Introduction
Red
dots sights on pistols is by no means an innovation in the shooting industry,
they have been around for over 20 years and had been used primarily in the
competition world to enhance sight acquisition when shooting stages. I first
used a service pistol fitted with an Aimpoint 16 years ago and saw a U.S
service pistol fitted with a Doctor Optic in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2001.
There are many benefits to running a pistol with an MRDS fitted to it such as;
fast sight acquisition, night vision shooting, long range shooting and stoppage
clearances. However, there are many drawbacks also that savvy end users will be
aware of and those that aren't need to be. Obvious arguments include battery
life, electronic failures, cracked or broken glass, fogging of the lens with
extreme temperature variations as well as zero-shift particularly when
replacing batteries. Other less obvious issues that military end users need to
deal with are robustness, will the sight still work with thousands of rounds
put through the gun and is the unit waterproof and can it be submersed to the
Mil standard depth of 66ft. There are many pro MRDS users within the commercial
space that advocate them as duty or service ready primary sighting systems, but
are they really duty or service ready? Is this the future?
The
Rhetoric
Someone
recently made the comment that “the same arguments we make today about pistols
fitted with RDS are the same arguments that had been used against rifles
mounted with RDS around 20 years ago”. This to some degree is true, however
a pistol is not a rifle and a rifle is not a pistol and that’s where the
similarity ends. The same problems that can plague a rifle mounted red dot
sight are the same ones that can plague pistol mounted MRDS also. But is the reverse true?
Areas
Of Operations
I
served my county in special operations for longer than a decade and deployed on
missions that have included Jungle Operations, Water Operations and Desert
Operations. While operating in the jungles of East Timor, I personally had to
remove my Aimpoint from my rifle due to the heavy rain and intense fogging
which was not isolated to the rifle optics but NVG’s as well, regardless of the
use of anti-fog applications. Anti Fog is not a fix all by any means and will
solve a fogging issue short term but there will always be times where
environments and time will trump some of the best preparation. During those
times, I was forced to revert back to iron sights by day and use lasers at
night for targeting.
I have witnessed dust storms in the deserts of Iraq that have lasted for three days and even times when it rained mud! These are the extremes of war that require the ability to have options with your optics and in field maintenance sessions to manage the serviceability of weapons and equipment.
I have had to use a substandard sighting system during counter terrorist diving and water operations missions that could effect performance because better optics were not waterproof to the required standards.
Because of this diverse area of operations and the nature of special operations, sighting systems for military application need to be scalable and redundant in order to allow operators to perform their missions with success. On the other hand when it comes to domestic counter terrorism and land based assaults, operators can take advantage of a variety of weapons and equipment that excel in that environment that would otherwise cease to function in harsher environments such as subsurface approaches, over the beach infiltrations or even during mountain and arctic warfare missions.
I have witnessed dust storms in the deserts of Iraq that have lasted for three days and even times when it rained mud! These are the extremes of war that require the ability to have options with your optics and in field maintenance sessions to manage the serviceability of weapons and equipment.
I have had to use a substandard sighting system during counter terrorist diving and water operations missions that could effect performance because better optics were not waterproof to the required standards.
Because of this diverse area of operations and the nature of special operations, sighting systems for military application need to be scalable and redundant in order to allow operators to perform their missions with success. On the other hand when it comes to domestic counter terrorism and land based assaults, operators can take advantage of a variety of weapons and equipment that excel in that environment that would otherwise cease to function in harsher environments such as subsurface approaches, over the beach infiltrations or even during mountain and arctic warfare missions.
Optical
Clarity
Some
RDS have a tinted, anti-glare lens coating that reduces the amount of light
that passes through the lens and creates complications when firing directly into
the sun particularly at low light and when firing into shadows while looking towards
the sun. This problem is not a dot intensity issue, and one that can be solved
by turning down the brightness controls; it is a lens clarity problem. Historically RDS had not been submersable due to their open system design but more modern variations are submersible and waterproof but some not to military standards of 66ft.
Milled
Slides & Losing the Dot
The
loss of continuity of the red dot during recoil management is a well-documented
one and even very experienced end users including myself have experienced the
dot leaving the field of view due to the recoil angle of the pistol. This is
not theory it is fact. The dot is not viewable during recoil due to the RDS
being mounted to the rear of the slide and is disappears with only the
slightest change in angle of the wrists. This means that the dot must be
reacquired every time the weapon is fired. If there is any inconsistency in
grip or positioning of the weapon, such as weapons manipulations, the dot will
be even more difficult to reacquire. When using iron sights, the front sight
does not leave the field of view at all during recoil and due to the position
of the front sight on the front of the slide, it does not drop below the LOS at
all, unlike the RDS which is mounted to the rear of gun and moves low and under
the LOS. The front sight is always in view and is easier to reacquire. This is
a well known problem with pistol mounted RDS and is negated in the competition
world by using hand loaded ammunition with a low power factor. This is more of
an issue when using +P and military ammunition or calibers that generate more
recoil than others such as .40cal handguns. These complications are unique and
isolated to pistol mounted RDS because the optic is mounted to the reciprocating
surface. These issues are not the same problems that rifle mounted RDS suffer
from and can’t be solved by saying rhetoric like ‘these are the same arguments
that have been made against red dot sights on rifles 20 years ago’ because
rifles optics are not mounted to moving parts.
New
Mounting Options
There
are competition mounts on the market that been around for a long time and the
newest version of those is the Geisslle ALG ‘6-second’ mount which attached to
the frame of the handgun like similar versions. Due to the need to reduce the
profile of the mount and reduce the mechanical offset, the mount prevents the
use of the irons sights that reduces the redundant ability to have an alternate
sighting system should the optic fail. The fact that the mount can’t be removed
quickly places it into the niche category as well. The ALG mount was developed for specific end users with
specific requirements and interestingly enough was the same requirements that I
had while serving on the counter terrorist team back in Australia. 17-years ago
we solved that same problem by using a pistol with an Aimpoint mounted on it in much the same way as the ALG does today. Mounts like the ALG does address some of the issues mentioned above regarding muzzle flip
and lose of dot during recoil by mounting the optic mid gun which maintains the same angle of
incidence but reduces the distance traveled as it is mounted closer to the pivot
point. In addition to these points, there is also a mechanical offset issue
that must be overcome with raising the Point Of Aim (POA) over the LIne Of Bore (LOB), this can be zeroed out
but can still presents a problem that good iron sights don’t have.
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| Photo courtesy of HK Forum |
Conclusion
While
serving in my Unit, I had the unique role of moving between domestic counter
terrorism duties and off shore hostage rescue and war fighting. Special Operations units such
as ours require access to a wide variety of weapons and equipment in order to
solve unique problems. Whether it is a reduction in time, increase in accuracy,
reduction in weight, increase in performance, reduction in size, increase in
functionality, we are always testing and evaluating, looking for positives and negatives
before we accept something into service. We also understood very quickly that there
were limitations with weapons and equipment that were developed for the
domestic CT role that did not perform to the required standard during war roles
and consequently, additional weapons and equipment were needed in order to meet those needs. There are definite advantages to having RDS on service pistols but
for the most part are relegated to niche roles and applications. Unfortunately due
to liability gaps in learning and training as well as some fundamental flaws to overcome, we will continue to see them being
incorporated into specialist roles and advanced shooting but their inherent
shortfalls will prevent them from being utilized as a primary sighting system
for all personnel at all levels in the short term.
The
future is indeed here and yet has been here for nearly 20 years! The same
problems exist today as they did 20 years ago.
