12-04-2011, 05:44 AM
Even if I waved a magic wand and took the Israeli (stolen tech from US, France, Germany, South Africa) and miniaturized it into something no larger or heavier than an Eotech, the basic premise by which it operates is flawed for in at least one major way: bullet trajectories are not linear like a laser, so the higher area of their flight path is where you need to compensate for wind for long-range shooting, not what is just seen along your line-of-sight. Would it help achieve a higher hit probability within 500m, maybe, but if ends up in actuality being a Clingon-sized Star Trek scanner like the PVS-10 abortion, it will get left at the FOB or bottom of the rucksack at best.
The guys I know that are truly gifted at making 1st-round hits at extreme distances spend the majority of their free time at the range, and usually make those shots when the wind is tame in the early morning. The bullet spends almost all of its time outside (above) the line-of-sight in those solutions, and I have a hard time seeing how a LIDAR will compensate for multiple value winds. Sounds like a great spiel to get some big Pentagon dollars though...the big contractors will jump on it and get some Colonel getting ready to retire to declare it the cat's meow, even though he couldn't zero a regular service rifle, let alone explain with any degree of expertise what long-range precision marksmanship is about. Forgive me for being cynical, but I've seen this rodeo before, and it always ends up with the rider being tossed off after he gets into the real corral of Joe taking it overseas. The AN/PVS-10 Day/Night Sniper Optic for the M24 is a perfect example of that, since I saw it paraded at AUSA in 1994, and saw our Snipers with it in 2003 for OIF1...couldn't hold zero to save its life.
The same things is happening with the new Grenadier LRF ballistoc trajecory gadgets right now. If they would have spent the money on sending Joe to the grenadier range until he can put a 40mm HE round through a window at 150m reliably, and make kill zone hits out to 400m consistently, we'd have a better real-world solution. They could learn from the way a certain unit at Bragg runs their grenadier ranges.
In the meantime, a lightweight Multi-role LMG with constant recoil would be a plug-and-play solution with the current defunct leadership command climate, and entry-level soldier skills. Load, point, spray, controllable beaten zone, badguys die...simple.
The guys I know that are truly gifted at making 1st-round hits at extreme distances spend the majority of their free time at the range, and usually make those shots when the wind is tame in the early morning. The bullet spends almost all of its time outside (above) the line-of-sight in those solutions, and I have a hard time seeing how a LIDAR will compensate for multiple value winds. Sounds like a great spiel to get some big Pentagon dollars though...the big contractors will jump on it and get some Colonel getting ready to retire to declare it the cat's meow, even though he couldn't zero a regular service rifle, let alone explain with any degree of expertise what long-range precision marksmanship is about. Forgive me for being cynical, but I've seen this rodeo before, and it always ends up with the rider being tossed off after he gets into the real corral of Joe taking it overseas. The AN/PVS-10 Day/Night Sniper Optic for the M24 is a perfect example of that, since I saw it paraded at AUSA in 1994, and saw our Snipers with it in 2003 for OIF1...couldn't hold zero to save its life.
The same things is happening with the new Grenadier LRF ballistoc trajecory gadgets right now. If they would have spent the money on sending Joe to the grenadier range until he can put a 40mm HE round through a window at 150m reliably, and make kill zone hits out to 400m consistently, we'd have a better real-world solution. They could learn from the way a certain unit at Bragg runs their grenadier ranges.
In the meantime, a lightweight Multi-role LMG with constant recoil would be a plug-and-play solution with the current defunct leadership command climate, and entry-level soldier skills. Load, point, spray, controllable beaten zone, badguys die...simple.