• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    94 months ago

    Is anyone replying in this thread a US military armorer? I’d love to know who gave him the weapon with the sight installed backwards. I was never allowed to touch an installed optic other than to sight it in. I was never in the US Navy, but in all my training I never got a class on anything but an iron sight for the M16, M4, and M9. How would someone who isn’t a master at arms and probably qualifies on a weapon once, maybe twice a year going to know that someone else installed the sight on his weapon backwards? You don’t even know that it was his issued weapon and not someone else’s who also shot with it backwards.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      10
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      All valid concerns, but the fact is if you accept the weapon and anything happens, you are at fault.

      We’ve had people get issued, and immediately, check and clear their weapon in the presence of an armorer in the bucket, and get in trouble for it misfiring, despite the fact that it should have been checked and cleared prior to change of hands and in addition to the fact that you hadn’t been issued ammo yet. It’s dumb, but people die over this, so they are very strict, even when it sometimes seems unnecessary.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        54 months ago

        Nothing happened, and nothing could have happened other than him missing a practice target by a mile. It doesn’t even show him aiming at something in particular, just looking down the barrel. Ammo can kill you, not having a working optic is not a safety issue no matter what direction it’s installed. Did he check the chamber to see if there was a round? Did he flag any other sailors? Did he keep his weapon pointed down range? Every single person around him let him shoot the weapon like that, they obviously didn’t feel too unsafe to be around him. None of them even seemed to noticed it was on backwards either. How can you tell it’s backwards from this picture of him?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          14 months ago

          He wasn’t dishonorably discharged or court Marshalled (idk how to spell that). He was just replaced. I want to think the reasons you listed played into that decision and why he didn’t recieve further disciplinary consequences.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            14 months ago

            They as good as ended his career with that. You don’t think every sailor hasn’t already heard or will hear at his next command that he is so ignorant he can’t even fire a rifle right? If he’s that incompetent they shouldn’t have let it get so far that he got a command in the first place. He’s either so incompetent that he can’t do basic sailors tasks OR they made up a reason to fire a sailor who made a non critical mistake. Do we publicize IN PRINT when an army infantry NCO has a negligent discharge at clearing barrel? Maybe locally, but it doesn’t mean he is completely unfit to lead men to war.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      24 months ago

      How would someone who isn’t a master at arms and probably qualifies on a weapon once, maybe twice a year going to know that someone else installed the sight on his weapon backwards?

      Well, in the photo he’s looking through it. You ever look through a telescope or some binoculars backwards? Scope supposed to make things bigger, not smaller, good clue. And tbf he should know that.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        24 months ago

        This is a staged photo and that mag looks full so he probably just pulled it up quickly on command and started firing. Which would also explain his bad stock placement. He rushed for this photo op because everyone likes to look like a bad ass especially when there are cameras around.

    • @Hawk
      link
      24 months ago

      Yep, but everyone is an expert right.

    • teft
      link
      fedilink
      14 months ago

      You never touched your optics? What service were you in? I constantly adjusted my ACOG and red dot while i was in the army in iraq.

      He would know the instant he looked in the scope and everything was tiny.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        14 months ago

        US Army Aviation and two deployments with the AF. I was never even issued an optic as we only had a handful per company. Can’t touch what Uncle Sugar doesn’t allocate. The only time I touched a weapon that wasn’t a helicopter was during annual qualifications.

        • teft
          link
          fedilink
          14 months ago

          Ah, that makes sense then. Combat arms you pretty much have to know as much about your optics as you do your rifle. Can’t wait for an armorer when you’re out in the willywacks and your shit is broken.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            14 months ago

            Yep, and I agree an 11b or equivalent who doesn’t know his ass from the front of the sight isn’t fit for duty, but this guy is a naval officer and was probably just stoked to look cooler than normal, and someone could have just as easily been playing a joke on him to see if he would notice. We play pranks on people all the time asking for PRC-E7, or grid squares, or blinker fluid.

            I doubt it’s true it’s the reason he was relieved of command, but to even think it was a last straw is crazy because if he was really that bad of a leader they wouldn’t need to use something as trivial like just a funny picture to some among the gun owner’s who know what they are even looking at.

    • AlexanderESmith
      link
      fedilink
      14 months ago

      I mean, at the very least, trying to use the scope would have immediately made it extremely obvious that it was backward. And he was looking straight down the scope.

      He was either a moron who’d never shot ever in his life, or knew it was wrong and didn’t care because he was just posing for a photo (but should have known people would know it was backwards and comment on it en masse, hurting the image of the Navy if only by “this looks stupid” by a chorus of a million armchair sharpshooters).