Remember my post about Marines and Delta Force and Rangers and SEALS not having enough rifles to go around? Consider this a boon companion piece to that depressing story:
Despite a legal settlement with the manufacturer, U.S. Special Operations forces continue to use rifle sights that are defective and could be a risk to their lives in a combat situation, the Washington Post reports.
Still, the sights have not been recalled or replaced and are still in use by Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Corps Special Operation units and parts of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, Navy Commander Matthew Allen told the Post.
The company says it has repaired most of the issues raised by the government, but not the most concerning – something called thermal drift, which occurs when the sights are exposed to extreme changes in temperature, such as occur in Afghanistan.
Thermal drift can cause the crosshairs to be six to twelve inches off target at three hundred feet – a common distance in combat. That can mean the difference between a kill and a miss, and a miss could result in the death of shooter if the enemy is then able to fire back. [emphases added]
So not only do our special forces warriors not have enough rifles to go around, the ones they do have don't even work properly, and their superiors won't even replace the damn scopes until this debacle can be fixed with less hi-tech ones with a few fewer bells and whistles but that can actually put the cross-hairs on the actual target.
Here are your punchlines on which to try to sleep tonight:
Though the military is still using the sights, the Denver Police Department took them off its weapons soon after the lawsuit was settled.
....aaaaaaaand....
The problem was first noticed by the Norwegian military in winter 2007, according to court documents. EOTech attempted to repair the problem, but didn't notified the U.S. military until spring 2008 when it said it had a solution. [emphases added]
This minor, trifling issue of special forces troops not being able to hit the broadside of a butte has been going on for eight bleeping years. Which I suppose is an even greater testament to their kick-ass, almost Klingon awesomeness, of what they've been able to accomplish despite their primary fighting equipment having had lazy-eye inflicted upon it. Imagine what they could do if their damn scopes worked.
Pleasant dreams.
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