I was thumbing thru a book on the war on terrorism in the grocery store check-out line the other day (cant recall the title or publisher).  There was a picture of a soldier (don't know what branch, but was american, assumption based on cammies) who was carrying a flat-top with an aimpoint.  The interesting thing was he had the detach carry handle mounted (on the horizontal plane) at the 3 o'clock on his handguard (no RAS, RIS, SIR, etc).  It seemed as though he could have used to shoot "gangsta" style over a wall or something.  Anybody have any ideas?

Just speculation, but it was probably just being stored there.  If the Aimpoint fails he can just install the carry handle with iron sights on it.

I have never seen that or heard of it, but my logic would say that maybe it was a BUIS in case something happens to the Aimpoint in battle he can have some sort of aiming device to switch to right away.  Was the pic of a posing soldier or someone in action or on duty?  I would tend to think if he was in the line of duty at the time, it must have had some point to it.  That is just a guess or it was for storage, that is the other thing I can think of.  I do not know if you could zero it on the side properly.  If not and if ther ewas no front sight in the pic then I would have to lean towards the storage theory very heavily. Any operators here will probably say it was for storage as well. The soldier most lieklty woudl not want to be fumbling through a pocket for a BUIS if the Aimpoint fails, so it make sense to have it on the rifle where it is going to be needed, since if he has to ditch his pack he would be without it.  

I've seen pictures of Force Recon like that. I read an article on line that Force is issued the carry handle as the BUIS. It was an older article, that may have changed.

He was walking down a street in Iraq, he had the nylon zip tie hand cuffs hanging off of his belt and was carrying his rifle.  Not a posed shot.  I can grasp the BUIS concept, they must have picatinny rails on the handguards?

I've seen serval photos of the carry handle mounted to the side of the handgaurds.

It seems that it is a good place to store the carry handle, since you don't have to dig it out from a bag. It is right there when you need it.

I'm waiting for that look to start showing up at the range.

Av.

That would be a Marine. The Marines did not issue a BUIS for their A4's, so they are left using the carry handle. Some Marines carry the handle in a ruck and others mount them on the side of the M5 RAS.