Of course, all of the fancy auto-ranging ability of the ART system would do no good if the rifle could not perform adequately as well. The cams were made to match specific cartridges and there were three different cams that could be switched out, one each for the M118 Match, M80 Ball and M2 50 BMG ammo. Zoom in, hold for wind, pull the trigger. The entire unit performed as a system for rapid and accurate target engagement. At the same time, the cam would actually already be raising, or lowering, the scope to automatically compensate for the range at that distance. ![]() The sniper would just zoom in until the marks on the vertical crosshairs would cover 30 inches, typically the belt line to the top of the head, and then look at the marks on the power ring to determine the range. Since the reticle was located on the 2 nd focal plane and did not grow and shrink with the power setting, it could be used to provide range estimation from 300-900 meters. The US Army had the scopes made without the tombstone ranging mechanism inside the reticle and instead had the scopes installed with a reticle that had marks on the stadia that covered 30 inches at 300 meters on the vertical and 60 inches at 300 meters on the horizontal. It was considered the best scope on the civilian market at the time. You will probably recognize that this is the same scope the USMC adopted for their M40s during the same time. It was called the Adjustable Ranging Telescope (ART) and was combined with a Redfield Accu-range 3-9x40mm commercial scope. An all-aluminum system was subsequently designed and then tested in 1967. Benning Georgia in 1965 the concept was presented to the Limited Warfare Laboratory (LWL) and a project was started to design a system that would work on a sniper rifle. This was done via a cam system that would physically tilt the scope forward as the zoom power was increased. In 1964 James Leatherwood came up with a clever design for a mounting system that would allow a scope to be automatically adjusted when the zoom ring was changed. This was done until a suitable permanent replacement system could be developed for the Army sniper program. So they continued with the program.īecause of the pressing need for sniper rifles in Vietnam, the Army actually deployed a good number of standard M14s with M84 scopes mounted in various different ways. But the National Match version of the M14 with M118 match grade ammo proved adequate and worthy of further development. The 2.2x magnification of the M84 scope was deemed unsuitable, the accuracy of the rifle with M80 ball ammunition was also unsatisfactory, and the scope mount, a hinged unit, was ruled deficient. The rifles were tested with both M80 and M118 match ammo, but the results were not very positive. They first tried using the M84 scopes from the old M1D sniper rifles and mounting them on top of a M14 with a modified swing over mounting system. The M14 itself was an adaption of the original M1 but chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO (308 Win) and fitted with a detachable box magazine (DBM). The US Army began its search in the same year that the USMC did, 1966, but the US Army did not go the route of a bolt action sniper rifle like the Marines, instead, they were believers in the semi-automatic and they started with modifying the M14. ![]() The US Army dabbled with scoped M-16s with very little luck, so finally a serious effort was made to develop and adopt a proper sniper rifle. This time around, the M1D rifles that were still around were not only old and out dated, but their 30-06 chambering was no longer the standard and the M1 Garand rifles were no longer in service. Then the Vietnam conflict broke out and the US found itself in a guerrilla style war with a huge demand for qualified snipers and sniper rifles. The M1C/D rifles made an appearance briefly in the Korean conflict, but they were never widely used and after those hostilities came to a cease fire, the M1C/D rifles were again packed away. So while they had gone through the effort and cost during WWII to first field the stop gap M1903A4 sniper rifle, and then develop and field the M1C and M1D sniper rifles, once the war ended, those rifles were stockpiled and packed away. Redfield/Leatherwood 3-9x Automatic Ranging Telescope (ART)Īs is common knowledge, the military forces in the 20 th century had a very bad habit of disbanding sniper units and training between the major conflicts and after WWII it was no different for the US Army.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |