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Optics find home in Marine rifle quals

Now some — but not all — Marines can use optics and lasers for their annual rifle qualifications. A May 15 order permits battalion and squadron commanders to allow or require their Marines to use attached aiming devices for training and qualifying with the M4 carbine or M16A2 and M16A4 rifles.

Using aiming aids, however, means your score will count only for qualification purposes. It won’t count for shooting badges or promotion points.

The details, which are limited, are in Marine administrative message 295/08.

It’s unclear, for example, whether individual Marines will have any choice in which sight — conventional iron or combat optics — they use. The new order does not say.

Officials at Marine Corps headquarters and at the Marksmanship Center of Excellence at Weapons Training Battalion in Quantico, Va., declined to respond to questions about the new guidelines or the rush to enact them.

Unlike most such messages, the new rules are temporary and come with no amplifying guidance.

What is clear is that optic-assisted scores will be tallied in Marines’ data books only. They will not be entered into the Marine Corps Total Force System, where the scores could count toward promotion.

Instead, these shooters will get an exemption code that will hold their most-recent score in place for one more year.

The order says this is “to maintain a fair evaluation for all Marines.”

Officials suspect rifle combat optics, or RCOs, will give shooters as much as a five-point edge over those who use iron sights, based on limited initial evaluations.

That’s enough to mean the difference between passing and failing, or qualifying as expert or sharpshooter, which in turn can mean the difference between getting promoted or not.

But by waiving the scores and carrying old records forward, the same is also true.

Officials are planning further studies to compare and evaluate rifle scores, with and without the optics.

The ambiguity in the new rule, combined with the lack of clear amplifying guidance, will have many shooters scratching their itchy trigger fingers and wondering what to do next. Without more in-depth studies and analysis to determine whether a serious scoring gap will occur once the Corps adopts a full RCO training package, it’s unclear whether a Marine is better off taking an exemption or shooting with iron sights for score.

Exemptions wouldn’t necessarily put Marines at a disadvantage. Someone who squeaked out an expert badge last year, for example, might benefit from shooting with the RCO this year and waiving the score. But a junior Marine with a marksman badge likely would benefit from shooting with iron sights in an effort to bring up his score and gain points toward promotion.

Rifle scores are only part of the promotion equation, of course, along with the physical fitness test, Marine Corps Institute courses and other factors. Promotions are competitive and every point counts.

But the ultimate goal of the rifle range is to prepare Marines to kill the enemy, and whether that is more likely to come from optics training or iron sights shooting remains to be seen.

Full training plan, coming soon

The driving force behind the change is a lack of training time. Ever since the new Combat Marksmanship Program was implemented in 2005, “deploying units have identified a lack of sufficient training time to meet annual rifle qualification requirements and predeployment training preparation requirements,” the administrative message says.

“The primary point of issue has been the requirement for shooting Table 1 with iron sights only. Many deploying units would prefer to allow Marines to shoot Tables 1 and 2 with the RCO they will take into combat,” it says.

Existing rules allow commanders to exempt staff noncommissioned officers from gunnery sergeant on up and field-grade officers and other Marines with 13 years of service or more who aren’t issued the rifle or carbine.

Marines in their final six months of enlistment before separation also may be exempted, as may those with Distinguished Marksman badges. Marines who qualify as expert shooters for two consecutive years earn a one-year exemption, but must re-qualify the following year.

“An updated RCO training package is currently being developed in order to provide additional instruction on employing the RCO during [annual rifle training],” the message states. “The updated RCO training package will supplement current instructional information and will soon be available and distributed to the operating forces.”

It’s unclear why the Corps issued the temporary rules permitting exemptions for the optics now, instead of waiting until every Marine unit fielded the RCO, or setting an upcoming start date for allowing annual rifle qualification with the optics.

For now, range officers and units will have to figure out how to prepare, train and qualify Marines using the optics. That has left some wondering whether any units will allow their Marines to use the optics on the range until additional guidance is released, and just how they will train and prepare those who do.

“It’s the tail wagging the dog,” one officer said. “These guys on the ground are saying, ‘Why are we going to the range using iron sights when we’re going into combat with all of our equipment?’”

But without a solid plan on how to get the most out of the annual qualification process, he said, it’s premature to give those Marines exemptions. They should instead incorporate the optic into the annual training and qualification, he said.

A battlefield favorite

The Corps is in the process of fielding 104,000 RCOs, designated the TA31 Rifle Combat Optic, as part of a $660 million contract with Trijicon Inc., of Wixom, Mich.

Despite its enormous following and anecdotes of success from combat veterans, the combat optic doesn’t automatically make an expert out of every shooter.

“There really isn’t any differences in the scores,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Herman, the senior range officer at Pu’uloa Range Facility near Ewa Beach, Hawaii. “It’s totally negligible right now.”

But once a detailed training package is adopted, he said, “there’s going to be significant improvement.”

Such high-tech optics give the shooter an edge in combat, as well as on the range.

“There is an advantage having an RCO. You know you will hit the bad guy,” Herman said. “You have less room for error having the RCO versus the iron sight.”

Unlike the iron sights, the optics provide a telescopic view that demands an initial adjustment to the delicate moving images, and requires different handling and new skills to learn how to adjust for wind, atmospheric conditions, bullet drop and distances to the targets.

“When you point a pistol or a rifle and you get to aim it at the middle of the target, well, that makes sense,” said Herman, a Distinguished Shooter and officer-in-charge of the Marine Corps Bases-Hawaii shooting team. With the RCO, “you don’t necessarily aim it in the middle. ...

“You have to aim it into the wind,” he said. “That’s a skill that we don’t work on enough.”

Tweaking it on the range

High operational tempo for many combat units on deployment rotations continues to constrict the amount of time available for extra training, including time spent on the range practicing the fundamentals of marksmanship.

One group of Marines recently laid hands on the RCO during a two-week coaches’ course at the Pu’uloa Range, which supports 3rd Marine Regiment and other units in Hawaii. Although most of the Marines, largely noncommissioned officers, had used the RCO during their combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, at least in the beginning.

Instructors had to remind them of simple steps, including how to mount and aim the sight.

“Anyone that is missing the target right now is probably going to be doing it wrong,” said Nick Yadloczky, an instructor and former sergeant. “We’re talking fractions of an angle.”

Students who used the RCOs on the first day had to remove and reinstall the optic, Yadloczky said, to learn how to adjust the rifle and optic for varying shooting positions.

“It’s a really good practical application,” he said, as more than a dozen NCOs and staff NCOs fired, some none too happy to hear admonitions and corrections from the instructors on that first day.

The students took the course so they, in turn, could teach their own Marines. One staff NCO said he got a renewed appreciation of the fundamentals.

“When I go back to teach, I need to teach the Marines how big the target is,” said Staff Sgt. Adam Guerrero, 32, noting the training taught him to hit the black portion of the target. “It’s a whole new concept of shooting.”

Of the RCO, he said, “I love it. It’s more comfortable than using the iron sights.”