ACOG question

[desperado8556]

Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

My unit is being set to deploy to Afghanistan in the very near future. I've saved up some money to put a couple of things on my rifle over there and an ACOG is one of them. Some of yall are probably thinking i'll get issued one, nope, i'm in an FA unit and we don't get allocated alot of the toys our infantry and armor sister units do, so i got to do this out of pocket.

Anyway, i'm looking at the TA11 3.5x 35 as another option to the TA31. I'm looking at this mainly because of the greater eye relief and more field of view. I know i'll be sacrificing some magnification but i'm keeping an open mind.

What're yalls thoughts and recommendations. Please give a reason as well and if you guys happen to be any of the dealers around the Houston area, i'll be on leave and in the area next week, please send me an email with a good price, thanks.

Much appreciated.

 

[double_r76]

Let me know if I'm way off base, but as FA, you probably aren't going to be patrolling over the mountainsides looking for a fight and engaging targets at +300m ranges. I would say that unless you want an ACOG outside of this deployment, save your money. Will your issued rifle have an Aimpoint? If you end up firing your rifle in anger, I would imagine that it will be done at closer ranges where the speed/simplicity/foregiveness of a red dot sight will be more beneficial.

I spent six months in Baghdad, going outside the wire 5-6 days per week... and never fired a shot in anger. The people on my teams that did see action were in ambushes and other close range engagements. On the other hand, we did work with no-kidding gunfighters that went out looking for trouble and many of them had ACOGs. I wasn't one of those guys and understood my role and potential for engagement. My best rifle addition was a BFG padded VCAS sling. But it looked sexy and dangerous with the RAS, TD VFG, EOTech on LT mount, Surefire Scoutlight on LT mount, DBAL IR laser, etc.

If you do pick up an ACOG, get the TA-11 or TA-33 for the greater eye relief and more foregiveness of head position and cheek weld... as you already covered. The TA-01 and TA-31 are more critical of head position, which can really be a pain in the neck once you pile on body armor and a helmet, not to mention shooting from unconventional positions under stress.

Good luck & stay safe!
-Randy

 

[desperado8556]

In my last deployment to Iraq, we were battlespace owners. In Afghanistan, hearing from other FA Soldiers, they're shooting the howitzers or being battlespace owners or doing both. Good ole FA pullin double duty.

As for Iraq, I understand the battles there, I had an Aimpoint and it worked great, didn't carry the other M4 accessories for reasons stated in my first post but did have my trusty Surefire Scout that the previous unit we ripped with had left. I had roughly the same optempo as you did, i was in Babil Province south of Baghdad and did not have to shoot much in anger except a couple of times in escalation of force at TCPs. Afghanistan is a different beast as my buddies that have been deployed have told me. I'm trying to read at how battles have been fought there and 200+ range seems to be the majority standoff in firefights. Yes, the unit is issuing us CompM4s and i've been looking at the magnifiers as well but they don't feel as fluid for some reason. I've hunted with scopes for a majority of my life.

So far the TA11 seems to be the better option for what i'm looking for. Hoping to get some posts from others who've had some experience with the TA11.

Thanks for the feedback Randy.

 

[Texas42]

Just a curious question from a civilian. What is FA?

Field Artillery?

Good luck. I don't know anything about ACOG's other than that I want one. : )