Sadist_Cain wrote:afaik you dial in your zero on a target range and you aim off when in combat, you never fiddle with the dials in the middle of battle as the zero is veeeeery sensitive.
Well with M4 you are fiddling with both the front post rear windage knob to set the zero. Once you've zeroed the weapon I imagine you wouldn't touch this. Instead you'd use the elevation knob to pick the range (ie 6/3 setting for 300m, 6/4 setting for 400m, 6/5 setting for 500m and 6/6 setting for 600m).
Sadist_Cain wrote:I wouldnt think you'd bother with a zero above 300m as the bullet's gonna start getting sooo inaccurate once you factor in humidty, wind speed air temperature and so forth
True, your accuracy won't be great. 3cm or less at 25m (~4.12 MOA) is acceptable for the M16 series and 2cm (~2.75 MOA is about the best the rifle can do without human error (Source:
FM3-22.9 Chapter 5 Downrange Feedback (Phase II of Basic Rifle Marksmanship)). That means at 300m your looking at about a 24 to 36cm group which is just under a man's width. That's why you get your section to all fire at the same target at long range. That way you greatly increase your chances of hitting the target. For your information the M16A4 in-game shoots 12 MOA groups at best (whist prone, stationary for 1 1/3 seconds or more, not moving the sights for 2/3 seconds or more and firing at most; once every 1/3 seconds).
Sadist_Cain wrote:One thing I can defo confirm is my dad has been a weapons instructor and the L85a2 is defo zeroed in at 100m and when shooting a 300m target you aim up by 2inchs (50mm)
Well I suppose a target through the irons at 25m looks the same size as a target at 100m through a SUSAT (which has 4x zoom).
Sadist_Cain wrote:Can't see the point in having a 5.56 round zeroed to 300m when over that range the anomalies start to occur and that tiny round can barely just stop a person, not to mention that everything under 300m you need to aim down for and most scopes dont have increments going up for when you need to aim down
100m zero is far more flexible for targets at different ranges rather than having the rifle zeroed close to its max range :S can't imagine why you'd want that
Figure 5-34. M855 zeroed at 300 meters; M193 re-zeroed at 300 meters.
(Source:
FM3-22.9 Chapter 5 Downrange Feedback (Phase II of Basic Rifle Marksmanship))
For a 300m zero (which you can achieve on a 25m range BTW) with a M16A2, a 5.56mm round reaches a maximum height of just over 5 cm above where you are aiming. This occurs at 175m. When you are going for a centre of mass shot, 5cm doesn't make much difference.
Sadist_Cain wrote:When it comes to scoped rifles though they must have a shorter zero because you can see down and you do have the notches underneath your crosshair for aiming up at longer distance and would server to make the rifle far more effective and accurate at different ranges.
Well not all scope reticules have the notches (ballistic compensators or mil-dots) you talk of. That's why you have an elevation dial which has the ranges pre-marked. For example the Hensoldt scope used in conjunction with the G3A3 has 6 pre-marked settings on the elevation dial for 100-600m in 100m increments (Source:
http://www.drzero.org/cetme/pdf/g3sm.pdf).