Special Forces

Ranger regiment testing new rucksacks for Airborne Operations

The 75th Ranger Regiment is working with the U.S. Army Operational Test Command’s (OTC) Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate (ABNSOTD) based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to put some new rucksacks through their paces during airborne operations.

The Rangers are testing out three different rucksacks that are produced by Mystery Ranch Mountain Backpacks, a company based in Bozeman, Montana. Mystery Ranch has been in business since 2000 and has been a steady customer of Special Operations Command since 2004.

The Rangers from the 3rd Battalion are testing three different sized rucksacks produced by Mystery Ranch for suitability in airborne operations. They include an Assault Pack, Patrol Pack, and Recce Pack. All three are available off the shelf and were not modified.

Lt. Col. Dave Dykema, with the U.S. Army OTC, said in a statement, the rucksacks range from 3,200 cubic inches for the Assault pack to 6,200 cubic inches for the Recce pack.

Colonel Dykema added that the MysteryRanch rucks provide modularity to support various mission requirements not supported by the Army’s legacy All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment (ALICE) backpack. The manufacturer reinforced critical areas and added airborne attachment points to their traditional Mountain Ruck.

“Soldiers enjoy getting involved in training hard during operational testing,” Colonel Dykema said.

He added, “They have the opportunity to operate and offer up their own suggestions on pieces of equipment that can impact the development of systems that future soldiers will use in support of combat missions.”

During this test, 47 Rangers conducted 45 static line parachute jumps at Fryar Drop Zone at Ft. Benning, Georgia. The ABNSOTD was on-hand to conduct and monitor the testing, film the testing and get feedback from the troops.

The military has been trying to update the rucksacks paratroopers use for some time. Last year, the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, began issuing 6,000 new rucksacks designed for airborne operations. These rucksacks borrowed different features from both the ALICE and Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment system that replaced the older ALICE systems about a decade ago.

The new airborne-specific rucksack, the MOLLE 4000, was tested at Natick Labs in Massachusetts. It is a mid-sized rucksack, specifically built for airborne units but is just as easily used by conventional troops. It has both sewn-on and removable pouches, a larger top flap, a stronger carrying strap, and a longer back pad. It is also easily rigged to a parachutist’s harness. That process used to take about five minutes. The new system can be rigged in about one minute.

More importantly, the newer rucksacks evenly distribute the weight on the soldier’s hips, rather than the old ALICE which put the onus of the weight distribution firmly on the soldier’s lower back and shoulders.

What makes the Mystery Ranch equipment different from many of the others is the fact that, unlike the military’s ALICE system where one size fits all (uncomfortably, one should add), Mystery Mountain measures six different parts of the user’s body to produce a rucksack that is going to fit better, be more comfortable, and put less wear and tear on the soldier’s joints.

The six points of measurement are:

Shoulder width
Neck width
Torso length
Shoulder length
Hip circumference
Hip to hip

The data collected from the hip-to-hip and waist circumference allow them to create a belt sizing line that quickly allows soldiers to get into a belt size that will ensure they can adjust the belt to fit for their specific waist size.

With the input collected from the shoulder width, neck width, torso length, and shoulder length, they refined the yoke shape and sizes to comfortably adjust to each soldier’s body type.

Mystery Ranch Mountain Backpacks produces a patented lumbar wrap as well as its own frames that allow users to carry a large amount of weight with even distribution over the user’s body. They were approached by the Navy SEALs to design rucksacks for special mission requirements. That opened the door for the company to carve out a niche among other Special Operations Forces in the military. They also produce rucksacks for wildfire-fighting forces, backpack hunting, and mountaineering, as well as the military.

You can find and order their products directly through the company’s website.

Feature image courtesy of the U.S. Army

Originally published on TheNEWSREP.com and written by STEVE BALESTRIERI

Special Operations reading list: A few of my favorite hidden gems

I love reading about Special Operations history. It’s amazing what information can be found in published sources if you’re prepared to dig around. There’s a whole hidden history that can only be compiled by doing some deep research and really looking for sources.

Thankfully, some former operators penned books that are well worth tracking down. Here are four of my favorites that aren’t necessarily promoted in mainstream media but are well worth your time.

One Green Beret: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Beyond by Mark Giaconia

I was fortunate to interview Giaconia for SOFREP Radio before reading his book. I was expecting some stories about how he supported the Kurds, calling in some airstrikes and such during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, Mark’s experiences go far beyond that.

He participated in Operation Viking Hammer: a CIA led mission to shore up what would be the coalitions rear areas prior to the invasion. To my surprise, Giaconia was also involved in what is probably the only joint U.S. Special Forces/Russian Spetsnaz mission in history.

Recce: Small Team Missions Behind Enemy Lines by Koos Stadler

The South African Recces performed some of the most audacious missions in Special Operations history that you’ve never heard of. This is largely due to political reasons. Although Recce teams combined white and black operators, the South African Defence Force served South Africa’s (then) apartheid regime.

Nonetheless, this is a history worth exploring, and Stadler wrote an amazing first-hand account of his time in this unit, including experiences with long range small team Recce patrols.

One Thousand Days with Sirius by Peter Schmidt Mikkelsen

Few people have ever heard of Denmark’s Sirius Sled Patrol— Slædepatruljen Sirius—which is a division of the country’s special operation component along with the Frogman Corps and the Jaeger Corps. Sirius deploys two-man dog teams for long durations to Greenland, where they have to constantly patrol the frozen wastelands. Due to a treaty obligation, they essentially have to provide a presence in Greenland and wave the Danish flag.

Additionally, they have a recon mission to ensure bad actors aren’t messing around in Denmark’s backyard. One Thousand Days with Sirius is an obscure but fascinating book, as Mikkelsen, a former Sirius member, explains the ins and outs of his profession—one that primarily relies on dog sleds to this day.

Guardian: Life in the Crosshairs of the CIA’s War on Terror by Tom Pecora

I’ve been able to interview Pecora twice now. He was a member of the CIA’s protective detail for case officers operating in high-risk environments. This detail started off as the POC and over time, evolved into what’s now called GRS. Pecora worked there long before 9/11, and afterwards in some very dicey parts of the world.

His book is a narrative history of these experiences as well as America’s fight in the Global War on Terror. This is the first book ever written on this particular subject, and I suspect it will be the last for at least some time.

I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of these books, but let me know what other recommendations you might be interested in. For instance, I have a pretty extensive collection of hard-to-find books about contemporary warfare in Africa.

And finally, a shameless plug for my own memoir, Murphy’s Law: My Journey from Army Ranger and Green Beret to Investigative Journalist. It includes my experiences serving in 3^rd Ranger Battalion and 5^thSpecial Forces Group in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of my adventures in Syria, Iraq, and the Philippines reporting as a journalist are also highlighted.

Navy SEALs and backpack nukes: US special operators once carried the fury of the atom in a sack

Thanks to decades’ worth of cultural pressure on the international stage, most nations view the use of nuclear weapons in war as a reprehensible act. Today’s nuclear nations, by and large, ascribe to a model of deterrence: Put simply, our nukes stop them from using their nukes. Although posturing can get quite a bit more complicated than that, mutually assured destruction remains the primary mode of prevention when it comes to nuclear war. In the minds of many, a single nuclear strike is conceptually synonymous with a global nuclear war, simply because we’ve spent so long operating under the assumption that the response to one nuke is more nukes.

But that mindset wasn’t always the prevailing one in the national security community. For a time, the tactical use of nuclear weapons seemed like a feasible strategy in the event the Cold War turned hot. The idea wasn’t to strike the Soviet Union with a cascade of ICBMs that would wipe the nation off the planet, but rather to utilize small nuclear weapons as a highly effective means of waging war on an otherwise conventional battlefield.

If this is sounding a bit like the Fallout game series to you, there’s a good reason for it. The “mini-nukes” and other nuclear-powered weapons throughout the series are largely based on nuclear programs (or aspirations) from America’s 1950s, tying in with the game series’ overall aesthetic. In fact, if you think of the way the video games incorporate these nukes, you may be surprised by how frivolous the U.S. government really was with small nuclear devices.

How frivolous? One American Special Forces unit was tasked with learning how to ski down the Bavarian Alps with 60-pound nuclear weapons strapped to their backs.

“It skied down the mountain; you did not,” said Bill Flavin, who commanded a Special Forces team tasked with the operation. “If it shifted just a little bit, that was it. You were out of control on the slopes with that thing.”

It only gets crazier from there. The backpacks those Green Berets were tasked with ferrying down those treacherous slopes were called Special Atomic Demolition Munitions, or SADMs. The U.S. government designed a variety of these man-portable nuclear weapons with destructive yields that ranged from 100 tons of TNT to 1,000 (.1 to 1 kiloton). They weighed approximately 59 pounds and were always meant to be delivered via a two-man team.

Although the deployment of the weapon could really be handled by just one special operator (these weapons never reached the conventional forces), nuclear doctrine dictated that no single person—other than the president—ever have the means to detonate a nuclear weapon on their own. As a result, each special operator was given one half of the detonation code and both would need to input said codes in order to start the countdown on the weapon.

A parachutist tests jumping into water with a SADM, which is attached to the line hanging below him. (Sandia National Laboratories archive photo)

The concept was really pretty simple: You could give a SADM, sealed inside a waterproof housing, to a team of Navy SEAL, who would send two swimmers into a highly secure Soviet shipyard. The SEALs would place the nuke somewhere inconspicuous, enter their codes, and then swim like hell to get out of the area before the weapon detonated. Realistically speaking, it would only take a dozen or so of these sorts of attacks to effectively neuter a military campaign. Other weapons could be delivered via HALO jumps or by sneaking through contested territory on the ground: each method within the areas of expertise of America’s diverse special operations community.

This declassified DoD video breaks down the SADM’s use and deployment (in an unusually cheery manner).

The problem really came in finding ways to effectively use these weapons. Soon, military officials began to question the value of keeping backpack nukes along Europe’s Soviet flank and the DMZ dividing North and South Korea. Aside from concerns within the special operations community that a SADM mission was effectively a suicide mission, military strategists struggled to find a reasonable use for the platform. A large-scale invasion in either Europe or South Korea would require either detonating these nuclear weapons in allied territory to stem the invasion’s forward progress or potentially allowing them to be captured by enemy forces. Neither seemed like a particularly palatable use for such a destructive weapon, and as a result, the program gave way to more reasonable means of nuclear weapons delivery, such as missiles or bombs carried by rockets and aircraft.

No SADMs were ever used in combat, and for good reason. Aside from the risk to the special operators tasked with deploying them, even tactical nukes carry a massive strategic weight. SADM attacks would almost certainly have led to nuclear escalation and, potentially, the use of larger nuclear weapons—which brings us right back to the mutually assured destruction quagmire. When conventional weapons could potentially accomplish many of the same tasks as a nuclear SADM, risking an all-out nuclear war to employ a .1 kiloton weapon just doesn’t make much sense.

General Louis Menetrey, commander of U.S. troops at the North Korean border at the time, reportedly referred to the presence of SADMs near that DMZ as “pretty dumb,” as a result.

Major General William F. Burns (ret.), however, summed up the reason America did away with the SADM program a bit more eloquently, saying, “As this realization sank in, such weapons were quietly retired.”

WATCH: Russian arms maker appears to fire live rounds at soldiers during demo

Just about every special operations command in the world uses live fire drills to give its operators realistic combat experience before actually getting into the fight, though as numerous videos around the web have shown, not every nation’s military adheres to the same safety standards. This video, which appears to show Russian special operations troops (though they may actually just be kitted-up shooters employed by the arms manufacturer, Kalashnikov), is perhaps among the most egregious videos to hit the web in some time in terms of unnecessary risk.

While some of the drills shown in this compilation are not entirely different from similar exercises you may see conducted in the live fire shoot houses employed by America’s elite special operations troops, you’ll be hard-pressed to find American forces actually shooting at one another with live ammunition under most normal circumstances.

According to the description that accompanies the video, these “expert” shooters were giving a demonstration of the tactics employed by “special units in various tactical scenarios.” It’s possible, of course, that the footage has been doctored or that the rounds being fired are purpose-built for reduced lethality in such demonstrations. Still, previous videos to emerge from Russia showing similar exercises have created a precedent that suggests it’s at least possible that this video is every bit as insane as it first seems. According to Kalashnikov’s website, the audience included the “general director of Kalashnikov, Alexey Krivoruchko, the general director of the Rostec Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, and the head of Udmurtia, Alexander Brechalov.”

The value inherent to live fire training is difficult to discount, but the risks associated with using live rounds to actually engage with one another easily overwhelm any potential benefits. Conventional troops reach their duty stations after receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of training. Special Operations troops receive training that can be valued in the millions–so to risk permanently injuring or even killing one of these war-fighters for the sake of training or demonstrations represents a level of fiscal irresponsibility you’d be hard-pressed to find in most developed nations, barring any concerns for actual safety. American special operations troops have been known to regularly use their own as “dummies” or hostages in live fire shoot houses, but the notable difference would seem to be that the goal of these drills is usually to rescue the human hostages, not to shoot them in the chest.

Ultimately, the goal of this demonstration may have been to show the high level of accuracy permitted by both the weapons and the men carrying them, but it’s hard to see past the foolishness of the enterprise to be impressed.

Navy SEALs and backpack nukes: US special operators once carried the fury of the atom in a sack

How frivolous? One American Special Forces unit was tasked with learning how to ski down the Bavarian Alps with 60-pound nuclear weapons strapped to their backs.

This declassified DoD video breaks down the SADM’s use and deployment (in an unusually cheery manner).

General Louis Menetrey, commander of U.S. troops at the North Korean border at the time, reportedly referred to the presence of SADMs near that DMZ as “pretty dumb,” as a result.

No sh*t, there I was: The time a US Army combat diver nearly became shark food

Large creatures under the sea give me the creeps. Grouper startle me, barracuda give me the heebie-jeebies, and sharks…well, sharks make masonry bricks come out of my ass. I wish like hell they didn’t scare me; I would have a bad-boy T-shirt printed up that says, “Ain’t Scared of Sharks.” I could rotate wearing it with my other bad-boy T: “Runs with Scissors.”

In the murky waters of a harbor, a bull shark, common to Key West, Florida waters, is about the size and shape of a dolphin or porpoise. There is a key difference that serves well to distinguish between the two when encountering either in low-visibility conditions: A dolphin undulates vertically, up and down, as it swims. A shark undulates horizontally, from side to side. This becomes important later in the story.

Chuck Studley and I knelt momentarily on the bottom of Calda Channel just as the channel current started to build to a flood. It was about time to get to shore, as there was no negotiating the current at all when it was full ebb or flood at seven knots (eight+ MPH). We huddled together to count how many lobsters we had amassed. Our limit was 26 by license, and we struggled a bit to count them inside the mesh catch-bag we toted.

Suddenly, something stuck its long rostrum over my right shoulder—touching nose to bag for a split second—then left. I was paralyzed as I turned to see a sea creature larger than myself swimming away…undulating up and down as it departed. It was just a curious dolphin, popping in to see for itself what was holding our interest.

My heart was galloping but I was at ease following my recognition. Chuck and I gave each other a “F*** it, there’s enough in there —let’s just go!” acknowledgment and flippered like Flipper toward the safety of the shore. With no B-Jesus left in either one of us, we made our departure to clean and divide our catch. B-Jesus gone notwithstanding, it had been a great day.

Author (left) and Chuck Studley at the culmination of a decent bug hunt in Key West, Florida. It was on this same day that the dolphin poked his nose in to see what we were up to (photo courtesy of the private Charles Studley collection).

“Boys, there’s a sunken vessel in the Coast Guard harbor, and we’re going to salvage it today,” our senior sergeant happily announced. I had never done a salvage operation before, so I was stoked. Mine was a military tactical diver profession, not a utility-based one that involved salvaging sunken boats. Our plan was going to entail lift bags—bags inflated with air at depth that would gradually pull the vessel from the harbor bottom to very near the surface. A boat under power would then tow the vessel. The forward momentum and the vessel’s contour would drive it higher and push the water out of the back.

“Wow, a shipwreck dive…dude, I wonder if we’ll find any sunken treasure!” one of the lads cracked.

That was Chuck Studley’s cue. “You looking for treasure? I got yer jewels right here, pal!” he bellowed as he grabbed his penile package. Never a missed opportunity for Chuck.

And so it went.

We entered the drink at the spot right near the Coast Guard dock where the sunken vessel was reported. Sinking to the bottom, we settled darn-near right into the wreck. There wasn’t much to it—just a 15-foot aluminum craft. We busied ourselves finding anchor points on the craft to attach lift bags.

With auxiliary air hoses on our SCUBA tank regulators, we inflated the four lift bags on four “corners” of the vessel simultaneously, remembering to only fill the bags half full as the air would expand to double its volume or more before it reached the surface.

Over-pressure release valves on the bags kept them from bursting. The little boat slowly got some lift, then raced toward the surface as the air expanded under the lessening pressure. If nothing else, it was pretty cool to see how everything in the movies had actually worked.

Israeli divers use a lift bag to transport an ingot underwater (courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

A hard thump on my shoulder drew my attention to another diver who had suddenly turned into a cyclops and pointed enthusiastically to an approaching image in the murky water. We both froze as the vision, which was undulating horizontally, side to side, passed by slowly and attentively. I backed only a step before my tanks bumped the sea wall. Twisting around, I noted a rather large crack in the wall into which I hoped to squeeze. My dive buddy had since bolted to the surface.

Not while wearing my twin aluminum 80-cubic-foot air cylinders could I hope to fit. Instinctively, I popped loose the waistband on my tank. With the chest strap also undone I reached back over both shoulders, grabbed ahold of my sturdy manifold, and hoisted my tanks up, over my head, bringing them to rest in front of me. I backed into the crevasse and pulled the tanks in with me. At least I wasn’t out in the open and had tanks between me and the shark.

The bull shark had already made several passes to my front, each time closer and closer in. Barracudas did that same crap, swimming around and around, closing in. I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to remain in the water with the likes of either. I twisted my air pressure gauge around to check my supply. I had well over 2,000 pounds of pressure. That would last nearly an hour at this depth.

With my dive tool (knife) out of its sheath, I frowned hard, considering the likelihood of me doing anything more than merely pissing off the shark with it. It occurred to me that I might be able to chase the beast off with the burning of my rescue flare. As I fumbled with my smoke/flare, the bull rammed its nose against my tanks, then gave them some more thumps.

I felt the proximity of a nearly crowning masonry brick at my anus and feared quite realistically that, before this dive was over, I would have enough of said bricks to construct a to-scale model of the entire Ming Dynasty segment of the Great Wall of China. My air supply went from 2,000 to about two pounds in just two seconds—too fast!

“That Jacques Cousteau can go f*** himself!” I cringed as the bull shark writhed horizontally away from me.

Away. Away? Away!

When there was nothing more lurking in the murk, I kicked my way to the surface and immediately announced, “Shark, shark, shark, shark, shark…take my tanks, take ‘em right now, and pull me out—NOW! The boys made short work of snatching me out of the Gulf of Mexico. At a distance in the harbor our support boat raced away with that freshly lifted vessel in tow, just astern. The plan had worked nicely; gravity pulled all the water out of the ass-end of the craft, which now rode nice and proud on the surface like it didn’t have a care in the world.

My loathing for diving never waned from that point. After the shark incident, I went on to have a barracuda strike at me during another dive. It actually wasn’t after me, it had strafed at a shiny object on my dive apparatus. My loathing didn’t wane from that point on. I never got to silk screen that bad-boy T-shirt with “Ain’t Scared of Sharks.” I would always have to rely on the claim of running with scissors to herald my mischievously maverick ways.

All my hates prompt me to look back and wonder why I chose the course I did. I hate diving, hate parachuting, and I’m scared of sharks and barracudas. I’m claustrophobic, scared of heights, and hang on waaay too tight when riding merry-go-rounds. Some times we just get on paths and do things without having a shred of a clue as to why we do them. And that, my friends, is my definition of destiny.

By almighty God and with honor,
Geo sends

Feature image courtesy of Pixabay