Wed 10 Mar 2021, 02:35
I served in the Marine Corps from 1990 to 1999... and while rail systems were not common place there were several ways to mount optics onto ALL weapon systems at the time. Can't speak for the Army or any other foreign military. But any optic; from IR, night vision or basic scope, could be placed on ANY weapon at the time. Granted most the time that meant an armorer had to do the mounting. Then you had to take the weapon system to battle sight zero said weapon with the optic, but anything was possible. Might be rare, but was definitely possible.
The big thing during that time frame was availability of optics and what we called "command authorization". Basically, even if you could find an optic, you had to get the Battalion Commanding Officer to say, yes you could put it on your issued weapon. You couldn't just ask your armorer to slap something onto your rifle, just wasn't going to happen. Now, granted the authorization was more likely the further you strayed from support units... basically, support units it would be extremely rare to be allowed an optic, infantry more likely, and spec ops units almost could always do what they wanted when it came to having optics added to a rifle.
What that boils down to as far as game play and availability... the GM feeling that something should be allowed or not. I would leaned toward Sniper rifles coming with something decent, mainly a because a sniper rifle is just not a sniper rifle without one. LOL Hunting rifles not so much. And then there is the whole fact that even if you acquired an actual sniper rifle with a scope, doesn't mean the scope is sighted to your firing style, you need to zero it to actually have high first round hit chances.
Just my two cents.
~ Not as lean, or as mean, but always a Marine
~ Go with God, but make him walk point.