Hello, in reference to the scenario, here is my take. Officially we are not on good terms with Hugo, but unofficially it would be important to team up with his special forces commando equivalent to our Delta Force guys...a tiger does not sleep on unfamiliar grounds...and the the situation is in Venezuela, therefore the commandoes of that country would know their territory better than our guys...in essence, they would be an invaluable source of intelligence BUT a need-to-know basis would be paramount to prevent any possible leaks for the operation. Only Hugo, our President, the CMDR of our JCS, USSOCOM, JSOC, and Hugo's CMDR of his country's elite CT/HRT unit would know what's going to happen. The CMDR must hand pick ONLY a select few to assist OUR guys in the classified op. Their experience must have been tested through time and years as commandoes to ensure their loayalty to secrecy is unwaiverable. Now, parachuting in would not be good because in the jungles, even though there are few people living in there, the word of mouth spreads faster than wild fire and before you know it the abductors will catch wind of a rescue attempt and simply move locations OR kill the hostages. Coming from water is a NO because the Amazon is infested with dangerous predators and the locals who fish the areas could turn out to be "spotters" for hire and then you're screwed! The best method of infilitration I think is by land. A perimeter would need to be assessed surrounding the possible hostage site of let's say 30-40 miles out and keeping in mind, the abductors may have spotters covering the outer perimeters so this is where the Venezuelan commandoes can come in handy with intelligence to provide us with a who's who in around a 30-40 perimeter, and 5-20 mile perimeter. This way, our guys can more easily manuever through and avoid possible traps. If the hostages are placed in a very hard to get to spot to prevent rescue attempts, then our guys could create a diversion of some sort like a UAV or a fake HALO jump near but away from reach of the site in order to scare the abductors and possibly force them to move locations, which might be more favorable for our team to attempt a hostage rescue. The breach of intel from the US side could be construed by the abductors as an attempt to just scare them OR a real intel of a rescue attempt...if it's a real intel because some idiot blabbed it out, one way to downplay it is by diplomatically saying we don't negotiate with terrorists etc...and just let time blow away like for 2 or 4 or 6 wks...this way the bad guys will assume the leak was just a scare tactic. If we didn't drag things, obviously the bad guys would then assume we are preparing a rescue and therefore they will be on real high alert for our guys. We need to have the bad guys relaxed with their guards down and not up! I hope my intake helps a little but there are more details to all of this that i will just leave to hollywood's imagination. My background is 15 years in the Army SOF as a Psyop/intel soldier working closely with SF elements.

I'm not an operator, but I saw one on T.V. :)

Don't know if you have much chance of getting free advice (and in a public forum). But, great question. Lots of views and "interesting" votes.

I'll throw in my 2 cents based on zero experience.

H.A.L.O. jump into a jungle:
The thick canopy lets in very little light...much less a parachute. Your men may well be left hanging 100-200 feet up. The idea of tree jumping is to drag & snag your chute, then use ropes to lower yourself down. No sweat...the SAS did it in the 1950s with over 50 guys. Once. Then on future attempts the casualties mounted. They abandoned the method.

After they hit the ground, they must assemble. Even if they're 100-200 yards off the LZ, they couldn't see 50 feet in broad daylight. Below the canopy and on the floor, you'll get only 2-5% of the sunlight. Add some goggles to help with that. IR filters on the flashlights. Then find a way to ditch the chutes, ropes, packs, and oxygen bottles.

IIRC, the idea of HALO is to avoid AA fire. Not detection. So, if the camp had surface-to-air capabilities, they'd see you flying by and figure something was up. You'd need to pretend you're a commercial jet on a common flight path for passengers or cargo. If the path is too far away, give your guys some webbing (like a flying squirrel).

If you want to save your ankles, jump into a clearing that's a little farther away and walk in. Strip a small plane to look like local traffic at normal altitude, drop your guys a couple of miles out.

But, that's probably not as "Hollywood" as dangling targets from strings and letting the rebels decimate them. Your inside man (spy inside the rebel camp) is really a double-agent, I'm assuming. He gives up the insertion plans to the rebels, but gets it in the end. All you're missing is the gratuitous near-naked woman, and you've got a blockbuster in the making!

Someone with real-world experience is sure to shoot all this full of holes. But it's a fun question anyway.

P.S. don't follow the link. your IP address will be recorded. ;)

I'm not a military expert, but I couldn't help but feel that your scene idea could have some problems if it was scrutinized.

For one, you are talking about a US military operation in Venezuela. The first option of the US government would be to use the Venezuelan forces, and perhaps - using diplomacy - convincing Chavez that a joint operation would be advisable. So Venezuelan + US forces.

Point 2. If you are going to have a special operations team trying to save hostages, their main objective must be just that: save them. I don't see them having two main objectives: save and kill everyone among the rebels. First save the hostages, if necessary kill whoever gets in the way. Unnecessary kills can results in kills in their own forces, because they would be prone to open conflict instead of covert tactics.

As far as an halo jump by seals... seems a bit too Chuck Norris to me. Again, I'm not a military expert, but jumping from parachutes into the jungle? Unless you jump to a clear area far away from the site, I don't see this happening... maybe it's just me.

i agree wid zengbine