Kilo Six, the Hummer used by the team commander sported an M-2 caliber .50 heavy barrel machinegun. Based upon a German World War One 12.7mm anti-tank rifle and classified in 1921, it was fast reaching the century mark with no end to its useful military career in sight. Like the Barrette, it fired 12.7mm ball or armoring piercing rounds. Unlike the sniper rifle, the M-2, known affectionately by its operators as the Ma Two, had a rate of fire that was 450 to 500 rounds a minute. Newer by a full half century was the M-19 40mm grenade launcher that graced the ring mount on Kilo Three, which was Aveno’s Hummer. Capable of chunking out 60 baseball-sized grenades per minute up to a range of 1600 meters, its only major drawback was the limited number of rounds that could be held in its ready box.

Range was not a factor for the crew-served weapon affixed to SFC Allen Kannen’s Hummer Kilo Two, which was the only all-enlisted humvee. Kannen, the team’s senior NCO, fully appreciated what was probably the most unusual weapon for a Special Forces team—the tube-launched, optically tracked, wired-guided missile or TOW. The decision as to whether or not to include this longrange anti-tank weapon had been an issue hotly debated at every level of command that had a say in the organization, deployment, and operational control of the recon teams. In the end the choice had been left to the individual team commanders. Captain Erik Burman, Kilo’s commanding officer, explained his decision to use the TOW by telling his people that when one goes wandering about in bear country, its not a bad idea to take along a bear rifle even if it’s not bear you’re looking for.

The only RT Kilo Hummer that did not have an oversized weapon protruding from it was Kilo One, which belonged to the two-man Air Force Team headed by 1st Lieutenant Joseph Ciszak. Instead of a ring mount and crew-served weapon, Kilo One’s hard shell was adorned with an array of antenna and a small satellite dish. Ironically, it was this innocent-looking vehicle that was responsible for all the devastation that RT Kilo had managed to rain down upon their foes during the past six weeks. The members of RT Kilo were hunters in every sense of the word but they did not do any of the actual killing. None of them had fired a single round since they had crossed the Turkish-Syrian border. Rather, it had been Lieutenant Ciszak and his collection of high-tech radios connecting him to his fellow aviators that did all of Kilo’s killing. Using all the wonders of modern electronics and his trusty hand-held laser designator, Joe Ciszak was able to employ the full spectrum of conventional munitions available to the United States Air Force. Were it not for the need to provide security and locate hard to find targets, the Special Forces A team would have been totally superfluous.