Night Advantage

[bowen42]

I was just wondering, with such superior night fighting capabilities, why would the U.S. or Brits ever attack during the day, would'nt they always have the advantage at night and their own troops be much less suseptable to casualties?

[souldierz]

Well in theory yes and I'm sure the Allied forces would and are taking full advantage of night time conducting raids and assaults and all kinds of operations.At night in some cases all they need to do is point a laser at the target and instantaneously everyone knows where to shoot including gunships, no need to yell out the position.

But from some stories some soldiers say the NVGs are a pain in the ass and could be better.Maybe there's some soldiers on these forums with experience that could answer that question with some good facts on the advatages and disadvantages the Forces must deal with at night.

[meade95]

American forces without a doubt 'own the night' so to speak....and certainly do look to use night operations as often as possible.

CMSF does a pretty good job of simulating this reality as I find it much easier to keep casulty figures lower during night time scenarios / compared to day time.

[hcrof]

I would have thought that 24 hour operations are more important than pure night time assaults. Why let the enemy recover during the day?

I think both eastern and western thinkers believe that if you can push the tempo of operations fast enough, someone is going to break. And with decent equipment and training it will be the enemy that does so.

I believe that in an Afghan situation, night raids would be the way to go though.

[Secondbrooks]

Well in theory yes and I'm sure the Allied forces would and are taking full advantage of night time conducting raids and assaults and all kinds of operations.At night in some cases all they need to do is point a laser at the target and instantaneously everyone knows where to shoot including gunships, no need to yell out the position.

But from some stories some soldiers say the NVGs are a pain in the ass and could be better.Maybe there's some soldiers on these forums with experience that could answer that question with some good facts on the advatages and disadvantages the Forces must deal with at night.

Cloudy night already can be enough to give almost zero advantage from them based on my experiences and what i've read and hear. Blackness with some shapes and shades turns just to greenness with some shapes and shades, then "ooopps i'm falling down from cliff". Well i didn't see much reason to use NVGs much. They are either not much better to bother (enough light to see decently, or not enough for NVGs to give anything. If there was snow i could see enough well even at cloudy nights), sometimes it was just laziness and most of all i had thermal-optics next to me when i needed really to see something

Yeah gear i mostly used wasn't most modern. Some early-middle 90s stuff. No attachments to head, so it was held as binoculars. Some drivers had more modern one in testing which could be attached to head and offered tube for one eye only. They were somewhat happy to have those, but tunnel vision and problems with distance estimation were downfalls. Those were put into test just before i finished my service so i didnt' have opportunity to test those. I don't know did drivers use "war-lights" which offers small amount of light to see bit better which then again boosts NVG's abilities.

Best NVG-stuff i had were hand held thermals. I mean i actually could lead my use of fire by my gunner during nights. With typical NVGs i saw few hundred meters of pure greeness with some shades, with thermals i did see opfor tanks in 1 kilometer clearly.

But yeah, forexample in urban setting (in darkened barracks ) NVGs were pretty nice. Mostly problems in field were that we might have had one open sector to which ATGM was pointing with it's thermals, and other directions were cowered with forest. My place of service has big deal with it: If there was snow it gave enough ability to see with bare eyes and binocs, during summers sun might be on sky 24/7. No problems there. Snow was on ground for 6 months. early falls and late springs with cloudy nights did offer major problems to see with bare eye (but it wasn't that rosy with NVGs either). Lots of factors there, ofcourse size and position of moon is one too. Plus we didn't do as forexample Russians are/were expected to do that they use spotlights at sky which then mirrors to ground and offers enough lumination for their NVGs.

So some sort of experiences i had with them, which are mostly from one role as ATGM SL. So for me they had limited use, at nights i liked to double-check ATGM's firing sector with them when scouting for it's next firing position. I'm sure current NVGs which are in service are much better.

EDIT: As i was part of jaegerplatoons (=rifleplatoons) during NCO-course they used flares etc when they were issued ones (not too often) and those were great, and it looked funky when such slowly travels over trees and throws shadows in creepy fashion. Ofcourse their use is limited for enemy contacts so they offer great visibility boost in limited situations and one needs lots of them, one "pipe" (something like 5x30cm pipe or larger ones) lasted merely 30-60 seconds. Flaregun's flares much less. Never saw what kind flares mortars have. But lack of those is major reason why i don't see reason to play night-time battles at least as or against Syrians if expecting some realistic(-ish) out of it.

[Clavicula_Nox]

I would have thought that 24 hour operations are more important than pure night time assaults. Why let the enemy recover during the day?

I think both eastern and western thinkers believe that if you can push the tempo of operations fast enough, someone is going to break. And with decent equipment and training it will be the enemy that does so.

I believe that in an Afghan situation, night raids would be the way to go though.

This is it.

We maintain a 24 hour op tempo in theatre. Due to training and technology, we can fight better at night. That doesn't mean we should only fight at night.

[souldierz]

Secondbrooks thanks for that insight on your experiences with NVGs.

Id love to get my hands on some thermals just to look at the world through them,must be a cool little feeling of excitement when your about to whip those bad boys out.I wonder what other kind of "visions" are in the makings and could be applied in today's world.

As for the game,you brought up a good point.I would love to see flares in game somehow for night battles.Maybe as an option for artillery or maybe when a squad comes under fire or spots the enemy they can automatically pop a flare up in the enemy direction.Flares could be different colors also.

Just dreaming but it would be a cool feature.

[Secondbrooks]

Secondbrooks thanks for that insight on your experiences with NVGs.

Id love to get my hands on some thermals just to look at the world through them,must be a cool little feeling of excitement when your about to whip those bad boys out.I wonder what other kind of "visions" are in the makings and could be applied in today's world.

As for the game,you brought up a good point.I would love to see flares in game somehow for night battles.Maybe as an option for artillery or maybe when a squad comes under fire or spots the enemy they can automatically pop a flare up in the enemy direction.Flares could be different colors also.

Just dreaming but it would be a cool feature.

I've seen just armors to halt, wait for a minute of two and start moving again as laser-missile hits their laser-receiver and tank crew gets informed they just got hit and they need to take break. Everyone lives happily ever after. I don't wish to pretend that i'm some sort of combat veteran.

Aside of common NVGs and thermals, there's also UV-specter which is being used. I don't know is it used in any other form than in flying vehicles for recon porpuses. Basically it's good in sense that it shows things in different color. Camo-net's color and pattern might seem to fit well in terrain for normal vision's wavelenght, but in UV-spectre it might stand out like sore thumb. So generally it means that camo-nets and paints needs to be researched and developed with bit more thought... Or increasing use of natural materials to camo stuff.