worn around the neck on some string, as I did.
A decent knife, worn on the belt, was also a prerequisite so you could cut through obstacles. These days, soldiers only kill with them in the movies. Everyone is trained to use one if they have to. But if you’ve got down to that you’re in pretty dire straits. You have to get extremely close to someone to stab them, and it’s almost impossible to cut someone’s throat without them knowing — unless they’re fast asleep. If you really can’t shoot them, batter them with your rifle butt instead.
The two weapons we carried out on patrol were the SA80 assault rifle and Minimi machine gun. Our longs would stay back at base, unless we were going on a specific snipers’ task.
Forget what you’ve heard, the SA80 A2 variant was a perfectly reliable and good weapon. Its predecessor, the A1, got all the bad headlines and was a bit suspect. But its German manufacturers Heckler and Koch had done a lot of work to iron out the faults. The A2 had a sturdier cocking handle and a decent ejection mechanism that no longer threw the old shells back inside the rifle to cause stoppages.
The SA80 takes a 5.56mm round and weighs about five kilograms. It has two modes of fire, single shot and fully automatic. The latter would be used only very rarely, for in-your-face tasks like trench clearing. It’s very hard to aim on fully automatic because of the recoil. On single shot, a soldier is expected to hit a target at 300 metres. But you’re a pretty good shot if you can hit something more than 600 metres away.
The rifle’s SUSAT telescopic sight was another new addition to it, and it was also pretty handy. It had a simple needle with a sharp point at its tip to signify the point of aim. Some of the boys had added laser aimers that clip on to the barrel and throw a red dot onto the point of aim. It was also standard issue kit for Iraq. It’s handy if you’re in a rush, because you can just point and squirt. In darkness, we swapped the SUSAT for a CWS night sight, which works by light gathering.
One bloke in every four on a patrol would carry an Underslung Grenade Launcher (UGL), mounted under the barrel of his SA80. It was yet another piece of kit that we hadn’t seen before, though widely used by the US Army for years. And we thought it was gleaming.
The UGL was fired with its own trigger, and aimed by a flick-up sight. It shoots out a 40mm fragmentation grenade to a range of up to 350 metres, which explodes after a few seconds once its fuse has burnt out, killing anything in a five-metre radius. It was a very good weapon, and easy to be accurate with.
There would also be one Minimi in every four-man fire team. The Belgian-made Minimi is an area weapon with a far heavier weight of fire than the SA80. It’s designed primarily to suppress rather than for accurate target shooting, and chucks out up to 1,000 rounds per minute. Basically, the enemy is going to keep their heads down for a bit if there is a continual wall of lead coming over them. That gives you and your men time and space to manoeuvre.
The weapon also took a 5.56mm calibre round in magazines of 250, which came in either a bag or a hard box. Minimi men would also carry one or two spare 200-round magazines on them. A bipod was attached to the barrel that could be folded out to support the weapon while being fired. It has an effective range of 800 metres, but it’s hard to hit anything accurately beyond 300 with automatic bursts.
It was the first time we’d been given Minimis too. They look pretty sexy, so the younger blokes in the platoon loved prancing around town with them feeling hard.
No matter what you had, in a place as dirty and dusty as Iraq you would clean your weapon every single day. That means stripping it down, wiping every surface with a cloth, cleaning out any dirt, carbon or gunpowder residue, oiling the moving parts, wiping it down again, reassembling it, and finally performing a function check by cocking it and pulling the trigger. It takes between fifteen and twenty minutes. You do it so often that the whole process doesn’t require any thought at all. It becomes a ritual. And you’re happy to do it, because you know that lump of steel can save your life.
Our first patrol was to be into the souks — for no reason other than I was keen to have a look at them. Ten of us went out; from the front gate, south, and then east.
‘Remember boys, keep your spacing. Twenty metres apart and alternate sides of the street. Keep your eyes on each other.’
I didn’t need to remind them really. They’d done it already.
Because it was our first time out, I wanted my handiest blokes there with me. I’d decided Pikey would always be my point man, the man out in front of the patrol, so I gave him one of the Minimis. Like all gypsies, he had a great pair of eyes and ears, and he had the knack of smelling out trouble a mile off.
As well as Daz, Chris and Ads, that also meant the South African connection, Des and Oost. Private Desmond ‘Des’ Milne and Private Cameron ‘Oost’ Oostuizen were two peas in a pod. They were best mates and totally inseparable. They even sniped as a pair. In their early twenties, both had left their homeland to join the British Army and see some action.
Both had bags of energy, and were exceptionally keen and professional soldiers. They were the first to volunteer for any task. They’d be packing up their kit and halfway out the door before I’d even finished speaking.
Des was quite open in admitting he specifically joined up so he could legally kill people. I’ve never met anyone with such a bloodlust. He loved anything to do with knives and hunting, and got extremely excitable in times of danger. He also used to love telling us how the Afrikaaners were the master race.
‘Just remember, the Boers kicked your sorry little English arses once,’ he liked to say. ‘And we’ll do it again if you’re not careful.’
Des was a big chunky boy too, the fittest in the platoon. He spent a lot of time in the gym, and was careful to always eat well. He planned to go for SAS selection after the tour, and he’d be perfect for the special forces.
Meanwhile Oost prided himself on being the platoon’s weirdo. That meant not shaving as often as he should and sporting the craziest hairstyle he could get away with. His favourite was shaved sides and as long and spiky on top as he could make it. He wore shades and fingerless leather gloves wherever he went, and worshipped thrash metal bands. The Foo Fighters were always playing at full volume on his CD Walkman. He was the RSM’s worst nightmare. But he absolutely loved his shooting.
Both Des and Oost hated army bullshit, which is why they became snipers.
Also with us was Fitz. Lance Corporal Mark ‘Fitz’ Fitzgibbon was by some distance the best shot in the platoon. Aged twenty-nine, he was slim and lanky, and was a quiet bloke most of the time. He didn’t say ten words if one would do. But put a long in his hands and he’d never miss a thing. Ever. He was like a robot, it was scary. He was also a good dependable NCO who didn’t take any fucking about. And you’d certainly hear him when he threw his toys out the pram at his blokes.
Our mobile armour was Louey.
Snipers had been given three privates from Anti-Tanks Platoon for the duration of the tour, to be our drivers and even up the numbers a bit. Two were Caribbean, Gilly and Louey. And the third, Private Mark Potter, was known as Harry for obvious reasons.
But with Louey, we’d really won the lottery.
Private O’Neal Lewis was an absolute ox of a man. Aged twenty-four and from the island of St Vincent, he was six foot four inches tall and built like a brick privy. If we ever needed a bit of muscle on a job, I’d send Louey in first. We nicknamed him ‘The Swede’ after the giant prize fighter in the Clint Eastwood movie
But despite all of that, he was one of the most reserved and polite people I’d ever met. Louey had a huge respect for authority, and was very well mannered. He loved his soppy R ‘n’ B ballads, Whitney Houston being his favourite. And he was the only man in the platoon who’d insist on calling me Sergeant throughout the whole tour.
None of that stopped him from having eyes like a hawk. And make him angry, he’d tear your fucking head off.
Bringing up the rear was Private Adam Smith. Only a young lad aged just twenty, Smudge was already a good all-rounder. He had a fantastic street awareness, just like Pikey. That probably had something to do with his obsession with image.
