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Night Vision Passive Night vision?

Are the civilian nvd's passive?



Yes, unless using an illuminator or laser they will be passive... The best unit on The darkest night in the deepest woods will be limited by staying passive...going active with Illuminators and lasers are a must have when killing things in a target rich environment Illuminators can aslo get one killed on a two way range when going against one thats trained proper,simply they will follow your Illuminators/lasers home ......... The end......
 
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They are all passive. Just like your eyes. NODs anyway. That is what the tube does, it intensifies the image so you can see it. Passively, so the enemy doesn't.

Active refers to the sending out of signals, then receiving those signals back and interpreting them. Like radar, lidar, etc.

They aren't active in the sense that they require IR band frequencies to be generated in order to view images. On bad overcast nights, and particularly in conjunction with lower performance NODs, yeah, you may need an IR flashlight. Or red light --that works almost as good and doesn't stand out like white light would; any light will be visible by adversaries with NODs.

Usually when you discuss active IR, you generally are discussing security apparatus. Electronic security. It is common to use IR illuminators to make it so a CCD camera can see in the dark. Generally b/w. There are active IR motion detectors too, but most of them are passive just like the NODs.

Yeah, lasers and illuminators can be tricky. It was preferable for us to fall over shit and run into trees, vs. using any light, and in my unit, an AD with a laser was no different than an AD with a live round --field grade Art. 15. Yeah, a well trained force with NODs shouldn't be regarded any differently than our own forces. And they only need one set running to see your laser light show.

You can also use the laser, Class 3's and up (4's smoke 'em fast, permanent damage even with visible light) to blind your enemy without him knowing until too late, so it doubles as a non-lethal stealth tool as well. Provided enemy doesn't have the same capability and can see what you are trying to pull.

Contact those guys from TNVC on here, they know WAY more shit about it than anyone who just uses it --they live and eat that shit, let me tell you. And IMO, in the end, the best set on the market now (for the price) is the OMNI-7 hand select ITT Night Enforcer (factory, ISO 9001 clean room, etc. with specs so tough a lot don't pass). After a month of research, I went with those. I don't think you can get better than that, those can and do outperform the milspec OMNI-8's (I'm told --and the contract specs make sense to allude to that idea, it was loosened to prevent so many 14's being rejected). TNVC has 'em for a really good deal, they really took care of me. Get while gettin' is good, because OMNI-8 is the new contract. I reckon when they run out of the old contract, those will be the best you can get.

They have some new shit, the TCAD, a thermal laser with unique properties --the shooter can see the dot, but the target can't follow the beam back because it doesn't react with dust in the air. Though I suspect if he was within so many radians of the source, it may be visible. Still, ingenious. And the wavelength it operates on isn't visible with regular NODs.
 
Thanks for the info Strykervet and gents, I am just looking for some shtf NVD's, want to be able to shoot and not be seen beforehand by anyone. Looking hard at the goggles that a single can be dismounted from your head and mounted on the rifle with the PST scope.
 
The clip ons that work with scopes are different from the head sets. Those can go behind a reflex sight, but don't work too hot in front of scopes. There is a tool for $1600 that will make a PVS-14 work as a clip on, but I'm not so sure I'd go that route. Keep in mind that ITT has a better picture, but is only rated for 5.56 recoil. L3 tubes have decent images, but more recoil rating, up to 6.8SPC, .300BLK, maybe Grendel. My 14's are setup with a Larue QD mount fixed to them, and I can just unclip it from the helmet mount and pop it on behind the EOTech, also on a Laure mount (it lines them up just right).

The best way to use them is head mounted and using a laser. You just have to be conscious and judicious with firing that laser. Like mentioned, it has drawbacks. But so does putting your NODs on your weapon. I have the capability of going from one to the other, but most of the time I keep the PEQ on the weapon and the NODs on the helmet. Using all three together though on the rifle does make it much easier to zero the laser at long range, IMO, and just gives you more options, which can't hurt. I must admit, the whole time in the army, I never saw a 14 mounted to a weapon. We had dedicated NV and thermal scopes at the time, and clip ons were just becoming available, being tried out.

Helmets and mounts become another issue. Some suck BAD, others are just the tits. You can easily buy a substandard setup for just a little less than a phenomenal one (or even more than) so buyer beware.