20th December
Well today we went on patrol into M2A and M1Z, to see if we could find anymore firing points to the CP. We knew that this sharpshooter was using more than one firing point so we had to find out where and make sure we got those points mapped, so we are able to smash them next time a shot rings out from this area. We found two murder holes, that had perfect line of sight when the manikin go hit the other day, so we used Exo-Spary (test’s for carbon residue), and we found traces on both murder holes, both around 450m to the CP. So these are definitely used and have been used recently to fire on us.
After that we walked around a few compounds in M1Z, talked to the local’s and had the same shit, ‘no Taliban here’, ‘Taliban never come here’, yeah, piss off dickhead we got shot at yesterday from 30m away from your compound! Well as the boss said to them, ‘we can’t help you if you don’t help us’. Which we need, we need these local’s on our side so we can prepare and set a good plan of attack. We need their, entry points and exit points into the AO, where are their firing points etc. Without this we are just pissing in the dark guessing.
So no contact today which was a surprise after yesterday, so I’m on stag in the super sanger at 1600, and the boss come’s over the radio, ‘Burt can you see the Barma team come from west down the Neb yet?’, so I jumped on the Dew Drop (CCTV Camera), and couldn’t see them yet, ‘No boss, not as yet but once I’ve got eye’s on I’ll give you a shout’. I started to scan all the firing points that we found over the last few days to make sure that there were no people hanging around those area’s that could pose a threat. After a couple minutes of this I then spun the Dew Drop round turned it to thermal mode, and saw the 5 man Barma team starting to come through the trees. ‘Super sanger to Op’s room’, ‘Yep go ahead Burt’, ‘Yeah boss 5 man Barma team just coming around the corner now…….and can just see the Mastiff behind them starting to co……FUCK ME IED IED IED, IED JUST DETONATED AND TOOK OUT THE MASTIFF AND I CANT SEE THE BARMA TEAM’, a massive IED and I mean massive (it left an 18ftx12ft crater in the deck), had flipped the Mastiff on its side. ‘Burt keep eye’s on north and check for enemy movement and take out anything that move’s’, as I had the GPMG in my shoulder I was watching the Dew Drop and saw that the 5 man Barma team were okay once the smoke had cleared. ‘Boss Barma team all look okay, dust has just cleared and looks like no one’s injured, lucky fuckers’, ‘If that’s the case yes they are, anyway Burt we are sending out a snap patrol to go secure C1 M1P, so you keep eye’s on further north for the lads’, ‘Rodger that boss’.
The patrol pushed out within 10 minutes and doubled to C1 to secure eye’s on north for the patrol coming from the west. They pushed out to C1 and found a piece of thin string roughly 200m long, command pull IED, It would have been impossible to see it, it was just blind luck they found it, so we secure the north whilst a flatbed lorry came to recover the Mastiff and take it away, the patrol stayed out for a while, no more contact and that was it for the day. Quite a good day in the sense we took no casualties, and that 5 man Barma team are the luckiest fucker’s out here.
