Based off my numerous combat tours, my thoughts
on rifle setup:

Cool video.
Makes me rethink my setup.

Thanks for an excellent video.  Definitely some food for thought.

I am glad I found this.  I subscribed and will check out previous videos!

I've been wrestling with this lately.  Trying to put together a jack of all trades seems to make a master of none.  

I've settled on a 16" with a LPVO, and an 11.5" with a red dot. This is getting even more complicated now that I'm looking at ir lasers and ir illuminators.  

Thanks Jeff!

Your best video yet!!

Really important things to think about in that video.  Not just your rifle setup, but your skills as well.

I find a lot of people with minimal/no training can get hits out to 200 yards.  Guys with no training may be pretty worthless past 200 yards regardless of their equipment.  But unless you 100% know the fight will be home defense fight or similar, having the equipment AND training for 400-500 yards is important.

Its my understanding that the Squad Designated Marksman(SDM) program came out of combat experience in Afghanistan.  With an Army rifle qual only running out to 300 yards, the ability to get hits at 500 yards suddenly became important.

Good rifle instructors will teach 500 yard skills.  Paul Howe's rifle standards, 100-7, and Scrambler drills are great for practicing engagements at a variety of distances.   For those that haven't had SDM training, Appleseed builds skills out to 400-500 yards.

Freefloats and high quality barrels will buy you a lot of versatility for handling various engagement distances and partial targets.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA512331.pdf

Increasing small arms lethality in Afghanistan:  Taking back the infantry half-kilometer(2009):

Thats a good read..Afghn centric

That's good stuff, thank you for doing that.  Makes sense.

We each have to analyze the role for our individual purposes, and set up accordingly.

That pdf about taking back the 1/2 kilometer is gold too, I read that elsewhere a while back.

Nobody should be setting up their primary individual weapon "because so-and-so do it this way".  You go with whatever threats YOU are likely to face.

What are your thoughts on the Aimpoint/flip up magnifier combo?

I was never a fan,
Since dot also gets magnified
so a 2moa dot with a 4 power is now a 8moa dot.
which looking at a 300yd target now appears as a over 20 inch circle.

Can you be good with one yes, I just feel LPVO faster and more accurate in the long run.  

Jeff,

I am going to both agree AND disagree with you.  

Full disclosure, I am medicated as hell right now due to a back injury, so let me know if I need to just sit down and look at the flowers.

OK, here's where I disagree.  The individual shooter should absolutely configure his gear for the immediate mission at hand.  This is not based on what the CIF, Deltoids, or the Iraqi (or whatever flavor of little brown guys I'm working with) are doing in their mission box.

Here's where I agree, and I'm afraid maybe it's something that gets lost with SF guys if they're only training on the apparatus they have access to (i.e., as you said in your video, "The particular CQB range I have access to / use doesn't allow me to do something else" -- let alone what the Leg Squad or Platoon Leader can do under Leg Range Control rules, regs, policies, and permissions).

Your S2 / O&I guy should always put out in the Enemy Situation part of Paragraph 1:  1) What is the Enemy's Most Dangerous Course of Action, and 2) What is the Enemy's Most Likely Course of Action.  You made a conscious choice for an optic-equipped M4 rather than a sexy suppressed MK18 -- did either of the 2 above influence that (consciously or subconsciously)?  Yeah, OK, so we're facing the Yogi Biryani clan or the 98th Guards Division.  What are they capable of doing, and what am I most likely to face on this mission?  How will they fight?

You pointed out there's a Pavlov's dog automatic "This is how we do this" inside the apparatus.  Death-Dealing barrel-chested Freedom Fighters -- not fighting past 100 yards outside the structure, and not fighting your way out of the target area, maybe with booger eaters on upper floors (of other buildings) shooting down at you.  

Very few places are rigged for live-fire and maneuver shooting uphill, or at targets on roofs two or more floors higher than you -- on foot or from vehicles.

You picked an LPVO for the fight to and from the OBJ.  How many ranges you have access to allow 180, 270, or 360 degree live-fire from the vehicle, using individual, ring-mounted crew-served -- and maybe LAWs and 203s, then allow you to maneuver off the truck?

The beauty of going west to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana (ah shit, this is gonna be expensive convincing chains of command) is there are National Guard and active ranges that allow you to do all this -- live-fire full mission profile opportunities and facilities to also practice immediate action from leaving the FOB to return -- not just on the target structure, and not just at JRTC/NTC.

Phase 1 -- get to the target.
Phase 2 -- actions on the objective.
Phase 3 -- fight our way out, against jack-wagons who now know I'm in the neighborhood.

Yes, I should best configure for the job -- and I have to be ready for both worst and most-likely contingencies.  And NOT just after watching an old movie, or getting ready to go into an exercise box.

Do I need a long gun or glass for reach?  Should somebody on the (objective) dismount perimeter security crew configure for a 7.62 self-loader or short SAW/PKM for muscle on the way in and out?

Rant off, still doped-up.

Sorry you lost me at going to S2,
26 years of experience tells me how limited they are, with actual on the ground info.

Indeed!

Vehicles are part of every day life.  I recently ran a civy vehicle defense course with some skilled military shooters/combat vets based of MSG Howe's and SGM Lamb's work and it was eye opening for all.  The course was simply an introduction to vehicle fighting and one of my students said he expanded his knowledge on the subject by about FIVE TIMES.

Not having a access to such a range as you describe, we ran initial exercises with blue guns and airsoft in and around our actual vehicles which helped illustrate the realities of the situation.

The second half of the course was live fire from VTAC barricades on paper and steel targets to help close some of the gaps that blue gun and airsoft training leave.

By the end, all were ready for MORE.  That kind of introductory training can be done on more traditional shooting ranges, preparing warriors for even more realistic training on harder to get shooting ranges.

OK, I concur, maybe not S2.  

How about feedback from the Chemical Branch lieutenant in the S3, the broke-dick operations sergeant major who reads every single AO battle-tracking report who in a moment of clarity suddenly realizes, or all the team sergeants come to the conclusion, "Hey -- you know, every single 4th ID mounted patrol through these 10-20 klicks of highway over the last six months usually gets hit with an IED or RPG and small arms ambush.  On 87 out of a hundred they initiate, Boom! or an RPG volley and maybe a belt of PKM from 200 Meters out, then the jokers bolt.  

"There are no villages around, and not a whole lot of places to hide, but the legs shoot from their vehicles and don't pursue.  You can see the goat-fackers run out to about 500 yards where they disappear behind terrain.

"Huh.

"At our habeus-grabus targets we usually only fire maybe a half-dozen rounds apiece.

"I wonder if there's a pattern here?"  

Great video OP THANK YOU