TROOPER BOB DUNCAN
Trooper Duncan was standing in the middle of the one thousand nine hundred acre Stanlow Oil refinery. Next to him was his spotter. They were both using binoculars to survey the refinery, trying to assess its weak points. Following the governments meeting of the Cobra committee that Tank attended earlier that week, armed troops were deployed to defend Britain`s refineries. Stanlow had been identified as the number one priority because of its size and close proximity to the recent extremist activities. There were 12 million tonnes of extremely flammable fuels being stored in huge metal tanks. Terrorists or no terrorists, the use of high velocity bullets in the vicinity was out of the question. Just one stray round could cause an ecological catastrophe. The Army were instructed to issue their soldiers with tactical combat shotguns only. Each refinery would also be defended by sharpshooters where it was thought to be appropriate. The tactical shotguns had only a limited effective range. They were devastating at close quarters but the Army had to prevent terrorists from getting close enough to the storage vessels to attack them. Snipers would be deployed to protect the weak points in the refinery`s perimeter.
Trooper Bob Duncan was revered by Special Forces the world over as the best of the best. The American SERT sharpshooter had been seconded to advise British forces on the best positions, and the best weapons and munitions to use.
The wrong calibre or incorrect bore of bullet used in this sensitive arena could end in disaster. A ricochet bullet could pierce a storage vessel; the resulting explosions would be felt sixty-miles away. In December 2005 maintenance workers at a similar refinery situated at Buncefield, Luton, not far from London, caused a spark that ignited a fuel line. The following series of massive explosions were heard in the country`s capital city eighty-miles away. Surrounding areas were evacuated and road networks in the vicinity were closed. It took fire crews days to bring the flames under control. They used 1.4-million litres of water and 20,000 litres of foam. That was an accident, but harsh lessons were learned about the vulnerability of this type of storage depot. The SERT team leader pointed to one of the white storage containers that were close to the bank of the River Mersey.
“If you think that the threat is most prevalent from the river, then that`s the position we need to take. We need a CheyTac M-200 .408 calibre sniper rifle. What is the distance to the water`s edge?” Trooper Duncan asked his spotter. The spotter looked again through his binoculars and gauged the distance.
“It is approximately 2200-yards from that row of storage tanks to the river. It`s well within the striking range of an RPG or even a homemade EFP,” the trooper advised.
Chen was confused. He knew that a rocket propelled grenade launcher could be carried by a determined diver to the refinery. All it would take would be a waterproof covering of some description to keep the ordinance dry. A terrorist could deliver his RPG attack from well beyond the effective range of most expert shooters, if he made it to the riverbank.
“What is an EFP? I am not familiar with that abbreviation?” Chen asked. He hated not knowing and felt a little ill equipped in front of the two military men.
“An EFP is a new phenomenon that our forces in Iraq are encountering frequently. It`s a form of Improvised Explosive device that the insurgents have developed with Iranian knowhow and training. Our vehicle armour in Iraq will withstand most explosive attacks but the EFP is a whole different ballgame. It`s very simply an Explosively Formed Penetrator. The Iranians have shown the Iraqi insurgents how to place a cylindrical shaped explosive charge behind a concave copper disc. The force of the explosive launches the metal disk at 6,000 feet per second, which will penetrate our armour. Once the metal projectile is inside the armoured vehicle it ricochets around ripping any of our Marines in there to pieces. It could do the same here with your storage tanks. It would be like a big pinball bouncing from one tank to the next, Boom, Boom, Boom,” Trooper Duncan explained. He had witnessed firsthand the devastation that had been caused by the EFP devices in Iraq. By the time the penetrators had stopped bouncing around inside the armoured troop carriers it was difficult to identify the casualties.
“I want some target disks set onto wooden posts along that river bank. Let`s make sure that if we get the chance to make a shot we are ready to make it count,” the spotter saluted Trooper Duncan and jogged away to make his preparations.
“The river is over 2000-yards away. Can you seriously take a man down from that distance?” Chen asked incredulously.
“Well now let`s go and see shall we,” Trooper Duncan slapped Chen on the back and they headed toward the storage tanks that were close to the river. The white metal tanks were sixty feet high and one hundred feet in diameter. They had black metal access ladders that hugged the circumference of the containers, leading to the top of them. Chen and the trooper climbed the stairs to the top of the container. From the top of the fuel storage tank they could see Liverpool city centre across the River Mersey on the opposite bank. They could also see passenger jets landing and taking off from the John Lennon Airport. It was two miles away across the water. Between themselves and the water`s edge was a flat marshy area of waist high grasses. Two soldiers were hammering wooden stakes into the mud and attaching white disks to them. Chen had to look through his binoculars to see them clearly; they were 1.3 miles away.
“We have another problem here that you may not be aware of,” Chen said to the SERT officer. “There are 42 refineries similar to this one across the country with over a thousand miles of underground pipelines. The airport on the far bank of the river is supplied with high-octane jet fuel via an underground pipe. There is no feasible way that we can protect every pipeline.”
Trooper Duncan`s spotter returned with the M-200 sniper rifle and a small hand held computer. The rifle was nearly 5-feet long and was fitted with a large black scope. The end of the barrel was thickened by a built in suppressor, which was designed to quieten the supersonic bullets as they were fired. The computer was called an ABC, Advanced Ballistics Computer. When relevant information such as wind speed and bullet velocity are fed into the ABC, it delivers super accurate adjustments for the rifles scope. It is essential that a two-man team be deployed on a weapon such as the M-200. The sniper and the spotter are equally important. The SERT team set up their weapon and programmed all the variable information that was required into the computer.
“We are trying to eliminate some very important factors that come into play when we are shooting over long distances. The spindrift of the bullet and even the curvature of the earth affect shots fired over this distance. We have a 10-15 mile per hour wind up here at the rifle; that will be 20-25 mile per hour at the target,” Trooper Duncan adjusted the scope in line with the information that was appearing on the ABC.
Chen watched fascinated by the preparation and technical skill that the two sharpshooters were demonstrating. Trooper Duncan squeezed the trigger and a loud crack sounded as the supersonic bullet headed toward the river. Chen raised his binoculars and looked at the circular targets. He thought that the bullet had missed at first but it takes a full four seconds for the bullet to travel 2200-yards. Suddenly a white disk just 12-inches in diameter shattered into pieces as the big bore .408mm bullet struck it.
“Well I think we have the river covered,” Trooper Bob Duncan said as he fired another dead eyed shot.