300 yards at night

[lcm1947]

Who was the dumb ass that said you could see anything- period, at night. Damn, sure am glad it wasn't me. Well, I did go out and sat in the car for about 10 minutes thinking I'd wait for the old night vision to kick in. After 10 minutes I looked around and thought, well maybe it takes longer then that, not being able to remember exactly how long. So I wait another 10 minutes and start thinking - damn it's really not getting any brighter out there, what if those guys were right. Nah, can't be. So I wait about another 5 minutes and think - I don't think it should take this long, so I get out, pace off 50 yards and slowly turn around, all the while thinking boy am I going to rub it in when I get back. Well, I could barely see the car. It's dark out there in case you don't know that! So Ok , I admit it, I was a little mistaken. Ok, a lot mistaken, but you guys knew that already didn't you? Well, there you have it - the sad truth. I think I'll just become a lurker and keep my mouth shut. Nah, probably not. But it was a good post - well, better for some then others. I am just so happy I was able to clear that up for you guys. Now you know.

[Guest Babra]

LOL. I hear ya.

[Michael Emrys]

Confession is good for the soul.

Michael

[JonS]

This might be making it hard for you to see things at night:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1490000/1490649.stm

"for 40% of the US population ... it is never dark enough at night for human eyes to become adapted to night vision"

I find I can see quite well at night, but I put some riders on that comment:

* I can move and navigate around easily

* looking for man sized targets is hard, especially ones that aren't moving

* using your ears helps a LOT

* in a combat situation the many bright flashes etc would screw your night vision fairly quickly

* I eat lots of carrots

Regards

JonS

err, I just read the other thread. Feel free to ignore this post

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Pvt. Ryan]

Did you hear any sound contacts? (Los, Los, Los!)

[Triumvir]

LCM, well now you've seen the light... 8P

Then again, don't forget that under some really bright moonlit nights, you can see further than 50 yards (not much, but some.)

The first night movement I did in basic took about 45 minutes, feeling our way through a _marked_ trail. The next day, we covered it in about 10. It's amazing how fast you can move when you can _see_ the big-ass thorn spikes waiting for you at eye-level.

[Doug Beman]

We're just glad you didn't get horribly lost and wander off to die in the wilderness! :eek:

DjB

[Herr Oberst]

First off. It takes a certain kind of person to go out and try that experiment. It takes another type to come back and be willing to admit error. Kudos to you.

Second, some hopefully entertaining anecdotes concerning night vision.

Once while driving home from a volleyball tournament at about 10:30pm, I noticed how amazingly bright the moon was, and that it illuminated the road markings very well (it was a wide flat interstate roadway). So, in an impish moment with two friends riding in the car, I turned off the lights and found that I could see the makings well enough to follow them. We scared the bejeezus out of a friend of ours who I pulled alongside then honked the horn (the wisdom of driving 75 miles per hour with no lights is not under debate here).

Second, in college, there was a group of us who used to play "cat & mouse" or "hide and seek" in a graveyard adjacent to the dormitories. The trees and terrain meant that very little light was available at night for seeing. I had heard about a certain girl who was "uncatchable". More often than not, she would stalk the "seeker" and torment them by whispering to them, then darting away. It turned out that she was one of those 1 in a billion or whatever people that has feline pupils. What was dark for us she had no problem with, and found our "disability" very entertaining. Oh yeah, she was a total babe as well...

[Edited cause I haven't had my coffee yet...]

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: Herr Oberst ]

[lcm1947]

Thanks Herr Oberst I needed that. I really was debating if I should just become a larker on this forum or not but just your one nice comment helped a lot. Thank you. Not that anyone really jumbed on me that hard but it's a pride thing. But you can beat I'll be more careful in the future before answering an questions.

[Fishu]

I were out to countryside during the weekend and I couldn't see much out there..

It was bit scary when there were forrest treeline raising to horizont and was so quiet.

*thinks about all those wild animals, how close they could of get*

I heard talking from nearby small bus garage very clearly from over 200 meters away, though (Between two men).

Surprisingly well, for normal speech.

It was also a clear day, with moon and alot of stars there.. didn't make it any brighter, unless I'd been next to water.

[Greenman]

I know from personal experience that night hiking in damn hard. If the terrain isn't linoleum smooth, good luck. You stumble over every single root, rock, and dip. I did about 10 miles in 8 hours one night this summer. The most frightening experience is falling in the dark, you have no idea what you're falling into.

I can't even imagine what combat at night must be like.

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: Greenman ]

[Guest Babra]

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

I can't even imagine what combat at night must be like.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tell your best friend to stand on the sidewalk with a fireman's net. Then close your eyes and jump off a tall building. Maybe you'll hit the net and maybe you won't...

[Pvt. Ryan]

The only experience I had with hiking at night was while walking along the desert before we climbed up Masada (Israel). There were no artificial lights around, but the moon must have been pretty full because I don't remember having much trouble seeing. I got lots of scrapes and cuts while climbing up though. Swimming in the Dead Sea the next day brought a new definition of pain to me.

I am reading MacDonald's Company Commander and his company conducted several night patrols and attacks. He describes how dark it was and how impossible it was to see anything, let alone identify it. While approaching an area where the Germans had previously been dug in they had to test each step before putting full weight on their feet to avoid falling in a foxhole. It must have been pretty dark to not even be able to see where you were stepping.

Living in or even close to a city with all its lights we lose perspective on how dark the night can be with just the light from the moon and the stars.

[KnifeForkSpoon]

This whole night fighting thing is real vivid for me.

Having participated in many (4) night fighting exercises while in my reserve career, I learned some valuable lessons.

1) If you are on a night patrol, and the enemy is out there . . . You are going to die.

2) If you are out at night, and you don't know where the enemy is . . . You are going to die.

3) If you are probing enemy positions at night, and only have a vauge idea where they might be encamped . . . you are going to die.

4) If you are waiting in ambush on a trial that will soon have enemy patrol coming down it . . . you will participate in a massacre of those sorry s.o.b.'s.

While conducting an ambush on a section of troopers at night, we (just three of us) waited in the bush, trial side, for an hour or so. My ass had long since ceased to have any blood flow when out of the darkness, the enemy section point man just . . . was there. Like he'd always been there. On the trial. I stopped breathing. (We were wearing gasmasks, because our aim was to nail the patrol with CS gas, then open up with our SMG's.) I thought for sure he'd be able to hear my gasmask filter opening and closing because it was so damn loud in MY ears. I couldn't look right at him. I had to use my peripheral vision to see him. I could only see his movement. Hardly any detail at all.

Suddenly, my Sgt. hucked his CS grenade into their midst and opened up. All hell broke loose. I emptied my 33 round clip into the midst of the shocked group of troopers down the trail (all blanks), and watched them run and firing, trying to get their gasmasks out of their bags. They would have all been dead.

I've got another story where I was on the recieveing end.

Night fighting is NOT for me.

KFS

[olandt]

Never done combat at night(or during the day for that matter), but capture the flag sure is fun . Of course, you don't play in the woods on a cloudy night. The amazing thing about walking around at night is you'll find the complete spectrum of darkness. A full moon in a field can almost be enough to read by, whereas a heavy pine woods can block just about everything. You guys have gotten me curious as to how far I can see in the dark. I sure as heck wouldn't want to have to figure out whether that dark shape I THOUGHT I just saw move was friend, enemy, an animal or my imagination. Drive you crazy after awhile. I'm guessing you don't fire your weapon if you want to stay alive, unless of course they're right on top of you...

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: olandt ]

[Greenman]

In CM, my men haven't had that much trouble in the dark ... though I haven't done a forest battle at night. But in and around villages and stuff, i.e. relatively treeless, things go pretty smoothly.

I'm thinking of Drop to Destiny and the Ham and Jam scens.

[David Aitken]

My observations on CM: Yes, you can see pretty damn far at night. What concerns me more is that when fighting at night in the rain, your owns troops are an equal if not greater danger to each other than to the enemy. What gets me is that your troops can see well enough to shoot at two bailed tank crewmen hiding 100m away, but not well enough to avoid massacring a friendly squad moving through their firing line. Night combat in CM is screwed up.

My observations on nighttime: When I was in the RAF cadets, on each summer camp we would do a night exercise. Unfortunately they didn't give us weapons of any kind, it was little more than a game of tag, and impossible to work out who had tagged who. However, being nighttime, it tended to get dark. On one occasion we were out in some fields separated by hedges; on another we were in woodland; I am pretty sure it was overcast on both occasions, and I didn't have much trouble seeing what was around me.

It might have been due to the fact that they were summer nights, but this was in England, whereas I live in Scotland, and it's only really in Scotland in midsummer that it never gets completely dark. An overcast night in England would be dark enough. I actually think I was able to see better in the woods than in the fields, so maybe there was a full moon above the clouds or something. At one point I was running across a field in the dark, chasing some of the "enemy", and I didn't have any trouble running, but I couldn't quite see who I was chasing, or indeed if they were still there. I think we may have caught them but I was never quite sure.

Anyway, moonlit nights are often very bright indeed. You're talking about the sun's light being directly reflected off a white surface, and the result can often be as effective as street lighting. But I don't recall ever having much trouble getting around in pitch darkness. I think CM's modelling of night combat is screwed up though. A clear moonlit night maybe, or a summer's night in northern Europe, but not an overcast night. LOS should be much shorter, fire should be much more reluctant, and the pace of combat should be much slower.

[Bobbaro]

Fun and games in the dark: Yeah. I live on approximatly 135 acres of Texas hill country limestone cut with a mostly damp creek, studded with oak and juniper + misc. vegitation and cut by erosion into ridge and ravine. Prickly pear in the legs, twigs in the eyes and a fine roll down hill rewards misteps.

On cloudy days venturing into infrequently visited thicket can be disorientating and require a little recon to straighten out the directions. In that state of mind stumbling out on to more familier terratory from an unusual direction tends to make the familar look as foreign as the rest. Add night into the mix and then the fun really starts.

Once walking the dog out in that stuff, dark slipped up without me noticing or worrying much about it. Then I could not find the trail for easy walking. Searching and searching some more did not help.

Frustrated and hungry and having the stars for as easy a guide for direction as the trail, I just gave up and took off in the correct general direction.

But, then the fun began. The dog was determined to choose his own trail, picking the opposite side of every tree and running under stuff of impossible enganglement, while I pulled and cursed with him on the leash and struggled with the rifle or whatever it was I carried in the other. Where the tree trunks allowed passage, juniper branches interlaced and conspired to block passage or at least punish such passage as they allowed with scratches, pungent sap, and tiny needle punctures.

After a number of back tracks and plunges on different tacks that seemed endless, stopping to retrieve lost gear, glasses and entangled leash, I lost the guidance of the stars. I then pulled out my compass the use of which mainly served to complicate my juggling act. After much repetitous struggle I came to the steeply sloping hillside and at least felt some progress being made. Prior to that I had been thinking I had entered some warp in which this would go on forever. The very warm, humid night did not help. Sweat stinging the eyes and tiny punctures and lacerations addeded to the misry.

Even though the slope provided its own difficulties, the vegitation was a little more open and it signaled progress. Which of course encouraged the dog, that now threatened to pull me off balance in a headlong fall, slide, rocky grind, roll, whatever, down hill. Jerking him back with all the force I could muster with one now very tired arm, I did what I could to discourage that. Fortunantly the steep slope was only maybe 75 meters to the open flat at the end and its recognisible passages to reach the creek (add wet feet). Thense it was only a simple matter, past the field and barns and home. Stuff that would perhaps be daunting to a stranger, but duck soup for me.

Back recovering at the house, I wondered how I had failed to collide with at least one patch of prickley pear. Now suppose I had carried the extra burden of risking encounter with randomly falling morter rounds, or fire from equally dangerous hostile or friendly forces. The psychology of that is the stuff of which combat fatigue is made. For some more and others less.

Driving in the moonlight! Without headlights, thanks for that prompt. I was not driving and the motivation was the beauty of it all, not curiosity. But it was something! No traffic in the wee hours and a country highway of Texas porportions. A lovely experience.

Lead a number of Girl Scout night hikes. It gave the young hens some badly needed exercise and distraction on arrival at camp. Back at camp quiet and sleep followed much more quickly. The tents now seemed much friendler and home away from home.

At night the trails generally could be marked by the opening in the tree canopy overhead. But, busting through cross country fashon was better. Had some outstanding things happen out there.

Once in a swampy river bottom with palmetto towering to 12 or 15 feet among the big trees and underbrush, I took my following along some planks paving the ooze. With nicely adapted eyes (the thick canopy shut out the light polution of Houston some 40 or 50 miles away) we bacame aware that the ground was glowing in a filigree of infinant pattern. It was the light of luminescent fungi. Next day the girls could not believe that they had crossed that expanse of muck on such narrow planks. I had a little trouble myself. It was the same sort of landscape that formed the "jungles" of Cuba in the fairly recient movie, Roughriders.

It was not always trails and open woods. At a camp with alot of thicket and heavy woods the canopy closed in overhead with no moon and I strayed from the trail. Heck I had a compass and just struck out on a fixed azimuth. After boxing around thickets to resume the path and being frustrated with further thickets that blocked the boxing process into sub and sub sub, boxing I decided that it was not worth it at 10 + P.M.

So, we turned around are backtracked. I was shocked to arrive at our starting point where a style crossed the barbed wire fence. Probably more luck than skill. Anyway, the struggle had accomplished the mission; we had no trouble with excessive giggling and rousting about that night.

On another occasion, I was disappointed at having to use a track made for vehicles, just not wild enough for my tastes. Still it provided a special experience. One of the little girls popped on her flashlight, a forbidden violation of the night hike rules. The lights were allowed as a security blanket. But, I had observed an unexpected effect of the light flash. lighting bugs had returned the flash in synchrony. I had the troop all squat or sit and watch. I held my light overhead and described a circle with its 6 volt beam, turning it off at the end. After a count of maybe 3 seconds. the trees and shrubs around that clearing opened up in the fashon of "the wave" at a sports stadium repeating my light sweep with that of hundreds of little glows opening up then going off in the same sequence. We stayed there some minutes playing at communicating with the bugs in their own language. I suppose the little creatures (bugs) were disappointed that an amourus connection did not occur in porportion to that great announcement that flooded their senses.

I curse the encroachment of gratuitous illumination of our nights by a largely useless waste of light pouring into the sky where it only serves to blind the bats, night hawks and their prey. Town is ten miles away and the tourist trade seems to have made folks think that the more they can spend on electricity and illumination, the more money lands in their pockets. It has all the charm and grace of a police lineup. Even out in the countryside people somehow think they are safer with the insecurity lights they erect to unknowlingly help potential intruders negoiate the obsticles that would otherwise trouble their approach.

I think seeing in CM nights is too easy. Adding fog etc, makes for a closer approximation.

I liked that account of the ambush in gas masks. The "enemy" appeared to have standing there all along in the mind's misperception. That is what night does. Seen things disappear in the same way. Dawn often reveals numerous intruders as stumps, bushes, and rocks. The eyes make them appear and disappear. It is the action of the failure of central vision and the success of the perpherial, off center parts of retna. My wife has macular degeneration that has done that for her without the dark. What seeing she does is perpherial. A very hit or miss proposition.

I am obviously waiting for a PBEM turn to show up.

[ 08-21-2001: Message edited by: Bobbaro ]

[olandt]

The thing I forgot to ass was the use of flashlights. It usually helps to NOT use them except on the darkest of nights (or if you're night blind). The light prevents being able to see well beyond the illuminated area and therefor doesn't allow you to see the "bigger picture". Someone else was asking how long it takes for eyes to adjust. In general, at lest a half hour. Our eyes evolved to adjust to light levels over the time it takes for night to fall, ie rather slowly. So going from a bright room to pretty dark takes at least a half hour to fully change.

[David Aitken]

That would explain why on my 'night exercises' I didn't have much trouble seeing. It was light when we arrived and gradually got dark.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Play a CM night scenario with Franko's True Combat rules and you will likely have a laugh out loud good time, even against the AI. The first time you "+" to a unit that has run into some woods from enemy (or friendly, at night) fire, and you can't even tell which way they're facing, you will begin to get a taste of what it must have been like for all of us who have never experienced it in real life.

It is hilarious to move cautiously along and then, finally, discover that you have made your way right back to the jump off point for your attack.

[lcm1947]

Well now, that may be why I couldn't see. I didn't give it a full 30 minutes so maybe I was right after all? You guys may be eating crow after all. Just kidding of course.

[Banshee]

Having played paintball several times at night I was amazed to see the clarity that one could see with a full moon out, I was able to see far across a valley floor with ease and spot movement. Where it gets hairy is not open spaces but somewhere with shade. The shade has no gradient at night so its impossible to see into unless someone was stupid and backlighted themselves. I also played a couple times where someone hauled out a big sun tower thingy they use in movies. That caused really wierd shadows as well, and the best strategy not to get shot was just not moving if at all possible. Interestingly for me anyways was the lack of friendly fire.. but maybe that was caused by familiarity with the terrain.

[Johnny D.]

From hunting experience, I can say fog, clouds, and full moon make three hugest differences at night. I hunt in the bluffs of south-east Minnesota and the north woods. On clear night with full moon I can see my shadow walking, in the field and in the woods under a broken canopy. I can see camp well, well over 100 yards. When the clouds roll in it is much more difficult hiking up the hills. The moon can make the difference between seeing that fallen branch before, or hearing it after you step on it. When its foggy hiking is almost dangerous, it is with a shotgun. I couldn't see anything within 10 yards (there was cloud cover as well), but once I entered the woods, max visiability - 6ft. and that was only the big trees (8 in. or over). I was tripping every 50 ft. and making a lot of noise. Flashlights are last thing you want to use if you don't have to. My dad and I were hiking up another hill and he had to take the flashlight out to find the trail. Well that messed up our night vision enough to force us to use it on and off up the whole hill.

I'm making a map of the farm hopefully it will be goog enough to post, then you can see what I mean by hill. To play it will be a bear or real fun.

[David Aitken]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Banshee wrote:

That caused really wierd shadows as well, and the best strategy not to get shot was just not moving if at all possible.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Aha! I'm sure this has been thought about and discussed at great length by people that have much more experience than me, but I've developed my own theories about what makes good camouflage. This fits in less with my military interests and more with my general interest in human perception and the like.

• I regard the best mode of camouflage, as you suggest, is keeping still. You can look at something at a distance and have no idea what it is. On occasion I've woken up in the morning and seen something in my room that I must have put there, but I've no idea what it is. If you move in relation to it, or if it moves in relation to you, you have much more information with which to decide what you're looking at.

• Being the same colour as your background is not the best way to fool the enemy. It might possibly make you less noticeable (assuming you are always against the same colour of background), but once spotted, a self-coloured or regularly-coloured object is easily identifiable. The best camouflage colour is a contrast, to break up your outline, so that even if someone is looking straight at you, they won't necessarily be able to make out your shape and size. One of my friends has a spaniel which is black and white like a cow, and when lying on a dark carpet its outline is so broken up that from a distance I'd have no idea what it was.

Coming back to the original subject, in the dark, if you're wearing camouflaged clothes with a simple leaf pattern, you may tone in with your background, but in low light it makes no difference whether you're wearing green or orange. If you were to wear large patches of black and white, someone looking straight at you in the dark from a couple of metres away wouldn't be able to work out what they're seeing. In the dark a person appears as a dark shadow, so if they had big white blotches the shadow would be broken up and they'd be unidentifiable.

It does, of course, depend on the kind of camouflage you want. You can try to avoid being spotted, or assuming you will be spotted, you can try to avoid letting the enemy get a good shot at you. Staying still or toning in with your background prevents spotting, whereas breaking up your outline may make you more visible, but less identifiable and targetable.

Can you tell I like this subject?