Combat optics, iron sights and you

[120mm]

I recently had the opportunity to train on an Engagement Skills Trainer for an afternoon. We had a Brigade fail to show-up and the operator and I spent a lovely afternoon engaging photonic targets and learning more about combat shooting.

For those of you who do not know what it is, the Engagement Skills Trainer 2000 (or EST 2000, for short), is a big old video game that incorporates an entire squad, shooting semi-realistic small arms gunnery including recoil and incoming artillery.

I had three big takeaways from the training: 1. 3 hours is a looooong time to be in a firefight. The right side of my body was on fire for the rest of the night, and two days later it still aches. 2. Even with the limitations of technology, an experienced shooter can learn a lot about his/her bad habits from the computerized trainer. 3. Shooting with electronic optics will ruin your iron sight skills. Much to my own embarrassment, I kept losing my rear sight. Be advised that I have coached 3 position rifle at the collegiate level, build and own several AR target rifles, and was almost literally born with a rifle in my hand. And I repeatedly lost my rear sight while doing snap shooting. I almost feel like less of a man....

I blame technology. Modern optics are parallax free and allow for some superfast acquisition under all sorts of bad conditions. They also will help you unlearn basic skills in a hurry. I've been shooting almost exclusively with modern optics since 2002. As much as I love my EOTechs and Aimpoints, they go back on the shelf until I can engage targets consistently, and at speed with my irons.