1974 & 2013 T
hroughout history, most mili- tary combat was conducted during the day because it was difficult, if not impossible, to
see the enemy in the dark with the naked eye. So, without artificial illumination, such as fire and later searchlights, war- riors tended to steer clear of operations at night.
A good example of avoiding night combat operations may have been an account from the Old Testament (Joshua 10:3) when Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still so his army could continue pursuing the enemy and thwarted their escape. It was best to engage the enemy in the daylight where you could not only see them, but also find their hiding places and calculate their intent.
Today, with the latest night vision devices, night operations are not only feasible but have been proven effective time and again on the battlefield. However, it took decades of research, testing and lessons learned from night operations before the U.S. military could make the claim: “We own the night.”
Te advent of modern night vision tech- nologies came in the 1930s and continued through World War II, the ’50s and the
’60s. An article in the May-June 1974 edi- tion of Army R&D Magazine (now Army AL&T magazine) reported that “in the Southeast Asia conflict, the U.S. Army introduction of night vision devices was hailed as
a far-reaching breakthrough
that took the night away from ‘Charlie,’ meaning dramatic curtailing of effective
WE OWN THE NIGHT A Soldier with 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Divi- sion fires a Squad Automatic Weapon Aug. 11 during close quarters marksmanship training on Firebase Maholic, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. (U.S. Army photo by SPC Ryan Green, 982nd Combat Camera)
guerrilla cover-of-darkness enemy attacks.” Te need for further advanced night vision systems came from “lessons learned dur- ing the Middle East War in October [1973], during which many engagements evidenced the critical importance of night vision devices.”
Fast forward to 2013, when engineers and scientists have discovered ways to cap- ture available electromagnetic radiation outside the portion of the light spectrum visible to the human eye, using night vision technologies. Tese include thermal imaging (uncooled infrared detectors, and second- and third-generation forward- looking infrared), image intensification, countermine/counter
improvised explo-
sive devices and lasers. On the horizon are platform-centric sensor suites for ground and air platforms that will improve situa- tional awareness and allow closed-hatched hemispherical vision. Tese systems will provide near-360-degree night vision inte- grated with threat cueing, video capture and cueing interrogation.
Te ultimate goal of night vision technol- ogy is to improve Soldiers’ capabilities by providing affordable lightweight sensors that will lighten their load, improve sur- vivability and increase lethality so they can continue to “own the night” during combat operations.
For more information on night vision tech- nologies, go to
http://www.nvl.army.mil/ index.html. For a historical tour of AL&T over the past 52 years, go to the Army AL&T magazine archives at
http://asc.army.mil/ web/magazine/alt-magazine-archive/.
192
Army AL&T Magazine
October–December 2013
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