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Night Combat


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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir:

The IDF uses AK-47s? In regular units? I thought that they'd all standardized on M-16s.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

AK47s, RPG7s, you name it. Lots of captured stocks to work with. If it's junk sell it. If it works, use it.

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir:

What happens when you run out of RPG-7 rounds?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Build more. IMI produces a local copy.

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That's a great example, Enoch. It sounds like they were training for close combat situations in order to avoid the sort of friendly fire we've been talking about. Just because they're close enough to kill with the bayonet doesn't guarantee they'll recognize friendlies from foes in the darkness, but the chances of making that mistake are drastically minimized during a planned attack.

I still wonder if it weren't easier for friendly fire to occur, even in the broad daylight, in the jungles of southeast Asia than in the farm country of western Europe. It seems like the terrain differences between the two are profound.

Paulus

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Hello.

Part of the variety of distances claimed to be the limit to identify somebody (or something) *may* be due to differences in night vision. I have no information about statistics linked to night vision, but I know that some people are more (or less) able to see in the dark than the mean population. Someting to do with density of rod cells in the retina?

Has anybody informations?

Sig

PS: just to show the existence of differences in perception: quite some years ago, I read a scientific paper proving that the "red" color is percieved differently by some people. It has to do with a one aminoacid mutation in the receptor located in the cone cells of the retina. This lead to a slightly different signal emitted by the cell when it absorbed the wave-lengths in the reds. Interesting.

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The thread has kinda left the night vision discussion itself but I figured I would post this anyway.

Alot of people say that, "of course you can see someone at 100 meters even if it's dark, I have done it before out by our barn (or such)" but you also have to take other things in to consideration.

A soldier out in the field is tired, bruised, and not seldomly scared out of his wits. Imagine sitting in your foxhole around 2 am, its' dark, your're hot and you feel your uniform sticking to your body, mosquitos buzzing around your head is driving you crazy with their bzzzzzzz'ing, your helmet keeps slipping down over your eyes from the sweat on your forehead, the forrest echoes with weird sounds from its regular inhabitants, you can hardly see your platoon buddies to your right and you are actually getting scared. You feel your eyes stinging from the sweat runnning down from your forehead and you feel yourself almost drifting to sleep. Then all of a sudden you hear a sound that is out of place... out of the corner of your eye you see something moving. Is it the enemy.. or a bush moving in the slight wind... you squint your eyes to try to see better and all of a sudden your hear a muffled cough about 20 meters infront of you. You raise your rifle to your shoulder and at the same time your platoon buddy opens up on the source of the sound. Suddenly the air is filled with the sounds of guns firing, men screaming, feet running, and all the other sounds of battle. You are now fighting even harder to see anything since the area is light up with lights from weapons and flares and your night vision is pretty much completely wasted. I have yet to come across the man or woman that would not aim their rifle infront of them and open fire in to the dark.

Just my 2 c worth... oh and btw.. this is not something I have read about.. I have experienced it.

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lcm has raised one other very valid point which got buried under the "can/can't" argument. Once initiated, how long can a blue on blue incident be expected to last before someone figures it out? I doubt there's an answer.

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A non-military night vision story in an urban setting, highschool age guys slipped in to a city park swimming pool. The best diver in the bunch had just arrived at the end of the high board. Just as he began to set himself in motion prepatatory for the jump, a buddy hollered out, "There is no water in the pool - - I suspect that there was a dampness on a pair of swim trunks shortly, however.

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Sig, that difference is there, but it is minimal, except for, statistically, something like 1 guy out of 1,000,000 (or was it even 7,000,000? I forgot) who can really see better (because his eyes can process light of lower infrared wavelengths than usual - which would be around 750nm max).

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Moon:

Sig, that difference is there, but it is minimal, except for, statistically, something like 1 guy out of 1,000,000 (or was it even 7,000,000? I forgot) who can really see better (because his eyes can process light of lower infrared wavelengths than usual - which would be around 750nm max).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the info.

Sig

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