Posted on 06/09/2007 7:29:04 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter
SAS commandos are using politicians and foreign dignitaries in live target practice to ensure the troops are ready for a terrorist strike on home soil.
The super-realistic scenarios include firing bullets centimetres from the heads of "hostages", among them Prime Minister Helen Clark.
The politicians have been placed beside terrorists, represented by dummies with balloons for heads.
Bursting into the room, the soldiers shoot out the balloons.
Defence Minister Phil Goff said he had done it three times.
"First of all you think, 'I hope I don't sneeze'. And then you think, 'I hope the other guy doesn't sneeze'."
The details have been revealed under a Government plan to be more open about the activities of the SAS.
"These guys are sufficiently trustworthy that I've allowed myself to be used as target practice in hostage raids where they shoot targets away from my head, a matter of centimetres away from my head, with live ammunition," Mr Goff said.
A SAS spokesman said that every recent prime minister, including Miss Clark, had taken part in the exercises.
Mr Goff said that sometimes foreign prime ministers had been involved. "They are a little nervous."
The SAS "are not the macho guys", he said.
"You won't find them leaning over the bar and bragging about what they can do. When you see someone doing that you will know by definition they will not be a member of the SAS."
*Ping* for your Threat Matrix, Cindy; and *Ping* to you too, Marine...
Helen Clark,...balloon,...Heloon Clark,..Balloon Clark,..Hell,..I what did I shoot?
SOCOM Ping
Keep the baloon. It is probably a better politician and definitely a better person.
Helen Clark already has a balloon for a noggin.......over inflated of course.
Given the caliber of our granny-shooting no knock entry teams, and our politicians, I wish they’d try this here.
> Given the caliber of our granny-shooting no knock entry teams, and our politicians, I wish they’d try this here.
It’s an amazing scenario, I’d love to volunteer to be a hostage!
I note that they allow foreign dignitaries to take part in these exercises sometimes: I guess that is one very dramatic way of drilling home the concept that when New Zealand sends foreign assistance in the form of the NZ SAS, it is a very valuable gift not to be dismissed lightly.
Andy McNab’s book about his training in England’s SAS mentioned this. I wanna say the queen even served as a “hostage” in one of the training exercises, but it’s been a few years since I read the book.
Awesome training tactic, IMO.
McNab also mentioned that in one of the training demos being monitored at a distance by a VIP party, some joker deliberatly dropped a uniformed/geared dummy from a helo-to-rooftop rappel. That would have been pretty funny as long as you’re in on the joke. :o)
Reminds me of the old joke where the commando says, “The damn gun had blanks in it, so I had to beat him to death with it.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Queen has done them - the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Wales certainly have. He annoyed the person in charge of one of the exercises by becoming more actively involved once - the simulation ended with them being taken out by helicopter and to see how they would deal with the situation, the helicopter pilot and co-pilot were ‘killed’. The Prince took control of the chopper - he was trained to fly them in the early 1970s. He was told this wasn’t what was meant to happen - but his view was that that is what he would do in that case - chopper pilots are dead, he’s the best qualified person available to fly the chopper - of course, he’d fly the chopper.
L
Or the time that Princess Di posed a new hairdo, it was later found out that she’d been to Hereford for SAS rescue training and had an unfortunate mishap with one of the SASs flashbangs!!!
In 70s Germany, supposedly a US army general challenged an SAS patrol unit to kidnap him. To add realism to the scenario, the SAS units ID details were given to the West German police, who were informed they were subversives doing paid work for the communist terror groups of the red factions and baader-meinhoff.
The general was ‘kidnapped’ at a road block, and had the SAS lads been caught, they would have been shot dead by the German police. Quite ironic had it happened, as one of the SAS team was supposedly honoured by the Germans for his part in the GSG9 hostage rescue in Mogadishu!!!
Veddy interestink!
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