Inside Delta Force

Eric L. Haney

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Delta-Force-Americas-Counterterrorist/dp/0385336039

Interestingly, in contrast to many of the pistol books I read this author stated that they used a shooting method called "instinctive fire". Most shooting is based on the methods used in target shooting; that is, staring at the front sight while shooting. Instead of slowly pulling the trigger you should slap it. If you look at your sights and suddenly out of sheer survival instinct you find yourself looking at your opponent, you'll shoot high at best. (pg. 96, 97)

--Maybe this is OK if you train every day and so often your hand is callused. But I am not going to throw out Ayoob's advice just yet.

You have a blister in the web of your hand (by the thumb) that eventually turns into a callus.

When taking a room, they would throw in a flash-bang and then the first person would go either left or right (depending on if it had more adversaries – refered to as the havy side or if it was the longer part of the room or basically the more dangerous side of the room) all the way to the corner of the room. The next guy goes the opposite of the first and goes all the way to the corner. The third guy goes the same as the first and stops half way. The final guy goes the same way as the second (alternating) and goes half way. (pg 100)

Snipers can use lingo to describe where the person is in the building. The front is white the back is black left is red and right is green. First floor is alpha, second beta, etc.. Every opening (door or window is numbered). So White, Golf, Six is the front of the building seventh floor, sixth window.

Snipers are suseptible to phsycological problems. It is very much a mind game. First is the "Texas Tower Syndrome" – which is when a sniper start shooting and can not stop because it feels so good. Secondly, "Munich Massacre Syndrome" – this is where the sniper watches the target so long that a relationship is built up and the sniper can not bring himself to pull the trigger.

(pg 117)

All field agents (along with criminals and others shady characters, including other country's agents) all use the same tradecraft. It happens that an agent come upon a site that is being used by someone else. They also communicate with chalk (load signals) and thumb tacks (unload signals). (pg 131)

One of the best ways to "burn" a car following you is to cruise into a cul-de-sac in a residental area. (pg 161)

(pg 186) "Rambo syndrome" – nothing is impossible for those who don't have to do it. This describes an eliborate mission plan from "higher-ups" that aren't actually in the trenches. Pentagon armchair commandos. Those who actually conduct the mission will be the ones to plan how to do it. One example is a Colonel who needed something delivered to an embacy. He said they would do a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) dangerous jump into the ocean (wearing scuba gear) and sneak into the embacy and deliver the item. They actually ended up puttint the item in a diplomatic pouch and riding in a domestic plane to the embacy and successfully delivered the item.

(pg. 206-207) Describes Delta's first mission. It was a misurable failure. They landed right in front of an enemy convoy and had to blow up the tanker truck. So much for surprise. Then they decided to take off and the helicopter crashed into the plane. Unbelievable! But out of this failure the author mentions all the valuable things they learned. A Joint Special Operations Command was formed to bring together special ops from different branches of the armed service. Secondly, the army created the Special Aviation Operations group which trained in adverse conditions. Third, they made fire-resistent assault suits that today are used by many SWAT teams.