Quote Originally Posted by Aragorn243 View Post
I love the comparison but have to take issue with the condemnation of the aircraft sight wings. I see a lot of criticism about the Japaneseicon rifles, the sights, the dust covers, the monopod, etc but frankly, these were very innovative additions to the rifles and far from useless. The criticism probably comes from the general prejudice against anything Japanese from WWII.

As an officer in the US Army, I received instruction on how to shoot down aircraft with my M-16. I was also expected to provide training to those under my command in how to do so. Now if the modern US Army still has it's soldiers shooting at jet and armored helicopter aircraft with a 5.56 round, it is not a stretch to say that an impact could be made with a much heavier and more powerful Japanese round against slower and less armored aircraft. And for the record, the most common aircraft likely encountered by an infantryman was most likely going to be a liason/spotter aircraft which were as slow as the WWI biplanes and easier to shoot down. The Japanese were pretty methodical in their weapons development. I doubt they would include "useless" items on their rifles. They only removed them late in the war when they were trying to reduce materials, cost and time in production.
Just some thoughts.
I know this is an old thread. But I believe my comment with this quote could add to a greater understanding of how this would relate to the subject of infantry in air defense.

Aragorn243 neglected to mention how that defense against aircraft was accomplished. I think we may assume what he is referring to has not changed radically since I received that training in 1974.
We were trained to point our rifles straight up set on auto (no burst select) and on command, all fire as one. The theory being throw up a wall of small arms fire the attacking a/c must fly through, the concentration of fire having some probability of causing some damage at least.
This is with full auto.
Trying to achieve the same results with bolt action rifles simply cannot compare and training individual soldiers to hit such a target has always proved utterly impracticable.