Army infantry officials at Fort Benning, Georgia, are testing a handful of advanced fire control optics in an effort to one day help non-combat arms soldiers shoot more accurately against close-quarter and long-range enemy targets.
The effort is part of the Army Expeditionary Warfighting Experiments (AEWE) 2020 and will involve soldiers live-firing M4A1 carbines with fire control systems from three companies to see whether they can improve a shooter's probability of hitting targets faster than current Army-issue optics.
My view, as I explored in an article on the USNI Blog, is that combat troops should have smart rifles in order to use training time devoted to marksmanship to tactical training:
The U.S. Marine Corps proudly says every Marine is a rifleman. But what happens if even enemy insurgents and militia fighters are just as accurate? New technologies are hastening that day of reckoning. Marines must cope by developing new training priorities, technology, and tactics to maintain their competitive advantage. ...
The pairing of simple bullets with smart sights and automatic firing protocols must change the way Marines prepare for infantry combat. Dumb-but-controlled (DBC) firing employed by even ill-trained forces will revolutionize infantry combat.
Because eventually enemy militias and terrorists--not to mention enemy combat troops--will have smart rifles that will match the skills of our well-trained infantry.
