Don't Let the fog of war blind your optics!
U.S. Army forces in order to "own the night" and
see the enemy first in the daytime employ many, many optics. This can be a bad
thing if the reflections off sun, wind, dust goggles give away your armored
vehicle as we see happen at NTC. Optics must be covered
when not in use and fitted with Anti-Reflection Devicles (ARDs) when in use. Laser outer lens must
be fitted to prevent enemy lasers from detecting a reflection and targeting
optics.
On
top of this, when looking through optics for hours at a time, the human eye's
moisture and body heat will fog up the eyepieces blocking use of these
see-the-enemy-first devices. A quick list of items that are effected by
fogging:
*
Eye glasses
* Binoculars
* Night Vision Goggles
* Night Vision Scopes
* Sun, Wind, Dust Goggles
* Field Protective Masks
* ATGM and vehicle Weapons Sights
Anti-fog
treatments exist but they have to be employed and easily accessible to the
already cluttered Soldier. If you look at the above picture of McNett SeaDrops
anti-fog drops you'll see its too big to attach to your helmet.
Its
obviously too big and not secure enough for combat operations. The bottle needs
to be at least 1/2 as large and in a secure pouchette.
A
small military-sized bottle of SeaDrops with molded eyelet for a dummy cord in
a small pouchette that can securely attach to the PASGT kevlar helmet
camouflage band or a belt would enable Soldiers to quickly defog coat their
optics and keep them functioning for hours at a time. A large, loose bottle of
anti-fog drops will get lost in the shuffle of bewildering array of attachments
the current Soldier has to contend with.
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