Why would they even have a rifle with a scope mounted backwards on the boat? Why wouldn’t they just grab one that’s ready to go? Why would they find one that didn’t have a scope and quickly mount a scope backwards? It almost feels like he was being set up to fail.
Is it mounted backwards?
It is.
The first guy also seems to be holding the gun in a super awkward way, what is up with that?
He has a vertical grip mounted, but it is very far to the rear. It is a strange place for it. The photo caused such a stir that the Captain in it was relieved for a loss of confidence.
The grip needs to be really close, otherwise you cant aim properly to hit those tiny little targets that are super far away!
The Navy said Yaste was relieved of duty “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command the guided-missile destroyer” that’s currently deployed in the Gulf of Oman. The statement didn’t elaborate about why Yaste was replaced.
I wonder if he truly deserved it. It would be really lame if the justification was purely the bad PR from this photo. I imagine knowing your way around a rifle has nothing to do with running a boat, and vice versa.
I’ve seen speculation online that there could have been more to it, with the photo being a public tip off. Since the Captain didn’t put the scope on himself, and there were surely people running the range there were many chances for people to intervene and they didn’t. The speculation is that could be the sign of an unhealthy command culture where people were either so demotivated they didn’t care or so actively against the Captain that they did this. Adding to the final buck stopping that the Captain himself didn’t notice anything wrong with what should have been obvious.
Not directly, but firing a rifle without being able to see shit is not a good look when you’re responsible for as much firepower as a boat has. And in military doctrine, every soldier is expected to be a competent rifleman first and foremost, all other duties come on top.
On the other hand I doubt it was the Captain’s idea to do this photoshoot, and if he mounted the scope.
Might just be a case of “OK, got 2 minutes in between important tasks, let’s do the photo real quick” and a normal human fuck-up by whoever prepared the rifle.
I am not a gun nut, I have never even fired anything but an air rifle, but I can absolutely see how bad his form is.
Someone’s patting him on the shoulder.
“Sir. Sir. There’s something you should be aware of, sir.”
