I'm a US Naval Sea Cadet, planning to apply to the US Naval Academy in a few years to become a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. I play alot of air-soft (mil-sim) and I want to get a gun thats nearly identical to one that would be used by a USMC officer in an infantry field of operations so I can get oriented to using said weapon before being tested on using it in the academy or some form of Marine school.

If that did't make sense this is what I want to know in simple form-
What do the Marine Corps officers put on they're M4's or M16's?

If you want to be more constructive, stay away from milsim.
Get a BB gun, unscrew it, fill it with cement, grab a ruck sack about 2/3rds your own weight and go have fun in the hills.

haha thats a good idea but i dont have any room to do that in my neighborhood...i live on Long Island, NY...no one knows anything about the military here so people would have a fit if they saw that. I just get away with airsoft becuase I have a friend with alot of land behind his house and theres a professional field near my town

Fair enough. I played paintball in high school. Didn't help squat with actual military stuff because I didn't really know what I was doing back then (neither did anyone for that matter).

Airsoft hasn't taught me anything other than how to conceal myself better. It's awesome where you nail your friend in the back at 15 feet because you're lying in the underbrush covered in leaves.

Actually, it also taught me how to remove deer ticks...

Same with paintball. Concealment. But it makes for a really boring game so we just decided back then not to "camp."

Well, military personel learns to look for different things then civilians do, so concealment lessons learned while playing with civvies are about as useful as a fridge in the arctic as well.

Have a nice day.

Yeah and like I said, it doesn't help.
If you have no training at all though, the concealment is better than nothing.

Originally Posted by SR Singleton, USNSCC

I'm a US Naval Sea Cadet, planning to apply to the US Naval Academy in a few years to become a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. I play alot of air-soft (mil-sim) and I want to get a gun thats nearly identical to one that would be used by a USMC officer in an infantry field of operations so I can get oriented to using said weapon before being tested on using it in the academy or some form of Marine school.

If that did't make sense this is what I want to know in simple form-
What do the Marine Corps officers put on they're M4's or M16's?

Marine officers would probably carry an M4 with some form of red-dot sight on the flattop rail. That said, I don't know the specifics of what they're using - probably Aimpoint or EOTech.

If you have your heart set on being a Marine Corps fighter pilot, a better approach would be to do PLC or OCC during/after getting a degree from a civilian school. At the Naval Academy, you compete for Marine selection (there are lots of stories of midshipmen being designated as Navy Surface Warfare Officers when they wanted to be Marines). Then, at The Basic School afterwards, you will compete for an air slot.

However, if you do PLC (Platoon Leaders' Course) or OCC (Officer Candidates' Course) you will compete for the air slot before you ever ship out - it will be in your contract. From what I understand, it's much less cutthroat, and you have a much better chance of getting what you want. Just my two cents.

Just bear this in mind - you are becoming an officer first, and an aviator second.

If you have questions in the future, please don't hesitate to PM or e-mail me.

I think Istealfreefood would be the perfect guy to ask this stuff to. He's at the USNA right now.