The weapons and equipment of Battle Born – Taipan 16

It has been a while since I’ve done a Battle Born blog, mostly because the manuscript is with my editor and there isn’t that much going on with it from my side. As I work through the draft manuscript for the second in the Damien Hunter series, Ghosts in the Fog, I thought I would do something on the weapons I used in Battle Born.

Battle Born is not a technical manual on weapons, doctrine or which group uses what. Battle Born is entertainment and as such I have keep some things simple and others more technical to add a level of realism and authenticity to the writing. Yes, they have to do mag changes and not every round lands exactly as intended, and they use 9 liners. I am in debt to my four good advisors for their points.

Damien Hunter, like me, is a fan of almost anything produced by Heckler and Koch. Their weapons are finely crafted, reliable and iconic. (not sure about the G11, though). Damien uses a 5.56mm HK416A2 as his primary weapon, a 9mm HK USP as his secondary and a Yarborough knife, (how he came to have one of these is explained in the novel). He also carries a Gerber Highbrow folding knife as a backup.

The other two members of Taipan 16 use M4A1s with M320 grenade launchers as primary and HK USPs as secondary. To reach out, along for the ride is a Blaser R93 Tactical in .338 Lapua. I kept their uniforms as standard multicam, no helmets or shemaghs (who wears those?), recon wraps, caps and boonie hats only. Chest rigs are custom to the wearer. Damien wears tan GoRuck MACV-1 boots.

I kept the team’s JTAC equipment reasonably standard with some flare for things I liked the look of. The kit carried in by the team: the S9, Harris AN/PRC-152, Viasat AN/PRC-161 BATS-D to enable Link 16, L3 Harris Squad laser range finder, a Vectonix Pocket laser ranger finder, SAFRAN JIM LR long range multi-functional IR binoculars, SAFRAN Vector 12 binoculars, Rockwell Collins AN/PSN-13 DAGR GPS and L3 Harris AN/PSV-31A binocular night vision devices.

For those JTACs who read this, and I hope you are, if I missed something let me know. I’d be happy to load the team down with more equipment.

There is a 10mm HK P30 in there as well, mostly because the character needed pistol and I like 10mm.

In my next blog I will work through the equipment and weapons used by the Afghani fighters in Battle Born.