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."