New Mortar Sight hmm?

[CPrice243]

Has anyone gotten the chance to use this yet? I hadnt seen this article until my old squad leader sent it to me, which happened to be right after me and some of my guys were brainstorming a very similar contraption last week. If anyone has gotten the chance to use this, I would love to hear your view on it. Otherwise, its just kind of cool to look at (For a Mortarman at least )

http://kitup.military.com/2013/11/deployed-marines-improved-mortar.html

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

LMAO, everything has and needs a red dot these days.

Although cool, I wonder how long it will last under field/combat conditions.

 

[CPrice243]

I sort of said the same thing haha. But when you think about it, its probably the best route for this. And thats why I am curious to talk to someone who had a chance to work with it. It it is semi-durable, I would love to get my hands on it. As far as I am aware, its just a Marine thing at the time, but I like the idea. Im getting tired of "aiming" with my thumb on handheld. Dont get my wrong, I am pretty accurate, but I am never 100% confident shooting that method.

 

[Ranger Psych]

I think it's about time. Doing handheld 60 application has always been more of a guesstimation with regards to implementation due to lack of a sight, only a bubble level to show cant. This lets a mortarman be heads up during the firing of the round, keeping better SA and letting them be able to make quick, accurate adjustments.

I'm not surprised that it looks as though it has much of the same inherent tech built into it as one of the 203 sights we tested in lieu of a quadrant sight. Granted, I'm a bravo... but I also spent much time in Afghanistan working with our platoon mortarmen as well as the Bn's mortar section that was tasked to us. The weapon system was foreign to me, I felt the need that while we had downtime I (and some of my compatriots) felt the need to learn about it. Same as learning how to use the Gustav, etc... and while I will not lay claim to remotely being a master of it, I immediately felt that there had to be a better way of doing a hand lay.

Bipod and base plate you could do a direct lay accurately, but there was no real means of accomplishing that task in handheld configuration nor does going to bipod let the mortarman or mortar team have the ability to transition targets or positions quickly. Laying in a mortar is a much different thing than doing gun drills, for anyone who's never participated. I would highly recommend doing some cross training so you can learn what your Charlies have to offer, have to deal with... and therefore understand better their capabilities and limitations.

Higher may deny use of heavier assets, but when you're face to face with the man with the weapon system you need to solve a problem and he's in the same situation you are? With ego in check, he will be able to make an honest determination as to his ability to provide a valuable and accurate solution.

This will undoubtably increase accuracy with a minimum of errant rounds.... which in and of itself, proving the accuracy of the system, will provide significant confidence boost to the commanders with these systems at their disposal. Confidence will lead towards earlier and more willing deployment of the system, therefore having a direct positive combat impact and quite probably save American lives overseas. This should take the guesswork out of something that should have never HAD guesswork in the first place.

 

[CPrice243]

Psych, I think you are my favorite person right now.

So many commanders are hesitant or even just plain scared to implement my 60. It is an excellent weapon system, and in the right hands has the capabilities to end a firefight with just a few rounds. I got lucky and am currently working under a CO who happened to be a Mortar PL before attending his Captains Course. But even with his willingness to use us, we haven't gotten to fire a single round since we have been here, because the Officers higher up the food chain have built some BS rules about mortars.

As far as the sight goes, I completely agree, its about time. Im not sure how long the current doctrine on handheld firing has been around, but it needs updated. Dont get me wrong, it works, and if the gunner is good, it can be incredibly accurate, but with something like this I would be much more confident in my fires, and likely even more accurate.

 

[Ranger Psych]

The key thing is something you touched on. If the gunner is good. That comes with practice, experience, and familiarity of his equipment. That triad of factors is something that not all mortarmen HAVE the luxury of. You can gun drill all day but until you actually lay it in, hang rounds, and see where you might be making mistakes you're not going to gain a full understanding and respect for what you are working with and it's capacity for downrange effects.

Us 11B's have day sights, night sights, nvg's, lasers, illuminators, iron sights, new buttstocks, new tripods, new entire weapons systems... yet we neglect the most indigenous and powerful weapons system we can more often than not YELL at, not call over the radio, YELL at to do fire missions...

I got to see our Bn's mortar section in action moving to cover us during some of our operations we did. I got to see them throwing rounds for registration and actual fires with the 120's, 81's and 60's. The capability is significant! There's something to be said about the lack of exposure and basically "effective marketing" of capability of the mortar team in general.

Especially in the concept of "cost of war". You want to save money in combat? Stop the fucking "sexy airstrike" shit and pass out the goddamn 60's, 81's and 120's. Trust the guys because they can accomplish the mission. I won't discount what an A-10 can do, but here we are making "small diameter bombs" when we already have the specific capability to apply the same style of effects....indigenously to infantry units. Not over a radio when command, fuel, weather, pilot rest time, and everything else including the planets aligns, but right fucking now they're on shift with rounds ready.

 

[CPrice243]

Ill definitely agree that not all units have the luxury of practice. I have been pretty fortunate thus far in my experience. And Handheld 60 is definitely a weapon system you cant get good at by drilling. Until you put rounds down range in handheld, you cant see your errors.

Thats another reason I am glad they are finally starting to update us with gear like this. The biggest thing they commented on in the post was that this sight was invaluable at night. Trying to target with a 60 at night is a fucking shit show. So this should definitely help us out quite a bit.

When we did our rotation through NTC we scheduled a time with the PLs and any 11bs that were interested to come learn about the system and its capabilities. I think that helped a lot more than I have planned. The PLs came away with a better understanding of what we were capable of as a section, and realized that we knew what we were talking about. It helped to build the trust. Its a small start but hey, when those PLs become Captains or higher, thats one more GFC who understands he has an effective weapon within his reach at all times.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

I see this sight as with many other technological advances as a double edged sword. If it makes you more accurate cuts down on training and allows for a better deployment of the resource, its hard to argue it as bad (and I am not at all). However, as the Army is known to do, if it cuts down on rounds needed to become proficient, so goes the ammunition allotments and now you have 11C's who are no longer proficient with the "guesstimation" aiming and become 100% reliable on a battery operated piece of equipment.

I won't argue with anything posted here, I fully agree with both of you. I just tend to see big Army turning something like this into a cruch vs an enhancement capability. Kind of that terrain association vs GPS argument.

Anyway, I'm not knocking, and the article makes it sound like a hell of an improvement, and most of all its cool....so win-win!

 

[Ranger Psych]

I completely disagree. Right now for day firing you've got your offhand thumb vertical on the fucking tube and eyeballing the float for range with charge graduations for range. Night? Most of the time it's a piece of lum tape with 100mph tape around it to try to show where you're pointing, and long enough to try to guestimate that you're actually properly vertical.

It's quite literally the worst sighting system methodology in the entire damn arsenal across all weapon systems, period. This is how we aim something that can, with a high probability, kill everything in a 12+ meter radius from impact PER ROUND.



In comes this. Laser designator for night POA/POI. Indicators for level. Range graduation through both the digital display and more than likely markings on the mount body for fallback if batteries fail. More than likely a built in integrated non-red-dot sight.

Even without batteries this will be a sincere combat multiplier. It's literally a mortar quadrant sight not unlike the PSQ-18 I got to try out. It's something they should have had made for the damn thing as soon as they started making quadrants for the 203.

 

[CPrice243]

The sighting method is....... how can I put this delicately..... Fucked? Ranger hit the nail on the head. Do you really want a guy behind a tube at night firing rounds using lum tape (that probably got put on by someone before him, using the "that looks about right" technique) as his only method of target acquisition? I am that guy and I dont even want it haha.

I will say I think JAB has a point though. It definitely shouldn't be like that, but, lets face it, the Army is like that. I can see the conversation going something like this:

"Sir, our mortars have been able to consistently produce the same effects with 3 rounds as they used to produce using a full 8 rounds"
"Oh, perfect! Request half as many rounds on the next resupply"
".....fuck..."

I definitely agree that people still need to be trained on the old techniques. Electronics fail. Its kinda hard to ruin lum tape and your thumb. But, that can be in training. If they have a way to make my weapon system more effective in a combat environment, why the hell arent we using it yet? You both make excellent points though.

 

[Etype]

Looks pretty good to me, I'd be pretty interested in it if I were still in the mortar slinging business.

Someone who is very good with a 60 handheld is a huge asset in a fluid engagement, especially if he is in shape (and has some buddies who are as well) to run around with rounds on his back. A lot of that comes from the art of aiming it. It's always better to make something a science and not an art.

Look at sniping- in WW2 it was an art. Fast-forward to now, its largely a science. We have many more effective snipers and at much greater ranges and broader conditions.

Now we just need to do something about that trigger.

 

[CPrice243]

I have a lot of people tell me the trigger is what fucks them up on handheld. I have personally never had a problem with it, but clearly enough people see a problem with it, there is something more too it.