[The first in a series on Tactical Night-Vision
that will take us from nautical warfare in WWII, thru optical anatomy and capabilities,
and wind up with deliberate night-vision training from indigenous cultures.]Mark Opens with Four Obvious Statements
One-Awareness is the key to survival.
Two-The key to awareness is willful directed use of the senses.
Three-The primary sense in the curious biped called humans is sight.
Four-Human sight does not operate at optimum capacity under low light conditions.
But…we can use a series of tactical hacks to improve low-light acuity.
Let’s delve into a bit of wisdom from Captain Peter Dickens, D.S.O., M.B.E., D.S.C., of Britain’s Royal Navy.
Captain Dickens commanded an MTB [Motor Torpedo-Boat] during WWII. MTBs were small craft [70 footers] and mighty primitive…no radar, and, get this, no voice-radio. These wee boats were essentially electronically blind and had to rely on good eyes and unflagging watch-discipline.
These boats were easy prey for the larger quarry they stalked, and to increase their advantage [if such small and meagerly supplied craft can be said to gain such advantage] they tended towards being “midnight raiders.” That is, worked under cover of darkness.
It is just these disadvantaged conditions that make Captain Dickens’ remarks regarding night-vision so valuable. These crews NEEDED these hacks, where to most of us, improving night vision is a bit of survival trivia. [If we’re fortunate.]
All of the following quotes are taken from the memoir of his MTB days, Night Action.
“I had already learned
that much could be done to augment the natural keenness of healthy young eyes.
First one had to want to see, to bore into the darkness and extract what it
strove to hide.”Ponder that. Ponder it hard. Look around you, perhaps look at yourself. Look how many eyes are cast down seeing no more than a 2 ½” by 5 ½” screen. Day or night, we have to want to see to, well, see.
Personal Anecdote: I have had the privilege to teach Boot Camps and to enjoy fellowship alongside some mighty squared away folks. Folks who just put in hours preaching the gospel of situational awareness.
And…I have enjoyed the not uncommon experience of standing in lines with them at airports, sitting at restaurants with them and like quotidian enterprises and see these “Always be ready!” cadre eyes tunneled to the 2 ½” by 5 ½” screen meagerness that ain’t the real world around us.
Back to Captain Dickens.
“[On peering into the dark and wanting to see] that was different enough from ordinary life in which one waits for ordinary objects to swim into one’s ken, and makes little attempt to see in the dark at all without a light. With us lights were anathema; adaptation of our eyes to the dark, to a condition of really being able to see, took at least twenty minutes. Then, the pupils wide, an errant gleam could destroy night vision for a possibly vital minute and evoke cries of, “Switch off that bloody light!’”
I repeat the wise captain’s advice, nocturnal adaptation takes times, 20-40 minutes. It can be destroyed with one glare of light. Light-discipline is vital.
Consider This…
Many have never in their entire lives experienced true night-vision because of urban living, night-lights, or not permitting light-pollution beyond the 20-40-minute range.
Again, many have zero idea of what it is possible to see in low-light conditions.
Personal Anecdote: I have done more than a few nighttime floats on larger water sources away from light pollution to observe sundry meteor showers. Me and my stalwart companions will undergo the “light-pollution will kybosh the experience” talk.
And yet, invariably in various kayaks we can see that ubiquitous 2 ½” by 5 ½” screen flashing here and there like digital fireflies as visual acuity is destroyed to look up some fact about the meteor shower to be observed. As if the fact that ruined night-vision could ever trump the actuality of seeing even the faintest aspects of the reality.
Back to the Captain.
“Fourthly one had to be aware of the blind spot at the eye’s center, whereby an object was detected slightly to one side and to look straight at it caused it to disappear.”
Valuable info, and…there are some indigenous methods to build this “indirect-gaze” from indigenous traditions in part three of this series.
“Fifthly one had to know from experience what to expect, nothing more than the faintest break in the horizon’s often indeterminate continuity; if it showed up more clearly than that one had not seen it at the earliest moment and consequently failed.”
Take another moment to ponder that situational maxim. If, if , if the first time we notice a threat, or in lovely moments, the first time we notice joy in another it is under full detail, say the manufacturer’s tag on the backpack of a random shooter or the wrinkles in the smile of a loved one… “if it showed up more clearly than that one had not seen it at the earliest moment and consequently failed.”
Another lesson from Captain Dickens.
“Having studied the art and practiced it assiduously I thought I was pretty good, and so it was with a mixture of shame and confusion that I heard Mac’s cry, ‘Enemy in sight!’
“For God’s sake,” I croaked. “Where?”
“Starboard beam.”
“There they were like pikestaffs, sore thumbs or what you will, and should have been seen at least ten minutes earlier; but I had been watching in the obvious though wrong direction, ahead. Clearly the technique of looking out demanded yet another discipline, ignore no section of the horizon; Mac made no mistake, and ignominiously for the rest of us reported the enemy to starboard from his position on the port wing. In the darkness I thought the enemy was a fat convoy; of course, I did, one usually sees what one expects and rarely what one does not. That the unexpected is to be expected in war should be obvious, even if it were not emphasized in every treatise on the subject; so why does it, like all worthwhile lessons, have to be learned the hard way?”
A brilliant mea culpa from Captain Dickens. We often tunnel and only see what we are looking for, and that’s even if we are being scrupulous about seeing, as Captain Dickens was. If he missed seeing something under the stress and duress of “seeing means life or death” just what are we not seeing by assuming, we’ll notice what’s worthy of being seen when it comes along?
Tunneling our vision, whether on the horizon in the North Sea or on our 2 ½” by 5 ½” screens means we are likely to miss much.
Relying on others will not always save us either. Captain Dickens had the good fortune to have Mac save the day.
Captain Dickens’ learned his lesson and attempts to convey that message to us.
Will we learn it?
Here’s to learning it the easy way and not the hard way.
[Parts 2 & 3 in the pipeline.]
[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW Subscription Service.]
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