It was not knowing when they would receive the word to disengage and head back to ‘The World’ that Ken Aveno suspected was most wearing on them. As he finished up tending his personal chores and prepared to turn to his assigned duties as the Team’s executive officer, he wondered just how much the other members of the team were being affected. Though part of being on a Special Forces A team meant that rank was often ignored, Aveno was still an officer. There were conventions within the United States Army that even the camaraderie and professionalism of an elite unit could not overcome. As with any other officer, he depended upon two things when it came to judging the combat effectiveness of those entrusted to him: his personal observation of the men and his own physical and mental state. While not quite at the end of his rope, he could feel himself slipping and he suspected that the motivation and endurance of the others was ebbing as quickly as his own. Still, he remained confident that in terms of material, equipment and weapons, they were more than capable of executing their assigned duties as when they had begun their tour of duty.

Kilo was basically a reinforced Special Forces A Team, armed to the teeth with the best weaponry the lowest bidder could provide them. Most carried the venerable M-4 carbine, which was nothing more than a modified M-16A2. Those who had connections sported an MP-5, the weapon of choice for special ops types around the world. With a cyclic rate of 800 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 400 meters per second, the German-designed Heckler & Koch MP-5 fired 9mm parabellum, full-metal-jacketed rounds, with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy due to its action, which fired the first round from a closed bolt position. In the hands of a highly trained professional it was a most effective instrument. Rounding out the category of individual small arms were 9mm pistols as well as one good old-fashioned Remington 870 pump-action shotgun.

To augment these personal weapons, RT Kilo’s arsenal included a number of heavier weapons. Among the more impressive was the Barrette M-82A1 Caliber .50 sniper rifle, capable of firing standard 12.7mm cartridges. With a ten-power telescopic sight this rifle had a range in excess of 1000 meters, or a tad over six-tenths of a mile, allowing a good marksman to reach out and touch his foe long before that unfortunate soul became aware that he was in danger. The sheer size of the slug, one-half inch in diameter ensured that even a glancing blow was more than sufficient to ruin someone’s entire day.

The crew-served weapons mounted on the unit’s vehicles were the real heavy weapons. The Hummer that gave them the mobility to range far and wide also provided them with platforms for weapons that their Vietnam forebears could never have imagined humping on their backs.