Aimpoint Red Dot Sights In The US Army

When the US Army decided to make the giant leap to equipping its soldiers with a unitary power optical sight it turned to the Swedish company Aimpoint with its three decade dominance of the red dot sight market. Aimpoint were content to target the sports shooting and law enforcement markets for a quarter of a century. Its first dedicated military unit, the Aimpoint CompM2, took 25 years to surface but soon became ubiquitous in the world’s militaries. This sight was selected by the USAF and US Army when they finally decided to follow the rest of the western world into issuing an optical sight. The CompM2 was adopted as the M68 CCO or Close Combat Optical sight. That was in 2000 and the CompM2, having given great service is starting to look a little ancient. Tube construction allowd the sight to fit any 30mm split ring mount, but this can lead to canting problems should the sight be rotated. The 2L76 or DL1/3N batteries used can be scarce and expensive and the technology used means the sight can only remain switched on on one of its day settings for 10,000 hours. Subsequent sights, the CompM3 and CompM4 achieved 50,000 and 80,000 hours respectively. The CompM2 is still in production as of February 2011 and the US Army alone has purchased over half a million of them. Its 6000 series aluminium tube construction makes the CompM2 incredibly strong and it can take severe shock and vibration for long periods. It can be used underwater to 80ft (50 meters) and has a temperature range of (50°- +160° F) -45° – +71° C. As a result, M2s will be with us for decades.

By 2008 the US Army inventory of CompM2s was up for replacement. There wasn’t much wrong with the CompM2, but technology had moved on and rather than adapting a civilian sight as with the CompM2, the immense market that had opened up with the Global War on Terror meant that Aimpoint could start with a clean sheet of paper or CAD screen. The canting problem was addressed with an integral mount that screws on to the sight itself allowing the use of a spacer for co-witnessing. The sight is supplied with a robust thumb-screw tightened Picatinny rail mount. The variety of mounts available for the entire Comp series is amazing, manufacturers offering mounts in different heights, lengths, bolt on, quick detach and flip to side configurations. The brightness controller was a weak point on the CompM2 and has been considerably beefed up on the CompM4. The N series battery was replaced with the much more readily available and cheap AA of which the sight can use any commercially available model. Battery life was increased to a stupendous 80,000 hours on a day setting. Although many original CompM4 were purchased by private soldiers and units, the US Army still wanted one change prior to type classification. They wanted the battery and adjuster housing repositioned lower so as to be less vulnerable and to avoid fouling gear – the higher original setting was to enable easy use with arctic mittens. The result was the Aimpoint CompM4s which again was purchased in massivegigantic] amounts by the US Army from 2009 on.

By the time the CompM4s entered service the US Army had become fixated on getting the soldier’s combat load down, or rather allowing him to carry more ammunition. The CompM4s has an all up weight of 11.8 ounces with its standard mount. The US Army decided to trial the much smaller Aimpoint Micro T-1 – a unit that was never intended for battle use. The Micro T-1 uses a larger 4 MoA dot than the CompM4 which uses a more precise 2 MoA dot. A CR2032 battery is used, giving 50,000 hours continuous day operation. It has fewer day and night settings than the CompM4s but the US Army deemed these adequate to get the weight saving. The Micro T-1 only weighs an incredible 3.7 ounces with its thumbscrew operated Picatinny mount and 3 ounces without it. The sight is normally seen with the 3XMag magnifier as this enables use at normal infantry battle ranges within the capability of the M4 carbine. Many of these sights are now in service and it may well become the new standard. However, the US Army recently adopted the Insight Technology miniature red dot sight as its back up optic on top of M150s and Leupold and Schmidt und Bender sniper rifle scopes. Time will tell which, if either will become universal issue. T-1s will doubtless continue to be purchased privately in large numbers.

What’s the black market rate for a thumb?

I might be thinking of selling one of mine off and I wanna make sure sweet sweet won’t screw me over. He wants it, I just know it.

for a second i thought this was about me. this “sweet sweet” sounds like an @sshole. boy howdy. oly out