If you are not training with night vision, you will not be effective against the Deep State when war breaks out. Do you know what a NOD looks like? A DBAL? An illuminator? You may walk right by some equipment on the battlefield that may save the lives of your people.
I have heard all of the excuses why people will not come out for night vision training except that they have to wash and dry their hair. I will never forget the passage in 299 Days when the resistance finally attacked the government forces. The main protagonist remembered all of the firearms and superfluous accessories that they had bought but he wished that they had bought night vision instead. You can read the book series to understand why this was a necessity.
If you are going to fight for freedom, this may not be the first step but it is a necessary step to survive and win.
David DeGerolamo
When those items of any decent quality are priced above two grand I’m out. I bring home 600 a week after taxes and it now costs 10% of my weekly take home for gas. Also not spending my limited resources on comms, as most Freq’s will likely be jammed. Someone in the prepper community wants to slide me $25 grand, we’ll talk.
The reality of things is that if the ballon goes up and things go kinetic training with NODs is not as important as one might think. If a set battle against US.Mi! Forces whether by day or night is in your plans odds are very high you will lose….because you are playing to the strength of the government. Learn what tools the infantry and spec ops uses so you can recognize them and what they do. acquirethem when possible and incorporate those tools into the ASYMMETRIC actions that DO work against a formal .Mil. But the BEST lessons to learn are how the Viet Cong ann the Taliban worked. The tools that will be needed are far less formal military theory and more the tools of the French Underground and other resistance groups. Watch the movie Batt!e Of Algiers.
Dan, you are Correct. The advocates of ‘small unit tactics’ and its Focus on emulating Imperial Army Tactics and Gear are bound to Fail. Ask “Charles” or “Mohamed” about what Works, not G.I. Joe Stormtrooper.
As for “Night Vision Equipment” it has a great deal of utility in Defensive Operations, and for my Money, Thermal Imaging is better for Locating a Threat than the “Light Amplification” types. These get “Washed Out” by Ambient Light (Skyshine and Building Lights) and as for “Patrolling through the Woods in the Dark” I’ve tried this with a (borrowed) pair of current, Mil-Spec Litton units, the 15K ones the Army uses… the narrow field of view, poor depth perception, and limited Range without an Infrared Iluminator leads right to Tripping over Everything and making Noise. The Time to Practice with these things and get halfway skilled with them is as much of a Limiting Factor as the Price.
I have and use an Inexpensive Thermal Imaging Monocular, with an 8x Lens, and it is Exelent to locate Wile E. Coyote in the Yard, and 200 Meters away into the edge of the Woods. Identification and Location of a Threat is the primary importance.
I’m with Gryphon. When I went in the Army back in the 80’s, Night Vision was starting to take off. At the time, a good deal of the Senior NCOs and all of the Company 1SGs were Vietnam veterans. In a conversation once with one of my 1SGs he said, night movement was a new thing, that no one did movement at night in Vietnam that you couldn’t see your hands in front of your face. Anything moving around at night was getting shot. NODs were changing that. Still at the time, there were not enough of them to go around. The Army was working on it. It was the new way, our advantage. Once a LT insisted his platoon move at night in the Panamanian Jungle. There was not enough ambient light and with poor depth perception the point man went off a cliff. But, I will tell you this… NODs made it a hell of allot easier to take down an air field. They paid off there a couple of years later. The cool stuff back then can be found on E bay for a bargain now.
I’m going to tell you, I think with WROL alot of people would get themselves in trouble at night. Remember your parents telling you nothing good happened after midnight? Remember me telling you what my old 1SG said, anything moving around at night was getting shot? Night Vision is only so effective, no matter how good it is. Good camo and concealment can be hard to see. But, they have the cool gear and the cool beard and the neat 2A tattoo…. And they are just looking for bad guys, trying to avoid trouble on their way to a safe place, what ever. But people figure anyone moving around at night is up to no good.
Enter thermal. It is highly effective. Even more so at night. It sees through camo, and not all concealment hides a thermal signature. far more of a game changer.
By all means, have it. Train with it, train with out it. Don’t expect to own the night. Just my two cents, with all due respect.