Former Delta Operator Geo Hand Talks About Miniguns and How He Destroyed One of Our First Drones

A group of my fellow Delta brothers and I (circ 1998) were spending a week or so running and gunning with M-34 Miniguns and CH-47 Chinooks ($hithooks) in the desert training space of 29 Palms, CA. Firing Miniguns at night from an airborne platform is as exhilarating as it gets; like, it never gets old, the crew chief and I agreed. I was vexed to see some of the lads sitting down with their backs leaning up against the bulkhead of the helicopter, sort of just taking a break, not really interested in beyond just their one turn at the guns.

At a point, there was nobody on the guns, and the crew chief seemed somewhat miffed. I jumped up and ran the guns dry, trying to pick targets and raining 7.62 lead on them. To ask what it is like to shoot one, well, it is like squirting red water from a water hose; the tracer stream seems to follow the same undulating motion as the water streaming from a hose.

Of further interest was the ‘bullet saver’ feature. There were two button triggers at my access. One was slow fire (2,000 rpm), allowing for fewer rounds to be expended while searching for the bull’s eye on a target. Once you have locked onto the target you want, you jump over to the other button trigger that allows a full speed of some 6,000 rpm (rounds per minute), or ~100 bullets per second striking the log you are trying to hide behind.

After nights on the guns, we spent a couple of days shooting the AGM-114 Hellfire Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. We had a UH-60 Blackhawk helo configured to fire the missiles, and we configured our Rough Terrain gun trucks to mount and fire a missile as well. The missile required the target to be designated by the Army’s Mule LDS (Laser Designating System). The missile could reach out to 11 clicks (kilometers) or ~12,000 yards. All present agreed it was the ‘badest’ anti-tank weapon we had ever seen.

It was in one of those missile-shootin’ days when an unusual Lieutenant Colonel and his driver appeared.

“Howdy boys!” cheered the light Colonel, “They said you should be up here spanking targets with hellfires.”

“And who are we?” queried one of the Team Leaders.

“Delta Force men.” He responded in a most matter-of-fact way.

“Well, we don’t know anything about Delta Force, but we are of the Special Operations sort.”

“Then I’m in the right company,” declared the Colonel, and he pulled an early model RC (Radio-Controlled) aircraft Ground Control Station (GCS). He explained how he had fitted an RC model aircraft with a $30k color camera package and was operating it over the horizon… over the next ridge line from our location. He was proud of his kit; surely he was proud as he rattled off capabilities and future modifications to the system to come. When he got to the part about ease of operability, he handed off the GCS to me as his sounding rod for just how easy it was even for the novice to fly. The control screen picked up and showed the feed that the Situational Awareness camera was sending.

It was a grainy picture with the dark bottom half of the screen being the ground and the top half represented by the lighter sky. I did not want that GCS unit in my hand or to be at the controls flying it. I tried to give it back to him as he preached the wonders of the system to the boys. Finally, he looked over at the screen… quickly snatching it out of my hands, he squeaked: “Oh, my God…” and the picture went blank. The AC had flown itself into a mountain with me holding the GCS. I was pissed, but the Colonel just sighed it off as a research and development loss.