It was a round of Island Estate on Hostage Rescue and unfortunately I was the last man. I had used up my 3 Flash bangs, one getting to the second floor from the stairs in the lobby, one in securing the room/balcony/bathroom area up top. And another in securing the upper hostage in the bathroom overlooking the pool.
Extracting the hostage I went back and checked the room joining the piano room and courtyard together and figured, “crap no bangs” so I jogged back upstairs. I figured if I would have to storm the lower hostage without tactical aids, that end would be the best.. Worst case bursting in and shielding the hostage if one of the tangos would flee rather then shoot…
Crossing the pool room I heard a tango, drew my second kit and realized I took frags instead of gas. Usually I’ll carry 3 Bangs, 3 CS/Tear Gas in Raven Shield or 6 Bangs but for some reason I had 3 Frags. So I said what the hell, lobbed one in the pool room and took it down.
Moved on to the bottom of the stairs right next to the courtyard hostage… MP5 locked cocked and ready to rocket. I figured to have the best chance of success I was going to have to use a frag. It might kill the hostage or injure him but it would at least give me a fair chance of getting inside alive.
I rolled the door open, careful not to flag my muzzle around the door jam as I got the grenade ready (pin out, spoon thing on). I knew there was a partition in the middle of the room and Raven Shield sadly always places the hostage behind it with the tangos walking around the room. I bounced the frag carefully off the wall so that it would land just far enough to hopefully be far enough behind that partition that it wouldn’t kill the hostage, RvS is that way lol. Realistically I would’ve expected shrapnel to go through the partition and injure the hostage at a minimal.
I stormed in after the frag, MP5 up taking down the tangos. There was two behind the hostage, using him as a shield as it happened. blew the one away with a stream of deadly taps and kept the last burst going until the final suspect was down for the count. Circled around (I was still in front of the hostage) and kicked in to the side bedroom with the hostage trailing me and gunned down the last threat. With like 2 rounds left in my MP5, I drew my Sig P228 and ran like my pants were on fire with that hostage all the way to the LZ before any threats could pursue us from the courtyard. I was not going to press my luck poking my head out !!!
The room looks like this, the X was where I put the Frag, the H is the hostage, and the T’s are where I found tangos.
_____________________________
| me [stairs] |
|___[door]__________________|
| | |
| H T |
| | T |
| -------|----[door]-|
| X | |
| [door] |
| T | |
| | T |
|_____[door]____|____[door]_|
I was standing right next to the kneeling hostage when engaging the two tangos in the one room. So I guess you could say I used the human shield against them lol. The tango in the other side room I took care of by flanking around the partition and in through the door from the side where I placed the frag (X).
Some of us older troopers in [SAS] have thought about using frags to clear the room like that, but from the opposite side of the room. I’ve even done it once but this time I was really shit out of luck, I contemplated restarting the round for a moment but decided it was not my way, and kept going till the end.
To be honest, I don’t want to have to EVER DO THAT AGAIN !!! Clearing hostage rooms with frags is crazy. But hey, when you’re between a rock and a hard case why not go down with a bang? Uhh frag lol.