My Dad was a Pre-war national guard cavalryman who went on to fight in Europe. He was a weapons guy, and he could shoot. He thought the Garand rear sight was just about perfect,
I agree with your father 100 %.
The M1 (and M14, same sights) are as about as perfect as a military rifle can get.
Sight the rifle in, at ANY Range, and you're sighted in as far as you can see the target. Just set the elevation dial to the distance you sighted it in.
Est. the range, crank the dial and you're there. The army taught a simple formula for adjusting for wind. Range (in 100 yards times wind velocity divided by 15) and you have the number of 1 mim clicks you need to correct.
The M1 also has a built in Range finder for shooting man size targets.
The average man's shoulder width is 19 inches (hence, the E Target (19X40).
I taught sniper schools before we used Mil Dot Scopes, or had laser range finders, using the M1C/D.
The average width of the front sight of the M1 Garand is 0.076. Take the shoulder width, divide it by the width of the front sight and you get the range.
Meaning, if the front sight is the same size as the target, (19/.076=250) your target is 250 yards away. If the front sight is half the size of the target, you're 125 yards away. If the front sight is twice the size of the target, you're 500 yards away.
Like the mil dot, the accuracy of your comparison determines the accuracy of your range est. Just takes a bit of practice.
The offset of the M-84 scope on the Garand, allows you to see the front sight to make your estimate.
During my sniper schools some got quite accurate. The problem with the M-84 is you were limited to 900 yards. (sight the scope at 50 yards, it has settings where you can set the sights to 900 yds. without counting clicks.
Many of my students learned to switch to irons (by shifting the eyes) and were getting hits up to 1400 yards (limit of our range).
Based on my shooting both rifles at the CMP Vintage Rifle Games the Springfield M1903A3 has a slight accuracy advantage over the Garand, but the advantage goes to Garand as a battle rifle in my opinion.
Compared to other army's the American Soldier has a repetition as Riflemen. I strongly believe a lot of that advantage is do to the ability to make windage adjustments on our rifles.
Again, I reference the scores fired in the CMP vintage rifle games (which are available for anyone to see at the CMP website). There are lots of accurate military rifles out there, but if you cant adjust for the wind, they loose out to the Springfield's and Garand's.