Well, I'm not going to get in the middle of any peeing contest that might take place here...so I'll avoid any comments relative to that unfortunate situation.
But, in regard to the 3:10 PM post...
In the beginning, my Navy wasn't much different at all from the WWII USN; I served from the mid-'60s to the mid-'90s, and not once on a "missile ship" (except for the OHIO SSBN 726). Oh we certainly had guns and did conduct gunnery exercises, anti-aircraft, surface-to-surface and ship-to-shore. Not to mention that I was involved in the only ship-to-ship gun battle in the Vietnam War (you can call a 600ton trawler a "warship" if it sports, and uses, a 40mm gun). We also did SHOBOM (shore bombardment) along the coast up to the DMZ, to support our Army and Marine Corps brothers in need.
But the reason nobody, not just me, but nobody, used or uses binoculars with reticles at sea is just what I wrote before...the reticles aren't useful. The distances involved, the basic environment and the ship's installed equipment for performing the same functions, only better, just make it pointless to have the reticles in hand-held binoculars.
Now, as to the second approach you've proposed. Every USN ship has "Equipage"...sort of like a TOE. "Equipage" is serialized, signed for and regularly inventoried; the binoculars used by the lookouts and deck watch officers are "Equipage" and are issued to the Department responsible for the Watch, Quarter and Station Bill for the Bridge and the lookout positions (e.g., the signal bridge & etc.). The binoculars are handed-off from one watch-stander to another as the watch sections rotate. Nobody gets to "keep" a pair of binoculars for their own use and nobody (well, lookout watch-standers anyway) is allowed to use their own personal pair of binoculars. Getting caught doing so might even end up with that man going to Captain's Mast (Article 15 NJP), depending on how much of a stickler for Regs the deck watch officers and XO might be. "Why" you ask.
Well, uniformity with respect to the individual's performance after training provided for use of the equipment and with respect to the "product" obtained through use of said equipment. If I, as the OOD/JOOW and CO/XO know that my lookouts are trained in the proper use of Navy Standard 7X50 binoculars and are using same, then I am most likely confident that they are performing their duties as expected. They should all be equally able to visually detect a ship, an aircraft, a periscope, or even a torpedo wake at about the same distances under the same environmental conditions and etc. If some cowboy is up there with his own favorite non-standard pair of commercial or non-Navy binoculars, I have no idea if he's trained in the proper use of them and even more important, I don't know how that equipment functions in comparison to the Navy-issued gear that he's supposed to be using.
To be specific in one respect...the light-gathering capability, magnification and the field of vision of the 7X50 binoculars is very different from a pair of 6X30 or 10X40 or other configured glasses. I don't want that kind of variability between/among my lookouts and/or deck watch officers.
Also, to be direct regarding your postulated scenario of the "wanna have it" brother requisitioning a neat-o pair of reticle equipped binoculars like his Army bro is using...even if the bro' could submit a Requisition and get it through his own Division Officer/Dept. Head and through some miracle it got past the Supply Dept. Leading Storekeeper, the Supply Officer would never approve it. Plus, if somehow it did get off the ship, the Supply Center would reject it and send it back to the ship, because it wasn't on the ship's Equipage list to begin with.
Then again, we get back to the basic matter...reticle equipped binoculars don't work well at sea; they just aren't really useful.
Oh...yes I do recognize the Fulda Gap...been there during a stint in NATO War Planning. I had an Uncle who was an Artillery Forward Observer with the 8th Army in Korea...during the war. He had a pair of 6X30 field glasses and he loved 'em (I have them now and I love 'em too)...for use on land. He went to sea with me once and discovered they were not the best thing for use at sea...switched to a pair of 7X50's and was very happy the rest of the trip.
Peace...and Thank You also for your service.
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