[3] In exercises, a Marine with a scoped rifle and additional training provided immense benefit to small units.

An optic provides information-gathering abilities as well as aiding aiming of support weapons such as machine guns and mortars.

There was some talk of adopting a weapon such along the same lines as the Mk 11 Mod 0, but instead that transferred over to a possible replacement for USMC personnel now using the Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR), a variant of the M14.

Squad Advanced Marksmen of I MEF, which is based at Camp Pendleton, California, made do with M16A4s with KAC M5 RAS forearms and TA31F ACOGs.

The original test weapon was a modified M16A2 rifle with a free-floated 1:7 stainless steel match grade heavy barrel, a "Mil-Std-1913 modular rail system" (this most likely implies the use of the Knight's Armament Company Free-Floating Rail Adapter System) and an M16A1 trigger assembly (semi and full-auto functioning).