Made the rail gang truly shine

Hwut? I mean, no doubt that the true freefloats were an upgrade from the delta ring drop ins, but SOPMOD Block 2 came out in 2007, long after rails had both been standard conventional issue and companies had been making their own railed handguards. Rails were already crazy popular. If anything Block 2 came on the tail end up when rails were the undisputed kings of military handguards, and alternatives like M-Lok were already gaining interest as a way to declutter handguards.

As for all the other accessories, Block 2 was good, but it was refinement rather than revolution. Block 1 in 1996 introduced a lot of accessories and capabilities that were simply unheard of to the majority of line troops. It was a real science fiction kit. Block 2 introduced upgrades and sidegrades that could still make a conventional soldier jealous, but they weren’t fundamentally above what was already available more widely at the time. By 2007 and beyond, there was so much funding pumping in from every direction that there were tons of accessories being issued to both conventional and SOF that were as good or better than what was in SOPMOD. It wasn’t like back in the 90s when all normal guys had were iron sights and clamshells.

I don’t know how much Ghost Recon could be credited with popularizing the Block 2, given that GR: Wildlands came out in 2017, long after the Block 2 was the fresh hotness. Before that the other mainline Ghost Recon games didn’t even have Block 2. If any GR game had any kind of lasting impact in how military gear was perceived by people way too into the topic, it would probably be the Advanced Warfighter games with their vision of a Land Warrior/Future Force Soldier kit, and the standard issue G11-ish caseless MR-C assault rifle.

Sicario is also 2015, not quite as long after SOPMOD release as GR: Wildlands, but a long time. I guess the Block 2 stuff looked cool, but it’s hard to argue it was iconic to the movie when Michael Weston, the coolest character, was rocking an M4 with Block 1 stuff.

Ok. Ok I’m done overanalyzing the shitpost.