and as he put it in, the tab of the distress beacon was pulled out and set off. Commercial aircraft were radioing in, everybody was running around. It took two days for them to find the beacon in his locker."
        "Dickhead."
        Pull out another tab, and you can use it like a normal radio, speaking within a limited range to aircraft overhead. You can also use TACBE to communicate with each other on the ground-a system known as working one-to-one-but it has to be line of sight and has a limited range. Its main use, however, would be to talk to AWACS if we were in trouble. We were informed that AWACS would be giving us twenty-four hour coverage and would answer our call within fifteen seconds. It was comforting to know that there'd be someone talking back to us in that nice, sedate, polite voice that AWACS always use to calm down pilots in distress. The problem was, TACBE was very easily DF'd (detected by direction-finding equipment). We'd only use it in an emergency, or if everything was going to rat shit on the air strikes.
        We also had another radio, operating on "Simplex" -the same principle as TACBE but on a different frequency, which worked over a range of about a kilometer. This was so we could talk to the helicopter if we had a major drama and call him back, or to direct him in. Because the transmission wattage was minuscule, it was almost impossible to DP, and we could use it quite safely.
        The main elements in our belt kit would be ammunition, water, emergency food, survival kit, shell dressings, a knife, and a prismatic compass as a backup for the Silva compass and for taking a bearing off the ground.
        Water and bullets: those are always the main considerations. All other kit is secondary, so personal comfort items would be the last to go in-and only if we had room. Survival kit is always suitable to theater and task, so out came the fishing lines, but we kept the heliograph, thumb saw, and magnifying glass for fire making. We also carried basic first aid kit, consisting of suture kit, painkillers, rehydrate, antibiotics, scalpel blades, fluid, and fluid-giving sets. The SOP (standard operating procedure) is to carry your two Syrettes of morphine around your neck, so that everybody knows where it is. If you have to administer morphine, you always use the casualty's, not your own: you might be needing your own a few minutes later.
        We wouldn't bother with sleeping bags because of the bulk and weight, and because the weather would not be too bad. I would take a set of lightweight GoreTex, however, and everybody else took their poncho liner or space blanket. I also took my old woolly hat, since you lose a massive amount of body heat through your head. When I sleep, I pull it right over my face, which has the added advantage of giving that rather pleasant sense of being under the covers.
        In our berg ens we carried explosives, spare batteries for the patrol radio, more intravenous fluids and fluid giving sets, water, and food.
        Bob was elected to carry the piss can, a one-gallon plastic petrol