Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s 2-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, also known as the Lancer Brigade, recently posted footage of soldiers using the new Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binoculars on their social media, where over 1 million users watched soldiers firing mortars and machine guns in the eerie white glow.
On Facebook, many people commented that the footage reminded them of Halo 3: ODST or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.
“Is this video a real image? It’s like the movie Tron,” one commenter suggested.
Lt. Blake Gaughan from the 1-17th Infantry told The News Tribune the white outline is just one of many settings to choose from on the new ENVG’s.
The new goggles have white phosphorus, an enhanced version of night vision. Gaughan said the white tint, versus the traditional green tinted night vision, is better for distinguishing distance and depth perception at night.
In the video, you can see soldiers using the thermal outline mode which takes hot objects and outlines them in orange. According to Gaughan, that makes enemies easier to identify in the field.
The goggles are capable of being integrated with another new piece of equipment — the Family of Weapons Sights-Individual — which can be mounted on a weapon so soldiers can look around corners without being directly behind their weapon.
The Lancer Brigade is the first unit on JBLM to use the ENVG’s, although they’ve been in use by other Army units for about two years, according to a spokesperson for Lancer Brigade.
Gaughan said while some commenters suggested the goggle’s could be thwarted with bright light, the system also works during the day, unlike the previous system the unit used.
“These goggles have different intensity functions so you can adjust the brightness on them, and there’s also an auto adjust function,” Gaughan said. “So, even in bright daylight you can still look through these goggles, and you won’t have the effect of more ambient light coming through the goggles. So they’re good from almost pitch black to even daytime operations.”
