By Paul Pawela
The voice is calm, clear and concise; there is a slight pause before total controlled pandemonium is unleashed, then the voice begins to speak again, “I have command. Snipers, coordinate fire. Five, four, three, BOOM, one, Entry”.
In the law enforcement world there is no more of an important mission than that of hostage rescue, in high risk hostage rescue situations, the safety of the hostage(s) takes priority.
The mission of hostage rescue in of it self is overly complicated, it becomes more complicated when the crime scene is mobile, like that of an aircraft, train or bus.
In a SWAT situation were the assault team needs to conduct a hostage rescue, one of the most important roles on the tactical assault team is that of the counter sniper.
The snipers role is to gain as high of a tactical position as possible to observe and report. To supply the assault team with important intelligence from as far as possible at a safe distance.
The counter sniper will give valuable information to the tactical team as to what type of structure the assault team will be encountering, how many door and windows are there, the counter sniper will report if there is any suspect movement and possible approach routes for the entry team.
The counter sniper covers the approach and movement of the assault tactical team and supplies cover fire.
The counter sniper can be used to both neutralize a suspect or his vehicle.
When the sniper must take the shot, the biggest obstacle the sniper faces is that of glass.
The counter sniper has to know if the ammunition he/she is using, is capable of penetrating or not or will the projectile of the ammunition that is being used will stay together, fragment, spider-web or spall.
And the farther the target is from glass, the less predictable the results.
This was a hard lesson learned in the 1991 Sacramento Good Guys elect iconic store hostage taking, where four gun men took fifty hostages.
The police counter sniper initiated the rescue assault by trying to shoot the primary hostage taker, the problem was the glass on the door as it was being closed by the hostage taker deflected the .308 Winchester 168-grain bullet the counter sniper used and due to the failure to neutralize the intended target the suspects immediately moving left to right were able to start shooting hostages before the rescue team was able to kill three of the four suspects, the suspects managed to wound eleven hostages and kill three more.
Since post 911 the law enforcement community has become more vigilant then ever to fight the war on terrorism, intelligence reports Islamic extremists with al-quida ideologies are still trying to use aircraft as weapons as the recent arrest of a cell in Saudi Arabia was broken up and arrested.
Terrorists will utilize any transport system to accomplish their goals, be it aircraft as in 911, trains as in the Depunt Train incident or buses as in the Djibouti incident.
The duties and responsibilities of the role of Hostage Rescue on a Federal level falls on the shoulders of our elite counter terror units, FBI HRT, ARMY DELTA, or NAVY’S SEAL TEAM 6 however time constraints and multiple terrorist crime scenes like that of 911some times even our most elite can not make it on the scene in time to prevent tragedies and loss of innocent life, that is why the need for state and local municipalities have the ability to have specialized trained units to deal with these situations.
One such Unit who is specializing in this and is conducting training to agencies through out the country is the 727 Counter Terror Training Unit at Columbus State Community College headed by Professor Scott Wagner-Police Academy Commander at Columbus State Community College in the justice and Safety Department.
Realizing the need for this type of specialized training for law enforcement, Scott Wagner has assembled a rather large supporting cast of very highly trained instructors as well as real life training aids for students to use, like that of a real 727 aircraft generously donated to727 CTTU by FedEx and the use of a real train donated by the Buckeye Central Scenic Railroad as well as different buses that were donated by local schools and city transportation systems.
As previously mentioned what makes these particular crime scenes rather difficult to negotiate is, they are in fact mobile.
In the first class 727 CTTU taught, they did in fact have a seasoned SWAT officer from the city of Miami who’s tactical team had to deal with a real life bus hijacking with hostages, after the bus moved from location to location it was the sniper who eventually ended the situation.
One of the important sponsor’s for 727 CTTU and a huge contributing reason for their overall mission success, was BARRETT® Firearms manufacturing who donated a Model 82A1 50caliber sniper rifle for the class.
While many law enforcement types are skeptical of the use of the .50 caliber by stating the.50 caliber has limited application use in law enforcement, the old adage it is better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have one is no truer to the point when it comes to taking down planes, trains and buses especially if the vehicle needs to be disabled where it may become necessary for the counter sniper to shoot the tires out of a bus or to shoot the engine block (several times) of an aircraft or to disable the train brakes by shooting from a greater distance than is cable than the standard .308 round where the air line between the cars needs to be severed.
These are all job requirements the BARRETT® Model 82A1 can handle with no problems at all, with less felt recoil than a 12 gauge shot gun, due in most part to the carefully designed muzzle brake with a ten round magazine the counter sniper has the luxury of the possibility of sending multiple .661 grains of solid rounds of ammunition rapidly down range to do the job the counter sniper intended to.
Since the first gulf war (Desert Storm) no other .50 caliber rifle has been more effectively used in taking out enemy vehicles or anti- personnel enemy kills than BARRETT.
Due to the long range capabilities of the BARRETT the mission of the BARRETT has saved countless lives in the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan , as one of the active duty Marines who was in the first 727 CTTU course was able to give me a personal first hand account to this reporter.
Marine Sergeant Timothy J. McNichol Jr. a Training Section Inspector Instructor with India company 3/35 stationed out of Buffalo, New York served in Fallujiah with 1 ST Company 3RD Battalion 25TH Marines as a sniper.
The praise that brave young warrior had for the BARRET was more of a testimonial and better than any paid advertisement could give.
Like any battle experienced war veteran, especially one so young, it is hard for them to explain the nightmares they have endured and experienced and when I asked Sergeant McNichol to find some way to best describe what he thought about the Barrett, his response was quick and to the point “It (BARRET) saves lives” can there be a better endorsement than that?
When it comes to having the Counter Sniper shoot Terrorists given the opportunity to do so and if the terrorists are assembled together in a key location such as a cockpit of an aircraft as was the case of the Marseilles Aircraft Assault that Frances GIGN responded to, it is imperative that the counter sniper have a weapons system that is capable of doing such a job when so many innocent lives are at risk.
The only way to know if your team’s weapon system has the ability to perform such a task is to test it. In the case of an aircraft one would need to get aircraft glass and test your ammo by shooting it through the glass and since most of the aircraft glass gets it’s strength from the airframe then you should know if your bullets will penetrate through that as well.
When conducting testing the counter snipers should be shooting the glass at various angles as was the case with the first class of 727 CTTU as each and every tactical operator was able to test fire the BARRETT and shot through an actual aircraft window which the BARRETT performed flawless.
When trying to conduct testing try to get the same materials from the corporation that could possibly become victim of a terrorist attack when the corporation argues it will be too costly because of the damage to their vehicles you can remind them vehicle repair is less costly to them than lawsuits are after innocent lives are lost.
And if you’re in law enforcement whose responsibility it is to protect it’s citizens in trains, planes and buses and your administration says they don’t have the budget to purchase a .50 caliber Barrett remind your administrators the same thing that it would be cheaper to buy the Barrett and not need it, than to need it and not have it especially if innocent lives were at stake.
One thing is defiantly clear though, the Barrett rifle is mission ready to clear the way for an advanced tubular assault of any kind.
For more information on the 727 CTTU training course go to their website at: www.cscc.edu/cttu
