Running tomorrow’s rifle with yesterday’s optics
Military small arms acquisition programs are always funny. More so if there is a “package” of accessories and goodies that go with it.
The most persistent problem lately seems to have been jumping the gun on over-ambitious optics systems on combat rifles and carbines.
We’ve already talked about the “M7 Surrogate Fire Control Program” on the Army’s 250,000 Next Generation Squad Weapons in rifle (M7), carbine (XM8), and LMG (M250) variants, which have eschewed the apparently not-ready-for-primetime Vortex M1157 Fire Control System for commercial off-the-shelf optics and lasers from EoTech and B.E. Meyers.
Similarly, in Germany, the new HK G95 program— the Bundeswehr’s dirty mustard-toned (“ekelhaftgelb“) HK416A8 rifle– is supposed to use the Leonardo-supplied Elcan Specter DR 1-4x as the companion day optic of record.
This bad boy, seen in two different colorways and with and without caps:
However, very specific changes and tweaks to the version of the Specter wanted by the Bundeswehr mean that just about every one I have seen has been wearing a very chunky Hensoldt RSA-S reflex sight atop a ZO 4x30i fixed-power optic with an IR pointer module.
Thus:
And as seen with these troops of Panzerpionierbataillon 701 in a video posted last week:
If it seems kind of a throwback, that optics combo was adopted a decade ago for the circa 2016 IdZ-ES (Infanterist der Zukunft – Erweitertes System) future soldier program for use with the G36, the rifle the G95 is replacing.
Cue the rimshot. Everyone laughs.
Meanwhile, the EOTech OGL-C is now civilian-legal and non-restricted.