Captain Steele was far from "regular army ". He's a ranger with several deployments under his belt before Somalia. He specifically called this book and movie out when he was our CO in task force courage. Be careful what you believe from Hollywood
LTC Steele was an excellent leader. The day he took over as the commander of 2-22IN, the general attitude immediately went from "I'm fkd." to "Fk yes!" Our previous commander had reminded me of the "Just came over supply" battalion commander in Heartbreak Ridge. There couldn't have been a more stark difference going from that to having LTC Steele, and a new CSM, running the battalion. That difference was clear when he spoke to us immediately following the exit of the milk toast formerly occupying battalion commander position. LTC Steele said"Someone has to be the best dmnd Infantry battalion in the free world. It might as well be us." And he charged us with making it that way. I would have loved to deploy with them, but I was already on orders to be a drill Sergeant. In 2005, I was the first Sergeant for a 200-man mechanized company team deployed to JRTC to support 2 different brigade rotations from the 101st. I had adopted the general leadership philosophy I learned from LTC Steele. To say we were aggressive was an understatement. I ran across a few NCOs I knew as we searched them after my boys had "killed" them. They consistently said we were the most aggressive unit they had seen. The second brigade to to come through was the Rakkasans, commanded by COL Steele. I recognized many of the NCOs and officers as guys who had been in 2-22. The Brigade was exceptionally aggressive. OPFOR went from a 24 hour reset, to a 12 hour reset, to being reset on the spot because the brigade, with my company attached, was killing them so fast. COL Steele remembered me and offered me a job when we had the chance to catch up a bit. We later deployed south of Baghdad at the same time as the Rakkasans were deployed farther north. I would have loved to have been under his command in combat.
no there are the interview with the actual guy who said the line, it was different in protocal, for SF/delta they let the chamber empty and drop the hammer so the gun can't go to safe ( if you know Ar15 ), the officer was not a ahole like in the movie and realize the problem
I think in the book, Bowden chalks it up to the cultural differences between Delta and the Rangers, especially Steele, who was a Captain and accustomed to the usual Army adherence to discipline and respect for rank. The Delta guys were far more egalitarian and had far less deference for higher ranks, not because they were rebellious jerks or undisciplined misfits, but because at their level, if you were good enough to make it into Delta Force, your skills and abilities transcended usual rank structures. This was explained in another part of the book where a typical Rangers pre-mission briefing would include the officer(s) dictating the plan to the men, and the men saying "Yes sir," and saluting as they left. A Delta Force pre-mission briefing was much more collaborative, and just about every man on the team in the mission had equal say over the merits of the proposed plan, even including vehement (and highly profane) disagreements. Eventually, they'd collecrively work out a plan that everyone was okay with, and then go execute it perfectly. I guess a good analogy would be that the Delta Force operators were like a highly successful rock band that had been together for years, knew each other's abilities, and could collaborate but also vehemently disagree on creating the next songs for their band, while the Rangers were more like a collegiate marching band - very good at what they did, but also with a clear and unquestioned hierarchy as to who did what, and who answered to whom. A freshman flute player is not going to challenge the drum major's direction and commands, lol.
That reminds me of the time when US JSOC had the tier system. Delta was Tier 1 and Rangers were Tier 2. They may have abolished/changed that system, but it just goes to show that there's a certain distinction in the quality, and thus culture of how they operate. Another thing you comment reminded me is this video (th-cam.com/video/zPFgobbFkbs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AHXjcPoc77PTiahF). In it, an ex-SAS operative mentions how mission briefings were collaborative, every operator pitching in ideas on how to execute the mission. I guess that kind of thinking is widely shared across SpecOps units worldwide.
Nice story with the "cultural" part. The reality is that if you don't follow at least certain orders, you're getting shelled by your own artillery. Delta or not, a shell is very egalitarian.
@@urbypilot2136 JSOC never had a tier system. Maybe the US Army but that's gone. You can say the Navy does. Rangers are the ones that get Delta out of trouble.
@@zaco-km3su well of course. They are still in the military, after all, not pirates. Heck, even pirates "follow orders" after a fashion, but the point is that Delta Force, when presented with a mission, has a more collaborative approach as to the best way to accomplish the mission, while Rangers are much more top-down, far closer to a standard military unit where the officers tell the men what to do, and then they go do it. There was another story in a different book about Charlie Beckwith (the father of Delta Force) where some CIA guy wanted to smuggle a gun and some secret documents and other equipment to some operative in another country. The CIA guy wanted Beckwith and the Delta guys to do some crazy commando raid, jumping out the back of a C-130 into the ocean, then swimming ashore with the items. Beckwith basically said he'd do it, but only if the CIA guy was right alongside them. The CIA guy then asked Beckwith how he would accomplish the task, and Beckwith (and his Delta buddy who was right next to him) came up with the much simpler, safer, and more effective plan of putting the items in a diplomatic bag to the US Embassy in that country, where it would be easily picked up by the operative. Nominally, the CIA guy had authority over Beckwith and his operators, and could've forced the issue, but realized that Beckwith's method was the sound one.
And the SEAL teams have shown us why allowing this attitude can be bad freaking idea haha. don't get me wrong nothing wrong with everyone having equal input on planning missions, but the reality is discipline has on ocassion been allowed to slip too far in the special forces community and it creates problems of its own
The ‘rack safe’ prevents undo wear on the tension spring. It’s not unique to the M4 either. The CPT was looking out for the young Rangers. Neither one was wrong.
@@chihuahua3892 what rack safe means is that the bolt is forward on an empty chamber and the trigger is pulled so the hammer is not cocked, and firing pin is in forward position. a full magazine is loaded. alas no spring is under tension, and you will have to rack the gun or pull the charging handle for it to able to fire. also, many guns prevent the trigger safety to be engaged in this condition.
@chihuahua3892 the spring that is affected is the hammer spring. The selector lever of the M-16/AR-15 family of weapons will not go into the safe position while the hammer is forward. Over time and with enough use, hammer springs break. With the amount of firing that Delta operators do during training, I would expect it is a relatively common occurance. When a hammer spring breaks, the hammer doesn't come forward with enough force to fire the round. You will see a light dent on the primer of an unfired cartridge. It would suck to have it happen in the middle of a firefight, but with the resources available to Delta, they could easily replace the hammer spring on a regular basis to avoid the problem. While I was a Drill Sergeant, it was a common problem. Out of a 30-40 man platoon firing about 1000 rounds per 9-week training cycle, I would replace 2-3 hammer springs per training cycle. Most of the time, this happened in the middle of the training firing qualification tables. I carried a hammer with the spring on it so I could replace the part without pulling the rifle from the line. It would take well under a minute for me to replace and they would be able to continue firing. The incident portrayed in the movie was probably less about saving a hammer spring and more about a D measuring contest. In the end, CPT Steele was correct. "You're going to need my Rangers." LTC Steele was one of my battalion commands, and later, a company I had was assigned to support COL Steele's brigade during a training rotation. He is the epitome of a combat commander. I served 20 years in the Army and work the occasional contract now that I'm retired. I've spent more than 6 years in combat. There is no one I would rather have as a commander in combat.
@@chihuahua3892 Answer: Fud lore. It is the actuation of the spring and its return over multiple firing cycles that wears it down. I have personally never seen a mil-spec hammer / trigger spring wear out...but I guess it could happen.
I did to an Air Force LT about my saw in Afghanistan if you don’t know the safest position for an m249 saw is bolt forward safety off because you cannot place it on safe until the bolt is to the rear because it is an open bolt firing weapon just like the 240 and a lot of people think the m2 browning is an open bolt firing weapon but it’s not
@@benignobrionesiii I was a squad designated marksmen and a small arms weapons expert in the infantry you know how they say don’t volunteer for anything well I didn’t listen so I ended up doing kp a lot but I also got some really cool schools like javelin and combatives
It's the way you put them in the armory for long periods of time. You clear the weapon one last time, look into the chamber, into the barrel(no brass/ Round), let the Bolt go forward, flip the selector from Safe to Fire and pull the trigger. Click and hand it to the armorer. All the springs on the weapon should be released and there is no round in the chamber. I worked with them all the time, I never knew that they did that.
I have never been in the military and do this for all of my firearms that aren't kept loaded for personal defense purposes, it just made sense to me even though literally everyone I know insists on keeping them with the safety on 🤷.
That's to make sure there's no rounds in the chamber before you hand it to the armor. I don't think they store them like that. Pretty sure I always saw them send the bolt home after determining it was clear.
There is no missing context, it's all on screen. Hoot has a magazine in - and Steele refers to it as "hot" - and safety is off, he is ready to rock and roll at a moment's notice, regardless of whether the hammer is down or not. "This is my safety" line means he's 100% in control of his rifle. The scene is meant to set up Steele as an anal retentive hard-ass who in the end cares deeply for his men, and Hoot as a reckless cowboy who in the end is shown to be one of the most efficient and professional soldiers.
That’s kind of the problem with any of these explanations. If he was locked and loaded safety off in the chow line that’s F’d up and a good way to get someone hurt. If the rifle was “rack safe” then why would he be carrying it around as he doesn’t have any spare mags on him to load a shoot anyway. Personally the book/movie people probably just got it wrong and it added to the narrative tension of the movie to create drama. So it makes a better movie but a pretty bad safety lesson. If a soldier was walking around with a live weapon it should be on safe.
@@JimmySailor Hoot said in an interview that he was walking around with a hammer down but safety off and Steele came up to him to ask him to put safety on because they were cross training CQB with Rangers, kind of new to Rangers, and walking around with safety off was a bad safety lessons. Obviously the movie added a magazine in the rifle and a bit of conflict to showcase the differences between two branches.
@@JimmySailorthe magazine can be inserted but the weapon still be unloaded. The hammer is still "forward" so no shot can be fired, and the only thing required to prepare the weapon to fire is to rack the charging handle, loading a round AND resetting the hammer in one move. It's a pretty common way to carry a rifle in a condition where it CAN NOT be fired unless an intentional action is made to prepare it for firing, which can still be done quickly in an emergency situation if need be. As unlikely as it is, mechanical safeties can still fail, but if there's no round in the chamber then a failed safety poses no risk. Another bit of context is that Hoot really did use the "this is my safety" line when training Rangers on CQB earlier that day, but he was referring to his brain. "The most important safety is between your ears"
I prefer it in rack safe anyways. Say you’ve got to engage a threat late at night, you’ve just been awakened and have to ‘go to work’. All you have to do is rack the charging handle and you don’t have to fumble with the safety. (I’m a civilian though, so my needs are alittle different)
The real Hoot explained this in a video you can find on TH-cam, there was nothing between the 2 men, it was a misunderstanding and after the explanation Cpt. Steele understood and moved on. Leave it to Hollywood to create drama where they isn’t any. For once I would like them to show a movie the way it was on a true event.
Midway (2019) and Patriots Day (2016) were known to be highly accurate including some of the actions of the characters and details in the environment etc.
Hoot was actually asked about this in an interview. Hoot made it clear it was a simple miss understanding and it was not as serious as the movie made it out to be. It was just a moment to educate each other. No beef, no scowls.
As an old Korean, I could not understand what Capt. Steel said. There was not a magazine in Sagt. Hut's Car-15. In my memory, I was punished to do the 'Han river railroad bridge' by a Drill Instructor during an evening weapon inspection in the boot camp because my empty M16A1 rifle was set to "Safe". He ordered me to change setting to "Semi" and pull the trigger than punished me. He told me that I might kill my comrades by the stupid mistake (especially during wartime) and I might make weaken the hammer spring by keeping an empty weapon purchased by tax being cocked.
@@zachmartin1458 seconded, I'd like to know what this punishment detail is. The name already sounds a bit menacing given what I know about typical railroad bridge construction.
This is why you gotta love koreans. All men are secretly roof koreans as they all had to endure this sort of Han River Railroad bridge. The one a lot of us hate are was the bend forward like an upside down V and stick your head in the sand with your hands behind your back even worse if done on the shore and water gets in your nose when the waves crash. Korean military LOVES suffering. but it breeds hard soldiers, so can't complain.
That's some important context. I knew M16s can't be put on safe when rack safe, but I didn't know that was the context of their disagreement in the movie.
It's not. The person who made this short is just misunderstanding the scene to farm views. He calls it a "hot weapon," meaning there's a round in the chamber. That's not rack-safe.
@@jarvy251 Does the term "rack safe" apply when there's a magazine in the weapon? I guess it depends on if you mean "rack" as "for storage on a rack" or "you have to rack a round to fire it." I've only ever seen it applied when storing weapons on racks in the armory, and they are *never* stored with magazines in them.
@@willerwin3201 Rack safe may or may not be the correct term the the american military (I wasn't in the US army, I wouldn't know) but when I was overseas, carrying rifles with loaded mag and empty chamber and eased springs was a pretty standard practice. We'd commonly refer to this state as "load, make safe" after the drill commands to achieve that state, and I can see americans using a similar term "rack safe" as a shorthand.
@@jarvy251 Seems like an odd choice for carrying a firearm to me; there's value in knowing that a weapon isn't ready to fire by visual inspection of the safety selector switch. In the rack safe state, the only way to know it's not ready to fire is by feel as you try to flip the selector switch and it stops not quite halfway to SAFE. Do internal springs in an M-4 or M-16 go bad all that often? I never saw or heard of that being an issue during my deployments (2006-2008, 2010-2011), and our weapons were not stored like this except when they were loaded in cargo containers on the way in and out of country. Was there some quality issue with M-4 and M-16 springs back in the early 1990s? Was this some holdover concern from the early-issue M-16s in Vietnam?
As a Canadian in afghanistan, a group of us were confronted by an American SNCO pointing out our weapons were not on safe. He seemed incredulous when he could not set our selectors to the safe position when we invited him to try. I always assumed American issued ARs were different somehow to allow the selector to be set to safe with the hammer down, resulting in different SOPs.
It's just US Army silliness. When I was in AFG the Army guys weren't even allowed to have a magazine inserted. I was US Air Force. Our SOP was magazine in, round chambered, safety on. And yes, I had a couple Army ding dongs try to give us shit about it. They politely got told to pound sand.
Being deployed as AFSOC with Army, our side arms were loaded, one in the chamber, safety off, hammer down. Army was empty tube, safety on, hammer down. We'd occasionally have leadership butting heads over it, but nothing disrespectful.
@@sheilareid5656 Millions of citizens, police & military from all over the world carry a pistol that doesn’t have a safety every single day without having negligent discharges.
@ZootyZoFo not true negligence discharge happens all the time plus nowadays most law enforcement have a safety lock on their pistols. By the way the topic was about rifles.
I heard in a podcast some guys who were actual Army green berets reason for this was because Delta were clearly lets say Varsity seniors and then you got the JV rangers you got these guys who are young and not literally saying this but kind of like teenagers young and dumb who look up to these guys and seeing these guys do whatever they want makes them wanna do things they do leading to them acting out or potentially having accidents just to "impress" so Captain steele is just trying to avoid his "kids" from being badly influenced. He trusts the delta guys but he doesn't want the rest of his guys to see. Its like parents doing things adults do but you don't want kids to see because then they think it's okay.
Yeah that's basically what happened in real life. They were training together and he asked him to not do it because it was kind of setting an example for the Rangers.
This is the correct answer. The main difference is the maturity level between the units Delta guys are all older, experienced soldiers who have at the very least a couple years under their belt in the military before they ever get to the team, which they are heavily vetted for during selection. The Ranger Batts are in average much younger soldiers. You can theoretically make it all the way to the Ranger Batts while still 18, which is why strict discipline is heavily enforced. CPT Steele isn’t as concerned about Hoot having an accident as he is his own much younger on average Rangers emulating the Delta guys and an incident occurring as a result.
I have a few rifles and pistols with this type of safety. I don't know if it's by deliberate design or if there's something inherently easier about designing a safety that only operates when the hammer/striker is engaged.
Delta was still an unknown thing when somalia happened. They were forced to even shave their heads to fit into the ranger standards as to not cause tension or issues. Watch tom satterlys shawn ryan show interview on it and he talks about being there as well. Im regular army and know cag, sf have their own standards just like rangers do. Delta is the most trained and even though they may not abide by everything with strict adherence like rangers i have the utmost trust in delta because they are the best of the best the army has.
Problem with "rack safe" is that there is no way to confirm that such a weapon is actually safe by looking at it; you can only check it by feel by attempting to flip the selector switch to safe (which it will not do when it's not charged). Having a magazine in the weapon in this configuration means it's ready to shoot as soon as you pull back and release the charging handle. The alternative is to thumb the safety selector switch from safe to semi, which is quicker and can be verified as safe by simple inspection. Rack safe is for ensuring that the weapon's internal spring doesn't permanently compress during long-term storage. It is not generally used to carry a weapon with a full magazine in it. You *can* carry a weapon this way safely, but I'd be curious to know the reasoning. Is the marginally lower wear and tear on the spring worth the extra hassle of chambering a round or having no way for anyone else to verify the weapon is safe? I'm with CPT Steele on this one. Also, the movie makes the Delta guys look like a bunch of stuck up jerks high on the smell of their own farts. I've known plenty of special operations dudes. Shoving people out of their way at the chow hall line, showing open disrespect to an officer, and dripping arrogance is not how they roll. They're quiet and consummate professionals, team players, and good mentors. This kind of showboating would lead to other operators stepping in and fixing their own guy.
He only calls him out because he has to maintain discipline for his men. Look at it this way. He’s in charge of a bunch of younger 18-20 year old men. Yes they are elite but still young and impressionable. And to those guys seeing a delta operator is like seeing a superhero. Delta are the best of the best and they would wanna emulate them as much as possible rightfully so. So the captain who normally would never question a delta operator has no choice but to call him out to set an example for his men. People always miss read this scene unfortunately
I forget which Eastern European country specified it, but when that country switched to an AR-platform rifle, they specified that the internals be capable of allowing the safety to be engaged with the hammer down. This would make their manual of arms just a little bit closer to their old AK rifles, which can have the safety applied regardless of the condition of the hammer.
It's not just considered safe... it's impossible to fire since 1. No round is present in the chamber and 2. The firing hammer is down, meaning you'd have to rack the weapon to the rear to reset the action and also feed a round into the chamber
Personally I think it’s just more professional to use the actual safety of the gun. It’s literally weapons safety 101. Also in the marines it’s drilled into use to keep in on safe till your ready to fire. If you don’t you get complacent and complacency kills.
In an interview with a ranger officer discussing this scene. The ranger officer in the scene was right to raise the issue because in the ranger regiment there are lots of 19ish young soldiers who are impressionable and not up to Delta experience and discipline. If this practice spreads eventually there will be a lot of NDs
I've read an individual's article where he checked magazine springs for specifications after fully loading and storing magazines in the early 70s. Stored for 30+ years. Magazines all matched specs of new magazines. Magazines he was currently using and loading and unloading showed much more differences compared to new unused magazines. He deduced the wear of springs resulted from compression and release rather than constant compression. I really doubt milspec hammer springs are of poorer quality than 1970s era magazine springs so........
I once failed a unit maintenance inspection over failing sear springs. I argued with the inspector that is wasn't in the -10, and not on the PMCS checklist. It also wasn't showing on the functions check. Having seen a weapon pass a functions check and fail on the range over this very issue, I check weapons for failing springs.
Springs will keep their springyness so long as you don't compress/extend them to the point of plastic deformation. But use over time can degrade a spring a number of ways.
I imagine those sort of misunderstandings could lead to an accidental discharge, but I'm no expert. Surely it's better for everyone to use the same sort of protocols?
Cleared with no magazine, an M16 rifle or M4 carbine is safe CPT Steele was portrayed as "The Bad Guy" in the movie for the needs of "interpersonal drama", but he was an outstanding officer in real life
There are two types of discharge: Negligent and mechanical malfunction. No discharges are accidental. If someone has an unintentional discharge and it wasn't a mechanical malfunction, it was caused by negligence.
@@gilbertnail7266 well stated. An AG on a machine gun range didn't clear his gunners chamber well enough with a white light (night qual) and it cooked off a round. Twas pointed in a safe direction, gun was still on the line, etc. Luckily it was a small group, the NCOIC took my buddy aside and talked with him, and figured that a) he's not gonna make that mistake ever again so b) no sense in making a mountain outta moleskin lmao
1. It also cant go on Safe because its a rubber stunt gun. 2. We would call it 'cruiser ready' or 'condition 2'(although ive always hated condition terms) where im from.
I disagree strongly. Reg army is just that. No advanced training beyond Infantry school. Rangers have airborne qualification then Ranger school. Ditto S.F., and Delta etc al. All went thru infantry school. We call them "legs". You know not of which you speak.
@@robertframe7349 But RA is officially used to differentiate Active duty and reserve, national guard, etc. At least when I was in, and RA wasn't a term made up, it's used on official guides, and memorandums. On a side note, remember how much the Army love putting out memos for every fucking thing that is going on in your unit. Shit, not just the unit, at the squad level sometimes.
U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force are both special Operations units albeit different tiers Delta still recruits a large amount of their soldiers from Ranger Regiment. Both are capable of amazing feats. Both are intelligent, skilled, and dedicated.the Rangers also have a higher tier unit the R.R.C. Regimental Reconnaissance Company only the best can join as well. Yes Delta only takes the best too and they are Tier 1 but they regularly and in the past work together obviously they both can hold their own and keep up shoot,move,and communicate. 🏴
From one of the Rangers that was actually there, it was claimed that Delta had two or three ND because of this whole thing..... couple of Delta operators or either rotated stateside, or lost their positions with The Unit as soon as they got back home....
Rack safe? First time I have heard this term. I like it. Now, when I trained Iraqi Army Infantry up North in the Nineveh 2004-2005, the Iraqis had their weapons (AKs) on fire. They also had no ammo in the chamber. As Americans, we lost it on them until they explained it was easier to charge their rifle than to place it on fire. Which they are correct.
My biggest take away from the book was that General Aidid's own clan was planning on killing him because he's gone drunk with power. And the members of his clan that got together to plan the coup were killed in an American airstrike that mistakenly thought General Aidid would be in that meeting, which necessitated operation Gothic Serpent. Had the Americans just sat back and done nothing, the problem would have solved itself.
The heat could be a reason for rack safe. If you have one round chambered at all times; there is a miniscule but realistic chance of a round cooking off resulting in an ND
Here’s the deal: due to complicated threats in the area, certain people were adamant about always having a full mag in their weapon. Then the conflict started. Some leadership thought it was risky having chambered rounds with the weapon on safe, so it degraded to keeping a full mag in the weapon, but no round chambered and the hammer dropped. Well if the hammer is dropped, you cannot switch the selector lever to safe. So to the layman, it appears as a weapon with a mag inserted selected to fire.
When the danish army went over to AR15... This was standard. Until we went to war together with the Americans in Afghanistan, then it changed to the load and safety procedure.
This is a cultural thing between Delta and the 75th Rangers but at the end of the day the 75th answers to JSOC. JSOC is a no cover no salute "flat" Command. This means they dont view any social/cultural difference between an enlisted or an officer.
This short is not entirely true, but one thing he did get right was the constant butting heads amongst service members on policy. For example, sunglasses on your head, hands on your pockets, mustaches being 1/8th of an inch around the corner of your mouth... you know, the important stuff.
Fun fact: It’s a rubber rifle in that scene used for training and the safety on it is molded in position. You can’t move the safety even if you wanted to.
When they are being stored in the armory by any unit in the military they are in rack safe with the hammer down. Also for long term storage for civilians it's probably better to let the spring have a break. When in use, sure use the safety, but when its being stored use rack safe
ARs can be set to safe when loaded. You just need a plum crazy Gen 3. It's what I use currently. And yes it's amazing that you can put your safety on wile loaded and yes you should be able to order one through your gun dealer or online.
yep keeps the tension off the spring and make it last longer and stay strong also with the 249 saw you cant put it on safe with the bolt forward we had some high ups bitching about it in the chow haul of balad Iraq but they are just idiots you can "half cock" it and put on safe but if you go to rack it and forget then it jams up very bad and not a good thing
Read a WWII story once where a soldier (probably a draftee, during bootcamp, or at least on the range) was telling his instructor that the M1 Garand was a 30-06, and the instructor says, "I don't know anything about civilian calibers." Something like that. I'd say that instructor don't know Jack! 😂
What else to play to JB Balad, every time I go to the chow hall some army guy would bitch i had my 9mm on fire. I would tell him as Air Force security forces we do not clear our weapons out when we go to the chow hall.
This happens so often not just with delta, I’ve gotten into it with mess officers and mess sergeants for carrying a loaded weapon on duty as an MP countless times over the years for not clearing my weapon and entering “their” chow hall with a loaded weapon or how about what happened on FOB Marez in Iraq where we had Romanian soldiers guarding perimeter and places like chow hall and one got into it with a CID Agent who refused to clear his weapon and the Romanian stepped back and shot the CID Agent in the leg…😂that was a shitshow😂
An «AR-style rifle» can indeed be set to the safe position while being in a rack safe condition. Just not all of them, or maybe even most of them. Older versions of the Hk416 for example can’t, but the newer ones can. Both techniques are technically safe, and some do more wear and tear on the weapon than others.
Delta are consummate professional. The best of the best. How they conduct themselves is a testament of their skill. As always there will be ego battles beyond the other special forces groups. 😅
Yeah when the trigger is pulled on an AR you literally cannot flip the safety on and off. That only can happen mechanically when it’s ready to fire/dry fire.
I dont think the movie thought of this context either. Even on FOB id think id prefer a loaded weapon ready to go with the flick of a switch than a paperweight. Perhaps the somalian conflict had less immediate worry for things like rocket attacks than the one the guys i knew dealt with, but for us new guys thats the context we all came up learning. Rather be able to shoot a vbied than fumble around with a mag change and let it get close.
@@tigerleoneinc.9282 Two weeks before, the Rangers saved a Pakistani convoy who had 25 people killed by the Habr Gdir militia. Any idiot can drive an armored APC in and out of a city in the dark when the people shooting at you don't have NVGs and you do. Don't be so dismissive about the TFR. Neither the Pakistanis nor the Malaysians ould hace lasted five minutes in the situation the Rangers and Delta were in. They held on for 13 hours.
Since the army personnel use Delta Force as a genetic term for any spec ops group. I'm still waiting for a real unit that is authorized by Congress to use the name "Delta Force".
Oh, but i bet that within the context of this scene, we're we watching real life instead of a movie, he's got one in the chamber and a full mag. He's saying that the difference between safe and merc is is his finger and his intent
If Hoot is right handed, and his rifle is slung, then by default the weapon would rest with the safety selector switch resting against his body. How could Cpt Steele determine if his rifle was off safety or not?
Technically speaking you can rack an AR-platform weapon while it’s empty and then drop the bolt on an empty chamber so that you have an empty chamber while also having the safety on. That said, it’s redundant to have a racked weapon with nothing in the chamber, so you either rack it and keep it on safe (Army method here) or just don’t rack it at all and be stuck with the selector reading semi (Delta method). Both are plenty safe but the vast majority of those who use an AR platform weapon prefer to do it the Army way or the combo I listed first where it’s racked, on safe and has nothing in the chamber. The Delta method is technically safe but at a glance it appears as though the weapon is hot when in reality it isn’t
Is there a bit of a common courtesy element involved as well? When you are around others in a crowd, there are some advantages to safe procedures that others can see at a glance, right? A possibly somewhat analogous situation in my line of work in high voltage/power, a test where you always use a visible grounding rod and signage is greatly preferred.
@pootyting3311 kinda sorta. It's not like a rule that you need to, but in general, perception is reality. If you're in mixed company, like your infantry platoon is around a bunch of supply or s shop dudes that obviously have a different SOP than you, then it would behoove you to take that into account. Not to say that's the case every time, I'm just giving an example of when you might.
Never heard of "rack safe"ever in my 25 years in the military, but i do know it as condition 3. And yes that's a safe condition because the weapon cant ever be accidentally fired due to no round in the chamber. that makes sense but on a patrol or a mission it limits you due to having to use both hands to make a ready weapon. I prefer condition 1 , fully loaded mag with one in the chamber and saftey on.
Delta force and rangers have a very close relationship because 60 to 70% deltas were rangers there would of been a good chance that several deltas served under the cap at one time
Still so crazy to see things about this movie, I grew up with the kids of the real life delta hoot is based on. Literally mind blowing when I went over to their house after seeing the movie as a kid.
I think it's a confusion of authority. Because regular army I can understand creating a standard that's easiest for everyone to utilize. Delta force have proven themselves as far more capable so there less reason to worry about stupid shit happening with them. They are officially well trained war dogs. Army guys are still waiting on the challenger
This scene was complete BS. In 2000 Colonel Steele was the Brigade CO of 2nd BDE 82nd, I was on Brigade staff duty as a young private, smoking a cigarette outside when Colonel Steele threw that book out of the upstairs window and yelled something like “Absolute dog shit.” I went over and picked up the book and saw it was Blackhawk down. I was a brand new private fresh out of jump school and didn’t realize who our CO was until I asked around and then read it myself. But clearly he was not happy with its accuracy. I assume the movie was even worse with its inaccuracies. What I do know, even though the 75th has fallen under the command of USASOC since 1986 when it moved from regular army FORSCOM and thus by extension, USSOCOM, it is not even the same realm as 1st SFOD-D or the 1st SFG ODA. Rangers are glorified commandos. Glorified in a very real and earned way. But it’s not the same realm as the other two groups. During war time ops you will routinely encounter Ranger platoons operating with privates and even specialists who haven’t even completed Ranger School yet, they will of course have gone through RIP later called RASP. Even came across a few who hadn’t been to jump school yet due to Bat deployment rotations. 1 was a specialist cook in 2nd battalion another a 1st bat commo guy. For any Ranger including a captain to go up to Delta and try to school them on discipline or standards is just idiotic and not believable. It’s like a AAA baseball player going up to a veteran star player in the MLB and telling him his swing looks like crap, it just doesn’t happen even if the triple A guy knows what he’s talking about. Rangers are tough cookies, but they are a broadsword type unit full of guys with tons of experience and guys with ZERO experience outside of Basic, Airborne School, RIP/RASP and maybe a few weeks in the field. Versus DELTA where every single member is a veteran with thousands of hours of top tier training and multiple deployments. One is an Army unit with the physically toughest people you may ever meet, the other is a small team of tough guys but also experts. Which is why Delta and Green Berets often work detached from Regular Army and Rangers, but Rangers never work detached from regular army or Delta/Green berets. Meaning you’ll never see a squad of Rangers operating along with some group of foreign allied fighters alone. Somalia was a good representation, Delta doing a snatch and grab using Rangers to secure a perimeter ie inner cordon and outer cordon. In Afghanistan Rangers would do some HVT raid and use Regualr army for Outer Cordon etc. but Delta, SEALS, GREEN BERETS etc often operate in small teams away from large unit support. Average Rangers are no where near tactically efficient enough for those types of missions. Probably gonna piss off some Bat Boys but that’s the truth, any who can be honest about what Regiment is knows its purpose and mission set. To further illustrate my point, Rangers send their NCOs to regular Army NCOES leadership schools, ANOC/ALC/SLC where it trains in its respective branches. Infantry, COMMO, Etc. And while I served with some really amazing high speed Bat guys, I also served with some f*cking idiots from Bat. Guys that could run 7min miles in full battle rattle but we’re frankly dumb as a rock. Also saw a lot of inflexibility and failure to improvise during training missions. Prime example, during a night assault on a small compound the Rangers in charge of a mixed platoon set their support by fire and got on line to move up to the compound, half way there the left flank encountered an IED and rather than shift the formation into an echelon left to avoid the explosive they pushed through on line creating multiple unnecessary casualties nearly failing the mission. Their reasoning in the AAR was you can’t break formation when assaulting that close into an objective. It showed very little flexibility or ability to adapt past Regimental doctrine. Delta on the other hand is implicitly trained to improvise and adapt on the fly. The reality is less than 10% of Bat boys would ever pass Delta selection and that’s being generous. War is only half physical. Rangers also have horrendous levels of hubris. They never want to listen to anyone they deem inferior. During some ASAT training I attended with some Bat boys a retired FBI interrogator, CIA intelligence officer, and a former Delta member were giving a class on how to read people and discern situations in combat environments. Of course some of the Rangers literally interrupted the class and demanded to know what the instructors qualifications were on the subject as they hadn’t explained their back grounds yet. The retired FBI agent turned out to be John O’Neil the agent that interrogated Timmothy McVeigh. The ex Delta guy tried to just play coy and not really say but the Ranger idiot doubled down. He finally identified himself as ex Delta, the CIA spook just looked at the Ranger and said “I was CIA when you were in diapers so just sit down so we can get through this stud.” That was when I realized Rangers hold themselves about 3 levels higher than they actually are. If you can’t stfu and learn without thinking you’re John Rambo and best of the best, you have no business in SOF, and in my experience that’s roughly 1/3 of Regiment, a typical Ranger can’t WAIT to tell you he’s a Ranger, the Delta guy is just the opposite, a cool calm and quiet professional that moves through the world unseen and uncontested getting it done. If you ever find yourself in a war zone, and a Ranger comes up to you with a plan, you’ve got a 50/50 chance the guy has any actual war experience, especially now with GWOT being over for years. The Ranger might be an experienced stud with years of deployments or it could be someone with zero experience outside of Bat. If a Delta operator finds you and gives you a plan guaranteed the dude probably has years of experience in combat, possibly speaks the local language and knows the enemies tactics, has untold hours of the best training experience of any military on planet earth to include Navy SEALS. If I found myself in a SHTF situation I want a Delta guy on my side, and I’m not questioning his weapons status or discipline. By the time the Ranger gets done telling you he’s a Ranger and how hard Ranger school is, the delta guy is already RTB.
Captain Steele was far from "regular army ". He's a ranger with several deployments under his belt before Somalia. He specifically called this book and movie out when he was our CO in task force courage. Be careful what you believe from Hollywood
Yep this is absolutely bullshit I'd bet. As I heard Steele was a pretty decent officer.
LTC Steele was an excellent leader.
The day he took over as the commander of 2-22IN, the general attitude immediately went from "I'm fkd." to "Fk yes!"
Our previous commander had reminded me of the "Just came over supply" battalion commander in Heartbreak Ridge. There couldn't have been a more stark difference going from that to having LTC Steele, and a new CSM, running the battalion.
That difference was clear when he spoke to us immediately following the exit of the milk toast formerly occupying battalion commander position. LTC Steele said"Someone has to be the best dmnd Infantry battalion in the free world. It might as well be us." And he charged us with making it that way. I would have loved to deploy with them, but I was already on orders to be a drill Sergeant.
In 2005, I was the first Sergeant for a 200-man mechanized company team deployed to JRTC to support 2 different brigade rotations from the 101st. I had adopted the general leadership philosophy I learned from LTC Steele.
To say we were aggressive was an understatement. I ran across a few NCOs I knew as we searched them after my boys had "killed" them. They consistently said we were the most aggressive unit they had seen.
The second brigade to to come through was the Rakkasans, commanded by COL Steele. I recognized many of the NCOs and officers as guys who had been in 2-22. The Brigade was exceptionally aggressive. OPFOR went from a 24 hour reset, to a 12 hour reset, to being reset on the spot because the brigade, with my company attached, was killing them so fast. COL Steele remembered me and offered me a job when we had the chance to catch up a bit.
We later deployed south of Baghdad at the same time as the Rakkasans were deployed farther north. I would have loved to have been under his command in combat.
The Pentagon had full editorial control.
Its a recruitment movie for teenagers
no there are the interview with the actual guy who said the line, it was different in protocal, for SF/delta they let the chamber empty and drop the hammer so the gun can't go to safe ( if you know Ar15 ), the officer was not a ahole like in the movie and realize the problem
@@gilbertnail7266America gay
drill sergeant specifically told me he did not want to hear that this is my safety line
100 push ups later...
@@thetvbaby83 ?
Yeah dude there's a difference between career soldiers and brand new 17-18 year old kids.
My Drill Sargeants were all Vietnam veterans.
They would stomp your ass 😂
They were awesome 😊
Delta has a different protocol than regular army they also have multiple departments under their belts to
I think in the book, Bowden chalks it up to the cultural differences between Delta and the Rangers, especially Steele, who was a Captain and accustomed to the usual Army adherence to discipline and respect for rank.
The Delta guys were far more egalitarian and had far less deference for higher ranks, not because they were rebellious jerks or undisciplined misfits, but because at their level, if you were good enough to make it into Delta Force, your skills and abilities transcended usual rank structures.
This was explained in another part of the book where a typical Rangers pre-mission briefing would include the officer(s) dictating the plan to the men, and the men saying "Yes sir," and saluting as they left.
A Delta Force pre-mission briefing was much more collaborative, and just about every man on the team in the mission had equal say over the merits of the proposed plan, even including vehement (and highly profane) disagreements. Eventually, they'd collecrively work out a plan that everyone was okay with, and then go execute it perfectly.
I guess a good analogy would be that the Delta Force operators were like a highly successful rock band that had been together for years, knew each other's abilities, and could collaborate but also vehemently disagree on creating the next songs for their band, while the Rangers were more like a collegiate marching band - very good at what they did, but also with a clear and unquestioned hierarchy as to who did what, and who answered to whom. A freshman flute player is not going to challenge the drum major's direction and commands, lol.
That reminds me of the time when US JSOC had the tier system. Delta was Tier 1 and Rangers were Tier 2. They may have abolished/changed that system, but it just goes to show that there's a certain distinction in the quality, and thus culture of how they operate.
Another thing you comment reminded me is this video (th-cam.com/video/zPFgobbFkbs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AHXjcPoc77PTiahF). In it, an ex-SAS operative mentions how mission briefings were collaborative, every operator pitching in ideas on how to execute the mission. I guess that kind of thinking is widely shared across SpecOps units worldwide.
Nice story with the "cultural" part. The reality is that if you don't follow at least certain orders, you're getting shelled by your own artillery. Delta or not, a shell is very egalitarian.
@@urbypilot2136
JSOC never had a tier system. Maybe the US Army but that's gone. You can say the Navy does.
Rangers are the ones that get Delta out of trouble.
@@zaco-km3su well of course. They are still in the military, after all, not pirates. Heck, even pirates "follow orders" after a fashion, but the point is that Delta Force, when presented with a mission, has a more collaborative approach as to the best way to accomplish the mission, while Rangers are much more top-down, far closer to a standard military unit where the officers tell the men what to do, and then they go do it.
There was another story in a different book about Charlie Beckwith (the father of Delta Force) where some CIA guy wanted to smuggle a gun and some secret documents and other equipment to some operative in another country. The CIA guy wanted Beckwith and the Delta guys to do some crazy commando raid, jumping out the back of a C-130 into the ocean, then swimming ashore with the items. Beckwith basically said he'd do it, but only if the CIA guy was right alongside them.
The CIA guy then asked Beckwith how he would accomplish the task, and Beckwith (and his Delta buddy who was right next to him) came up with the much simpler, safer, and more effective plan of putting the items in a diplomatic bag to the US Embassy in that country, where it would be easily picked up by the operative.
Nominally, the CIA guy had authority over Beckwith and his operators, and could've forced the issue, but realized that Beckwith's method was the sound one.
And the SEAL teams have shown us why allowing this attitude can be bad freaking idea haha. don't get me wrong nothing wrong with everyone having equal input on planning missions, but the reality is discipline has on ocassion been allowed to slip too far in the special forces community and it creates problems of its own
The ‘rack safe’ prevents undo wear on the tension spring. It’s not unique to the M4 either. The CPT was looking out for the young Rangers. Neither one was wrong.
The tension spring for the safety? I've wondered about this before lol, but no one's given me a clear answer.
@@chihuahua3892 what rack safe means is that the bolt is forward on an empty chamber and the trigger is pulled so the hammer is not cocked, and firing pin is in forward position. a full magazine is loaded.
alas no spring is under tension, and you will have to rack the gun or pull the charging handle for it to able to fire.
also, many guns prevent the trigger safety to be engaged in this condition.
@chihuahua3892 the spring that is affected is the hammer spring. The selector lever of the M-16/AR-15 family of weapons will not go into the safe position while the hammer is forward.
Over time and with enough use, hammer springs break. With the amount of firing that Delta operators do during training, I would expect it is a relatively common occurance. When a hammer spring breaks, the hammer doesn't come forward with enough force to fire the round. You will see a light dent on the primer of an unfired cartridge. It would suck to have it happen in the middle of a firefight, but with the resources available to Delta, they could easily replace the hammer spring on a regular basis to avoid the problem.
While I was a Drill Sergeant, it was a common problem. Out of a 30-40 man platoon firing about 1000 rounds per 9-week training cycle, I would replace 2-3 hammer springs per training cycle. Most of the time, this happened in the middle of the training firing qualification tables. I carried a hammer with the spring on it so I could replace the part without pulling the rifle from the line. It would take well under a minute for me to replace and they would be able to continue firing.
The incident portrayed in the movie was probably less about saving a hammer spring and more about a D measuring contest. In the end, CPT Steele was correct. "You're going to need my Rangers."
LTC Steele was one of my battalion commands, and later, a company I had was assigned to support COL Steele's brigade during a training rotation. He is the epitome of a combat commander. I served 20 years in the Army and work the occasional contract now that I'm retired. I've spent more than 6 years in combat. There is no one I would rather have as a commander in combat.
Movement effects and wears out springs, not compression.
@@chihuahua3892 Answer: Fud lore. It is the actuation of the spring and its return over multiple firing cycles that wears it down. I have personally never seen a mil-spec hammer / trigger spring wear out...but I guess it could happen.
$1000 says a lot of people who tried to use that line didn’t know the context.
I'm sure they didn't. They probably just said it cause it "sounded" cool and badass.
I did to an Air Force LT about my saw in Afghanistan if you don’t know the safest position for an m249 saw is bolt forward safety off because you cannot place it on safe until the bolt is to the rear because it is an open bolt firing weapon just like the 240 and a lot of people think the m2 browning is an open bolt firing weapon but it’s not
@@robertbowen6610 yessir. You are correct.
@@benignobrionesiii I was a squad designated marksmen and a small arms weapons expert in the infantry you know how they say don’t volunteer for anything well I didn’t listen so I ended up doing kp a lot but I also got some really cool schools like javelin and combatives
It's the way you put them in the armory for long periods of time. You clear the weapon one last time, look into the chamber, into the barrel(no brass/ Round), let the Bolt go forward, flip the selector from Safe to Fire and pull the trigger. Click and hand it to the armorer. All the springs on the weapon should be released and there is no round in the chamber. I worked with them all the time, I never knew that they did that.
I have never been in the military and do this for all of my firearms that aren't kept loaded for personal defense purposes, it just made sense to me even though literally everyone I know insists on keeping them with the safety on 🤷.
I don't know who thought that springs wear by static tension, but they don't.
this is just a function check performed after reassembling the weapon. nothing to do with saving springs.
That's to make sure there's no rounds in the chamber before you hand it to the armor. I don't think they store them like that. Pretty sure I always saw them send the bolt home after determining it was clear.
But cant you still put it back on save?
There is no missing context, it's all on screen. Hoot has a magazine in - and Steele refers to it as "hot" - and safety is off, he is ready to rock and roll at a moment's notice, regardless of whether the hammer is down or not. "This is my safety" line means he's 100% in control of his rifle. The scene is meant to set up Steele as an anal retentive hard-ass who in the end cares deeply for his men, and Hoot as a reckless cowboy who in the end is shown to be one of the most efficient and professional soldiers.
That’s kind of the problem with any of these explanations. If he was locked and loaded safety off in the chow line that’s F’d up and a good way to get someone hurt. If the rifle was “rack safe” then why would he be carrying it around as he doesn’t have any spare mags on him to load a shoot anyway.
Personally the book/movie people probably just got it wrong and it added to the narrative tension of the movie to create drama. So it makes a better movie but a pretty bad safety lesson. If a soldier was walking around with a live weapon it should be on safe.
@@JimmySailor Hoot said in an interview that he was walking around with a hammer down but safety off and Steele came up to him to ask him to put safety on because they were cross training CQB with Rangers, kind of new to Rangers, and walking around with safety off was a bad safety lessons. Obviously the movie added a magazine in the rifle and a bit of conflict to showcase the differences between two branches.
1st SFOD-D is above the army command
@@JimmySailorthe magazine can be inserted but the weapon still be unloaded. The hammer is still "forward" so no shot can be fired, and the only thing required to prepare the weapon to fire is to rack the charging handle, loading a round AND resetting the hammer in one move.
It's a pretty common way to carry a rifle in a condition where it CAN NOT be fired unless an intentional action is made to prepare it for firing, which can still be done quickly in an emergency situation if need be.
As unlikely as it is, mechanical safeties can still fail, but if there's no round in the chamber then a failed safety poses no risk.
Another bit of context is that Hoot really did use the "this is my safety" line when training Rangers on CQB earlier that day, but he was referring to his brain. "The most important safety is between your ears"
@@TheElMuffin cause in that case the weapon still is not gonna fire till you rack the charging handle and chamber a round
Fun Fact: HK addressed this in their later model 416 by making a trigger that can be placed on safe when in the hammer forward position.
Its one of the quirks that makes the M4 so unique imo, show its essentially a 1950s design at its core.
They already had it on the G36 aswell.
I prefer it in rack safe anyways. Say you’ve got to engage a threat late at night, you’ve just been awakened and have to ‘go to work’. All you have to do is rack the charging handle and you don’t have to fumble with the safety.
(I’m a civilian though, so my needs are alittle different)
@@sigspearthumb7993Fumbling with an ar safety? Lol I get ya though.
So did KE Arms.
The real Hoot explained this in a video you can find on TH-cam, there was nothing between the 2 men, it was a misunderstanding and after the explanation Cpt. Steele understood and moved on. Leave it to Hollywood to create drama where they isn’t any. For once I would like them to show a movie the way it was on a true event.
Midway (2019) and Patriots Day (2016) were known to be highly accurate including some of the actions of the characters and details in the environment etc.
@@dallasyap3064 Midway 2019 was laughable. They didn't even get the order of events right.
Hoot was actually asked about this in an interview. Hoot made it clear it was a simple miss understanding and it was not as serious as the movie made it out to be. It was just a moment to educate each other. No beef, no scowls.
Norm Hooten explained the whole thing in a podcast, which mirrored this exactly…fun fact: he was born in Brackettville, Texas.
Go Tigers! I may or may not live here. ;)
What podcast if you don’t mind me asking?
@@willishuntley9062 Sure, Black Hawk Down w/ Hooten Young Protector Nation Pod Ep 49
Another fun fact his Whiskey is kick ass as well as his cigars try em
Last I read he’s a doctor in the Orlando area?
This is the best war movie ever made, and the cast is absolute golden. Everyone in this movie is an A-Lister today.
As an old Korean, I could not understand what Capt. Steel said. There was not a magazine in Sagt. Hut's Car-15. In my memory, I was punished to do the 'Han river railroad bridge' by a Drill Instructor during an evening weapon inspection in the boot camp because my empty M16A1 rifle was set to "Safe". He ordered me to change setting to "Semi" and pull the trigger than punished me. He told me that I might kill my comrades by the stupid mistake (especially during wartime) and I might make weaken the hammer spring by keeping an empty weapon purchased by tax being cocked.
Which is even a better explanation than given by the AI bot.
I have to know, what is the "Han River Railroad Bridge?" I'm guessing it's not pleasant.
@@zachmartin1458 seconded, I'd like to know what this punishment detail is. The name already sounds a bit menacing given what I know about typical railroad bridge construction.
This is why you gotta love koreans. All men are secretly roof koreans as they all had to endure this sort of Han River Railroad bridge. The one a lot of us hate are was the bend forward like an upside down V and stick your head in the sand with your hands behind your back even worse if done on the shore and water gets in your nose when the waves crash. Korean military LOVES suffering. but it breeds hard soldiers, so can't complain.
@@tewkewl Is that what it is?
That's some important context. I knew M16s can't be put on safe when rack safe, but I didn't know that was the context of their disagreement in the movie.
It's not. The person who made this short is just misunderstanding the scene to farm views. He calls it a "hot weapon," meaning there's a round in the chamber. That's not rack-safe.
@@kieran8266 How would he know that's a hot weapon? He doesn't have x-ray vision to see a chambered round.
@@jarvy251 Does the term "rack safe" apply when there's a magazine in the weapon?
I guess it depends on if you mean "rack" as "for storage on a rack" or "you have to rack a round to fire it." I've only ever seen it applied when storing weapons on racks in the armory, and they are *never* stored with magazines in them.
@@willerwin3201 Rack safe may or may not be the correct term the the american military (I wasn't in the US army, I wouldn't know) but when I was overseas, carrying rifles with loaded mag and empty chamber and eased springs was a pretty standard practice. We'd commonly refer to this state as "load, make safe" after the drill commands to achieve that state, and I can see americans using a similar term "rack safe" as a shorthand.
@@jarvy251 Seems like an odd choice for carrying a firearm to me; there's value in knowing that a weapon isn't ready to fire by visual inspection of the safety selector switch. In the rack safe state, the only way to know it's not ready to fire is by feel as you try to flip the selector switch and it stops not quite halfway to SAFE.
Do internal springs in an M-4 or M-16 go bad all that often? I never saw or heard of that being an issue during my deployments (2006-2008, 2010-2011), and our weapons were not stored like this except when they were loaded in cargo containers on the way in and out of country. Was there some quality issue with M-4 and M-16 springs back in the early 1990s? Was this some holdover concern from the early-issue M-16s in Vietnam?
Not sure about most AR-15 style weapons, but on the HK416, which is what Delta uses now, you can have an uncocked weapon on safe.
Capt Steele was not "regular army" . He's a captain of 75th Ranger . Consider as army's elite forces too .
It's a conflict between Ranger and Delta.
Yes I agree because Bush ‘41 sent the Marines in to clean up Somalia first… Then Clinton sent in Rangers and Delta Force to stay behind in Mogadishu.
And many Delta operators are former Rangers.
As a Canadian in afghanistan, a group of us were confronted by an American SNCO pointing out our weapons were not on safe. He seemed incredulous when he could not set our selectors to the safe position when we invited him to try. I always assumed American issued ARs were different somehow to allow the selector to be set to safe with the hammer down, resulting in different SOPs.
The same here in Denmark.
It's just US Army silliness. When I was in AFG the Army guys weren't even allowed to have a magazine inserted.
I was US Air Force. Our SOP was magazine in, round chambered, safety on. And yes, I had a couple Army ding dongs try to give us shit about it. They politely got told to pound sand.
Being deployed as AFSOC with Army, our side arms were loaded, one in the chamber, safety off, hammer down.
Army was empty tube, safety on, hammer down. We'd occasionally have leadership butting heads over it, but nothing disrespectful.
Trigger discipline is more important than physical safeties.
Safety switch is important because anybody can made a mistake.
@@sheilareid5656 Millions of citizens, police & military from all over the world carry a pistol that doesn’t have a safety every single day without having negligent discharges.
@ZootyZoFo not true negligence discharge happens all the time plus nowadays most law enforcement have a safety lock on their pistols. By the way the topic was about rifles.
@@sheilareid5656 No the topic was trigger discipline, something you apparently don’t have.
@ZootyZoFo trigger discipline and safety. I bet your careless with your rifle, have it around your house with no safety switch.
I heard in a podcast some guys who were actual Army green berets reason for this was because Delta were clearly lets say Varsity seniors and then you got the JV rangers you got these guys who are young and not literally saying this but kind of like teenagers young and dumb who look up to these guys and seeing these guys do whatever they want makes them wanna do things they do leading to them acting out or potentially having accidents just to "impress" so Captain steele is just trying to avoid his "kids" from being badly influenced. He trusts the delta guys but he doesn't want the rest of his guys to see. Its like parents doing things adults do but you don't want kids to see because then they think it's okay.
Yeah that's basically what happened in real life. They were training together and he asked him to not do it because it was kind of setting an example for the Rangers.
This is the correct answer. The main difference is the maturity level between the units
Delta guys are all older, experienced soldiers who have at the very least a couple years under their belt in the military before they ever get to the team, which they are heavily vetted for during selection.
The Ranger Batts are in average much younger soldiers. You can theoretically make it all the way to the Ranger Batts while still 18, which is why strict discipline is heavily enforced.
CPT Steele isn’t as concerned about Hoot having an accident as he is his own much younger on average Rangers emulating the Delta guys and an incident occurring as a result.
Never knew you can't put an un-cooked M4 on safe.
The more you know.
canadian c7 also cant be put to safe when rifle is not racked
@@silverblueshadow There's a gun in Canada?? How can you be safe with a gun in your country?! 😂
@@allrequiredfields Don't worry. It's only for the military as it does China's bidding.
I have a few rifles and pistols with this type of safety. I don't know if it's by deliberate design or if there's something inherently easier about designing a safety that only operates when the hammer/striker is engaged.
A lot of guns can't.
Paris and Hector being brothers in arms is so awesome
I got that reference
Delta was still an unknown thing when somalia happened. They were forced to even shave their heads to fit into the ranger standards as to not cause tension or issues. Watch tom satterlys shawn ryan show interview on it and he talks about being there as well. Im regular army and know cag, sf have their own standards just like rangers do. Delta is the most trained and even though they may not abide by everything with strict adherence like rangers i have the utmost trust in delta because they are the best of the best the army has.
Problem with "rack safe" is that there is no way to confirm that such a weapon is actually safe by looking at it; you can only check it by feel by attempting to flip the selector switch to safe (which it will not do when it's not charged). Having a magazine in the weapon in this configuration means it's ready to shoot as soon as you pull back and release the charging handle. The alternative is to thumb the safety selector switch from safe to semi, which is quicker and can be verified as safe by simple inspection.
Rack safe is for ensuring that the weapon's internal spring doesn't permanently compress during long-term storage. It is not generally used to carry a weapon with a full magazine in it. You *can* carry a weapon this way safely, but I'd be curious to know the reasoning. Is the marginally lower wear and tear on the spring worth the extra hassle of chambering a round or having no way for anyone else to verify the weapon is safe? I'm with CPT Steele on this one.
Also, the movie makes the Delta guys look like a bunch of stuck up jerks high on the smell of their own farts. I've known plenty of special operations dudes. Shoving people out of their way at the chow hall line, showing open disrespect to an officer, and dripping arrogance is not how they roll. They're quiet and consummate professionals, team players, and good mentors. This kind of showboating would lead to other operators stepping in and fixing their own guy.
He only calls him out because he has to maintain discipline for his men. Look at it this way. He’s in charge of a bunch of younger 18-20 year old men. Yes they are elite but still young and impressionable. And to those guys seeing a delta operator is like seeing a superhero. Delta are the best of the best and they would wanna emulate them as much as possible rightfully so. So the captain who normally would never question a delta operator has no choice but to call him out to set an example for his men. People always miss read this scene unfortunately
"Rack safe" is bolt forward and hammer dropped and is safer than what the standard demanded by the Officer
The US Military doesn’t use “AR” rifles, the have M16A2 rifle and as far as I k ow all have selector switch
Captain Steele was a LTC at 10th MTN in 2002-2003. I was a TACP for his battalion. He is not the guy in the movie. He is professional and experienced.
I forget which Eastern European country specified it, but when that country switched to an AR-platform rifle, they specified that the internals be capable of allowing the safety to be engaged with the hammer down. This would make their manual of arms just a little bit closer to their old AK rifles, which can have the safety applied regardless of the condition of the hammer.
It's not just considered safe... it's impossible to fire since 1. No round is present in the chamber and 2. The firing hammer is down, meaning you'd have to rack the weapon to the rear to reset the action and also feed a round into the chamber
Personally I think it’s just more professional to use the actual safety of the gun. It’s literally weapons safety 101. Also in the marines it’s drilled into use to keep in on safe till your ready to fire. If you don’t you get complacent and complacency kills.
In an interview with a ranger officer discussing this scene. The ranger officer in the scene was right to raise the issue because in the ranger regiment there are lots of 19ish young soldiers who are impressionable and not up to Delta experience and discipline. If this practice spreads eventually there will be a lot of NDs
It does carry missing context, however, veterans everywhere got it.
I've read an individual's article where he checked magazine springs for specifications after fully loading and storing magazines in the early 70s. Stored for 30+ years. Magazines all matched specs of new magazines. Magazines he was currently using and loading and unloading showed much more differences compared to new unused magazines. He deduced the wear of springs resulted from compression and release rather than constant compression. I really doubt milspec hammer springs are of poorer quality than 1970s era magazine springs so........
I once failed a unit maintenance inspection over failing sear springs. I argued with the inspector that is wasn't in the -10, and not on the PMCS checklist. It also wasn't showing on the functions check. Having seen a weapon pass a functions check and fail on the range over this very issue, I check weapons for failing springs.
Springs will keep their springyness so long as you don't compress/extend them to the point of plastic deformation. But use over time can degrade a spring a number of ways.
I imagine those sort of misunderstandings could lead to an accidental discharge, but I'm no expert. Surely it's better for everyone to use the same sort of protocols?
Cleared with no magazine, an M16 rifle or M4 carbine is safe
CPT Steele was portrayed as "The Bad Guy" in the movie for the needs of "interpersonal drama", but he was an outstanding officer in real life
Not accidental discharge, as both methods are safe.
There are two types of discharge: Negligent and mechanical malfunction. No discharges are accidental. If someone has an unintentional discharge and it wasn't a mechanical malfunction, it was caused by negligence.
@@gilbertnail7266 well stated. An AG on a machine gun range didn't clear his gunners chamber well enough with a white light (night qual) and it cooked off a round. Twas pointed in a safe direction, gun was still on the line, etc. Luckily it was a small group, the NCOIC took my buddy aside and talked with him, and figured that a) he's not gonna make that mistake ever again so b) no sense in making a mountain outta moleskin lmao
@@The_Assassin_of_The_Gray LTC Steele was the best battalion commander I had during my 20 years in the Army.
That’s how my ARs live. You can tell what condition the weapon is in in the dark because the safety selector will not move to safe. No guessing.
1. It also cant go on Safe because its a rubber stunt gun.
2. We would call it 'cruiser ready' or 'condition 2'(although ive always hated condition terms) where im from.
"Regular Army" just means active duty. Its used to differentiate National Guard or reserves.
I disagree strongly. Reg army is just that. No advanced training beyond Infantry school. Rangers have airborne qualification then Ranger school. Ditto S.F., and Delta etc al. All went thru infantry school. We call them "legs". You know not of which you speak.
@@robertframe7349 But RA is officially used to differentiate Active duty and reserve, national guard, etc. At least when I was in, and RA wasn't a term made up, it's used on official guides, and memorandums. On a side note, remember how much the Army love putting out memos for every fucking thing that is going on in your unit. Shit, not just the unit, at the squad level sometimes.
@@mgonzo3881 I concede your point. The National Guard didn't even count/rate as far as we were concerned. Not meaning to dis
U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force are both special Operations units albeit different tiers Delta still recruits a large amount of their soldiers from Ranger Regiment. Both are capable of amazing feats. Both are intelligent, skilled, and dedicated.the Rangers also have a higher tier unit the R.R.C. Regimental Reconnaissance Company only the best can join as well. Yes Delta only takes the best too and they are Tier 1 but they regularly and in the past work together obviously they both can hold their own and keep up shoot,move,and communicate. 🏴
From one of the Rangers that was actually there, it was claimed that Delta had two or three ND because of this whole thing..... couple of Delta operators or either rotated stateside, or lost their positions with The Unit as soon as they got back home....
Rack safe? First time I have heard this term. I like it. Now, when I trained Iraqi Army Infantry up North in the Nineveh 2004-2005, the Iraqis had their weapons (AKs) on fire. They also had no ammo in the chamber. As Americans, we lost it on them until they explained it was easier to charge their rifle than to place it on fire. Which they are correct.
My biggest take away from the book was that General Aidid's own clan was planning on killing him because he's gone drunk with power. And the members of his clan that got together to plan the coup were killed in an American airstrike that mistakenly thought General Aidid would be in that meeting, which necessitated operation Gothic Serpent. Had the Americans just sat back and done nothing, the problem would have solved itself.
I love the family resemblance between other earbuds with the case and that SNAP on closing the lid 😂
The heat could be a reason for rack safe. If you have one round chambered at all times; there is a miniscule but realistic chance of a round cooking off resulting in an ND
I was always taught the best safety is keeping your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. You know, basic firearm handling.
Here’s the deal: due to complicated threats in the area, certain people were adamant about always having a full mag in their weapon. Then the conflict started. Some leadership thought it was risky having chambered rounds with the weapon on safe, so it degraded to keeping a full mag in the weapon, but no round chambered and the hammer dropped. Well if the hammer is dropped, you cannot switch the selector lever to safe. So to the layman, it appears as a weapon with a mag inserted selected to fire.
Also, he’s showing that as a guy with knife kills, he knows when to keep his booger hook off the bang switch.
Jason Isaac did around 8 different Southern accents in one scene. He's the British version of Dick Van Dyke. 😂
The movie didn't do Captain Steele any type of justice. He's actually a badass.
I guess that could be considered missing context if you are unfamiliar with the weapon system. I understood it immediately as a kid.
When the danish army went over to AR15... This was standard.
Until we went to war together with the Americans in Afghanistan, then it changed to the load and safety procedure.
This is a cultural thing between Delta and the 75th Rangers but at the end of the day the 75th answers to JSOC. JSOC is a no cover no salute "flat" Command. This means they dont view any social/cultural difference between an enlisted or an officer.
This short is not entirely true, but one thing he did get right was the constant butting heads amongst service members on policy. For example, sunglasses on your head, hands on your pockets, mustaches being 1/8th of an inch around the corner of your mouth... you know, the important stuff.
Fun fact: It’s a rubber rifle in that scene used for training and the safety on it is molded in position. You can’t move the safety even if you wanted to.
When they are being stored in the armory by any unit in the military they are in rack safe with the hammer down. Also for long term storage for civilians it's probably better to let the spring have a break. When in use, sure use the safety, but when its being stored use rack safe
ARs can be set to safe when loaded. You just need a plum crazy Gen 3. It's what I use currently. And yes it's amazing that you can put your safety on wile loaded and yes you should be able to order one through your gun dealer or online.
yep keeps the tension off the spring and make it last longer and stay strong also with the 249 saw you cant put it on safe with the bolt forward we had some high ups bitching about it in the chow haul of balad Iraq but they are just idiots you can "half cock" it and put on safe but if you go to rack it and forget then it jams up very bad and not a good thing
Read a WWII story once where a soldier (probably a draftee, during bootcamp, or at least on the range) was telling his instructor that the M1 Garand was a 30-06, and the instructor says, "I don't know anything about civilian calibers." Something like that. I'd say that instructor don't know Jack! 😂
Rangers most certainly aren't regular Army.
I do not think they mean it like that.
Rangers are the most elite regulars.
What else to play to JB Balad, every time I go to the chow hall some army guy would bitch i had my 9mm on fire. I would tell him as Air Force security forces we do not clear our weapons out when we go to the chow hall.
Didn't know this until I got one, I would argue it's more safe that way. It's a lot harder to rack it, than it is to flip that 90° switch.
This happens so often not just with delta, I’ve gotten into it with mess officers and mess sergeants for carrying a loaded weapon on duty as an MP countless times over the years for not clearing my weapon and entering “their” chow hall with a loaded weapon or how about what happened on FOB Marez in Iraq where we had Romanian soldiers guarding perimeter and places like chow hall and one got into it with a CID Agent who refused to clear his weapon and the Romanian stepped back and shot the CID Agent in the leg…😂that was a shitshow😂
An «AR-style rifle» can indeed be set to the safe position while being in a rack safe condition. Just not all of them, or maybe even most of them. Older versions of the Hk416 for example can’t, but the newer ones can. Both techniques are technically safe, and some do more wear and tear on the weapon than others.
Delta are consummate professional. The best of the best. How they conduct themselves is a testament of their skill. As always there will be ego battles beyond the other special forces groups. 😅
Yeah when the trigger is pulled on an AR you literally cannot flip the safety on and off. That only can happen mechanically when it’s ready to fire/dry fire.
A Brit and an Aussie. So many non-Americans in this film - rather like Band of Brothers.
I dont think the movie thought of this context either. Even on FOB id think id prefer a loaded weapon ready to go with the flick of a switch than a paperweight. Perhaps the somalian conflict had less immediate worry for things like rocket attacks than the one the guys i knew dealt with, but for us new guys thats the context we all came up learning. Rather be able to shoot a vbied than fumble around with a mag change and let it get close.
Standard Delta behavior
All he really had to say was "It's not chambered or racked sir." It litterally can't get any safer!
Captain Steal's character was a true Blue Falcon
Reality,the Malaysian Army save the US army during Black Hawk Down inciddent.
And the Pakistanis.
@@tigerleoneinc.9282 Two weeks before, the Rangers saved a Pakistani convoy who had 25 people killed by the Habr Gdir militia.
Any idiot can drive an armored APC in and out of a city in the dark when the people shooting at you don't have NVGs and you do. Don't be so dismissive about the TFR. Neither the Pakistanis nor the Malaysians ould hace lasted five minutes in the situation the Rangers and Delta were in. They held on for 13 hours.
I've read in Howard Wasdin's book that an operator in this mission did the same thing, dangerous part is that his weapon went off to.
Since the army personnel use Delta Force as a genetic term for any spec ops group.
I'm still waiting for a real unit that is authorized by Congress to use the name "Delta Force".
ND's would disappear overnight.
Oh, but i bet that within the context of this scene, we're we watching real life instead of a movie, he's got one in the chamber and a full mag. He's saying that the difference between safe and merc is is his finger and his intent
The weapon did not have a round chambered. We carried full mags, but empty chamber with dropped hammer, thus it could not be selected to safe.
Hot weapon* meaning live ammo, mag in the gun, and knowing Delta, round chambered
Love cpt steeles texas accent
If Hoot is right handed, and his rifle is slung, then by default the weapon would rest with the safety selector switch resting against his body. How could Cpt Steele determine if his rifle was off safety or not?
Technically speaking you can rack an AR-platform weapon while it’s empty and then drop the bolt on an empty chamber so that you have an empty chamber while also having the safety on.
That said, it’s redundant to have a racked weapon with nothing in the chamber, so you either rack it and keep it on safe (Army method here) or just don’t rack it at all and be stuck with the selector reading semi (Delta method).
Both are plenty safe but the vast majority of those who use an AR platform weapon prefer to do it the Army way or the combo I listed first where it’s racked, on safe and has nothing in the chamber.
The Delta method is technically safe but at a glance it appears as though the weapon is hot when in reality it isn’t
Is there a bit of a common courtesy element involved as well? When you are around others in a crowd, there are some advantages to safe procedures that others can see at a glance, right?
A possibly somewhat analogous situation in my line of work in high voltage/power, a test where you always use a visible grounding rod and signage is greatly preferred.
@pootyting3311 kinda sorta. It's not like a rule that you need to, but in general, perception is reality. If you're in mixed company, like your infantry platoon is around a bunch of supply or s shop dudes that obviously have a different SOP than you, then it would behoove you to take that into account. Not to say that's the case every time, I'm just giving an example of when you might.
Never heard of "rack safe"ever in my 25 years in the military, but i do know it as condition 3. And yes that's a safe condition because the weapon cant ever be accidentally fired due to no round in the chamber. that makes sense but on a patrol or a mission it limits you due to having to use both hands to make a ready weapon. I prefer condition 1 , fully loaded mag with one in the chamber and saftey on.
AR's/ambulite arms has never commissioned a combat rifle.
They were using the m4😅
It would have been nice if the movie had clarified that.
My weapon, my safety.
His selector switch is on fire. Captain wanted him to put it on safe, and it can only go into safe when the rifle is racked.
That weapon was so "hard".
Delta force and rangers have a very close relationship because 60 to 70% deltas were rangers there would of been a good chance that several deltas served under the cap at one time
Safe the carbine when I’m chow line. Too easy!
There is always conflict in the military regarding SOP
It’s his safety 🇺🇸💯
There was also a ND in the hangar irl if I remember correctly.
That isn’t true, I just asked a unit guy and ranger.
Still so crazy to see things about this movie, I grew up with the kids of the real life delta hoot is based on. Literally mind blowing when I went over to their house after seeing the movie as a kid.
delta is built different
I think it's a confusion of authority. Because regular army I can understand creating a standard that's easiest for everyone to utilize. Delta force have proven themselves as far more capable so there less reason to worry about stupid shit happening with them. They are officially well trained war dogs. Army guys are still waiting on the challenger
This scene was complete BS. In 2000 Colonel Steele was the Brigade CO of 2nd BDE 82nd, I was on Brigade staff duty as a young private, smoking a cigarette outside when Colonel Steele threw that book out of the upstairs window and yelled something like “Absolute dog shit.” I went over and picked up the book and saw it was Blackhawk down. I was a brand new private fresh out of jump school and didn’t realize who our CO was until I asked around and then read it myself. But clearly he was not happy with its accuracy. I assume the movie was even worse with its inaccuracies. What I do know, even though the 75th has fallen under the command of USASOC since 1986 when it moved from regular army FORSCOM and thus by extension, USSOCOM, it is not even the same realm as 1st SFOD-D or the 1st SFG ODA. Rangers are glorified commandos. Glorified in a very real and earned way. But it’s not the same realm as the other two groups. During war time ops you will routinely encounter Ranger platoons operating with privates and even specialists who haven’t even completed Ranger School yet, they will of course have gone through RIP later called RASP. Even came across a few who hadn’t been to jump school yet due to Bat deployment rotations. 1 was a specialist cook in 2nd battalion another a 1st bat commo guy. For any Ranger including a captain to go up to Delta and try to school them on discipline or standards is just idiotic and not believable. It’s like a AAA baseball player going up to a veteran star player in the MLB and telling him his swing looks like crap, it just doesn’t happen even if the triple A guy knows what he’s talking about. Rangers are tough cookies, but they are a broadsword type unit full of guys with tons of experience and guys with ZERO experience outside of Basic, Airborne School, RIP/RASP and maybe a few weeks in the field. Versus DELTA where every single member is a veteran with thousands of hours of top tier training and multiple deployments. One is an Army unit with the physically toughest people you may ever meet, the other is a small team of tough guys but also experts. Which is why Delta and Green Berets often work detached from Regular Army and Rangers, but Rangers never work detached from regular army or Delta/Green berets. Meaning you’ll never see a squad of Rangers operating along with some group of foreign allied fighters alone. Somalia was a good representation, Delta doing a snatch and grab using Rangers to secure a perimeter ie inner cordon and outer cordon. In Afghanistan Rangers would do some HVT raid and use Regualr army for Outer Cordon etc. but Delta, SEALS, GREEN BERETS etc often operate in small teams away from large unit support. Average Rangers are no where near tactically efficient enough for those types of missions. Probably gonna piss off some Bat Boys but that’s the truth, any who can be honest about what Regiment is knows its purpose and mission set. To further illustrate my point, Rangers send their NCOs to regular Army NCOES leadership schools, ANOC/ALC/SLC where it trains in its respective branches. Infantry, COMMO, Etc. And while I served with some really amazing high speed Bat guys, I also served with some f*cking idiots from Bat. Guys that could run 7min miles in full battle rattle but we’re frankly dumb as a rock. Also saw a lot of inflexibility and failure to improvise during training missions. Prime example, during a night assault on a small compound the Rangers in charge of a mixed platoon set their support by fire and got on line to move up to the compound, half way there the left flank encountered an IED and rather than shift the formation into an echelon left to avoid the explosive they pushed through on line creating multiple unnecessary casualties nearly failing the mission. Their reasoning in the AAR was you can’t break formation when assaulting that close into an objective. It showed very little flexibility or ability to adapt past Regimental doctrine. Delta on the other hand is implicitly trained to improvise and adapt on the fly. The reality is less than 10% of Bat boys would ever pass Delta selection and that’s being generous. War is only half physical. Rangers also have horrendous levels of hubris. They never want to listen to anyone they deem inferior. During some ASAT training I attended with some Bat boys a retired FBI interrogator, CIA intelligence officer, and a former Delta member were giving a class on how to read people and discern situations in combat environments. Of course some of the Rangers literally interrupted the class and demanded to know what the instructors qualifications were on the subject as they hadn’t explained their back grounds yet. The retired FBI agent turned out to be John O’Neil the agent that interrogated Timmothy McVeigh. The ex Delta guy tried to just play coy and not really say but the Ranger idiot doubled down. He finally identified himself as ex Delta, the CIA spook just looked at the Ranger and said “I was CIA when you were in diapers so just sit down so we can get through this stud.” That was when I realized Rangers hold themselves about 3 levels higher than they actually are. If you can’t stfu and learn without thinking you’re John Rambo and best of the best, you have no business in SOF, and in my experience that’s roughly 1/3 of Regiment, a typical Ranger can’t WAIT to tell you he’s a Ranger, the Delta guy is just the opposite, a cool calm and quiet professional that moves through the world unseen and uncontested getting it done. If you ever find yourself in a war zone, and a Ranger comes up to you with a plan, you’ve got a 50/50 chance the guy has any actual war experience, especially now with GWOT being over for years. The Ranger might be an experienced stud with years of deployments or it could be someone with zero experience outside of Bat. If a Delta operator finds you and gives you a plan guaranteed the dude probably has years of experience in combat, possibly speaks the local language and knows the enemies tactics, has untold hours of the best training experience of any military on planet earth to include Navy SEALS. If I found myself in a SHTF situation I want a Delta guy on my side, and I’m not questioning his weapons status or discipline. By the time the Ranger gets done telling you he’s a Ranger and how hard Ranger school is, the delta guy is already RTB.
In the civilian world it is known as closet ready.
Ranger Batt is not “regular army”
Placing a weapon on safe isnt some big army thing either, it’s universal
The guys playing Hoot and the captain are not americans. Most of them weren't. 😂
Rack safe is actually safer than a loaded weapon
Bullshit. M4s are stored semi auto with the trigger depressed releasing all spring tension. Former unit armorer