AR-15/M-16 Optical Sights Used By Our Military.

UffDa

UffDa

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I was watching a show last night about an Army unit in Afghanistan. I noticed that none of the soldiers used iron sights. Every one of them had an optical sight
of some sort. Most had what looked like ACOGs and Aimpoints. I saw on guy with an Elcan and another with a sporting type scope of some sort. It made me
curious. Does anyone know if these sights are issued or do the guys buy them themselves?
 
Issued. Special forces sometime get permission to use their own. But then SF guys get all the good stuff anyway. Good Gawd!! Have you seen what some of that stuff costs?
 
unless you really, really, *really* care, nobody buys their own sights/scopes for their issued rifle. even if you do care to buy and install your own... your rifle gets stored in the arms room and rifles get moved around, laterally transferred, manhandled by the armorer --- this all sounds like a great way to lose a few hundred bucks.

on top of that, Soldiers qualify to standard. that means they qualify to shoot on a weapon system that is issued (to the standard). so even if a Soldier were to want to mount their own sight/scopes, they need to qualify on an issued system. so i don't know when they'd have the opportunity to also zero a personally-owned sight/scope.

Aimpoint CCO and ACOGs are commonly issued gear.


SF gets what they want though. I don't really know how that works. Dunno how NG or reserves maintain their standards either. But my guess is that no Soldier goes out of his way to shell down $$ for personal optics.
 
PS i just want to emphasize the importance of standards. we'd all like to think that maybe Soldiers to care and want to purchase their own high-quality optics that will serve everyone well in combat. but think, if it were acceptable for the purchase and use of personally owned optics, you'd have a hodge-podge of equipment in the mix. think of all the NcStar or barska or bsa or tasko sights/lasers that'd end up in operation. this sounds like it'd be really crappy. not knocking on quality issues with any one brand, but the point is to have consistency and standards in the training and utilization of equipment. it should all be tested and all be the same to 1) maintain the standard of reliability, 2) maintain the standard of usability, 3) be able to meet the requirements of the masses.
 
Midget said:
unless you really, really, *really* care, nobody buys their own sights/scopes for their issued rifle. But my guess is that no Soldier goes out of his way to shell down $$ for personal optics.
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Well, a few years ago I bought an Aimpoint from a guy who claimed that he bought it as a backup for the one on his rifle. Since he was no longer in the Army, he didn't need it.
Of course, he could have been lying. People do that now and then.

I have heard of parents buying better sights for their sons and I doubt that the Army is going to shell out $$$$ for an Elcan scope when an ACOG is just as good, but who knows?
 
UffDa said:
Well, a few years ago I bought an Aimpoint from a guy who claimed that he bought it as a backup for the one on his rifle. Since he was no longer in the Army, he didn't need it.
Of course, he could have been lying. People do that now and then.

I have heard of parents buying better sights for their sons and I doubt that the Army is going to shell out $$$$ for an Elcan scope when an ACOG is just as good, but who knows?
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sure, i mean. everyone has their reasons. i'm Army and i personally own a trijicon TA-31. but it's not because i'm all about decking out my service rifle. it's because i happen to like rifles and sport shooting and gadgets (i'm on a forum called "gadgets and gear") and wanted to stick to a scope with which i'm reasonably familiar. and maybe training on my personally owned ACOG + rifle makes me a better Soldier, i dunno. sure. but my ACOG cost me $900+ and i'm def. not putting it on an issued rifle.

and think who the real shooters are IRL. privates, specialists, sergeants, etc. it's not like their making bank to drop cash on their own gear. realistically, they have a car payment, or rent, or a wife + kids somewhere.

sure, Soldiers may have parents who buy optics for their kiddies. lucky them. i wonder how many of them sell those optics on ebay to make their car payment, rent, and/or wife + kids.
 
"Non-Standard" gear is generally at the discretion of your CO. Some soldiers in the "sand overseas" did use personally owned gear, including optics, but that was definitely not standard.

A more likely scenario is a personally owned flat screen TV or DVD player packed with personal gear to watch movies during the down time in an air conditioned tent with standard issue gear taking the abuse "in the field".

FWIW, you are more likely to see a non-issue knife in the field especially since it doesn't go back into the armory or quartermaster in most cases each night/day.
 
Midget said:
sure, i mean. everyone has their reasons. i'm Army and i personally own a trijicon TA-31. but it's not because i'm all about decking out my service rifle. it's because i happen to like rifles and sport shooting and gadgets (i'm on a forum called "gadgets and gear") and wanted to stick to a scope with which i'm reasonably familiar. and maybe training on my personally owned ACOG + rifle makes me a better Soldier, i dunno. sure. but my ACOG cost me $900+ and i'm def. not putting it on an issued rifle.

and think who the real shooters are IRL. privates, specialists, sergeants, etc. it's not like their making bank to drop cash on their own gear. realistically, they have a car payment, or rent, or a wife + kids somewhere.

sure, Soldiers may have parents who buy optics for their kiddies. lucky them. i wonder how many of them sell those optics on ebay to make their car payment, rent, and/or wife + kids.
Click to expand...

Well stated. Elite units get great issue gear. As stated, the majority of the "shooters" don't have deep pockets and tons of disposable income for expensive toys that get consumed in harsh environments.
 
On iron sights, fwiw, I went through Marine Corps boot camp Feb through May last year. We didn't learn iron sights at all. From what I heard at the time, it had been awhile since they had taught it. Same went for MCT (combat training), all M150 RCO (ACOG) when it came to M16A4 shooting. You don't always use it (Table 2 shooting qual in particular), but you're never shooting without it attached. Could be different for the 03s going through their MOS school.
 
Midget said:
Dunno how NG or reserves maintain their standards either.
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Well, my wife is in an Army Reserve medical unit, and other than annual qualifications, they're on their own for skill upkeep. It's a bit of a sore spot that they often spend their drill weekends doing rifle maintenance, and the guns they're handed at qualification are often in such poor repair that some people don't qualify because of malfunctions and "not enough time" to try again with a weapon that works. In her case two weeks ago, the mag would drop after every shot. She still qualified, fortunately.

Maybe it depends on MOS in the reserves, but the wife qualifies with irons if I remember right. I have a cheap Sightmark reflex red dot on my M&P 15 set up for co-witness, so she just turns that off to practice.
 
My daughter qualified this summer with irons, both on the m16 and m60. Yeah they qualified on a m60 go figure. She was also issued body armor sized XL since she's 5'1" 110lbs that made perfect sense to me. Quite a bit of her field gear has been privately purchased simply to get something that will fit.

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