Do Thermal and Night Optics Have a Role in Home Defense?

silicosys4 said:

Your house in the dark is not the same as a battlefield. Positive ID is a must. Let me shine 1000 lumens in your eyes in the dark and then tell me that isn't just as or more effective than thermal imaging.

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The fatal assumption here is that you assume your 1000 lumens is going to blind your opposition before the opposition shoots the 1000 lumen source (you). It isn't like with 1000 lumens, they won't see you coming, LOL.

Double Naught Spy said:

The fatal assumption here is that you assume your 1000 lumens is going to blind your opposition before the opposition shoots the 1000 lumen source (you). It isn't like with 1000 lumens, they won't see you coming, LOL.

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Sure thing.

silicosys4 said:

Sure thing.

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Back when Thunder Ranch was in Texas, the Terminator was the shoot house. Clint had an employee (Tam, IIFC?) from Vietnam that would play the bad guy in FoF. The goal was to deal with the bad guy in the house. The only thing is that Tam almost never lost except against multi-person teamsand even then he didn't always lose. He shot light sources which means he could shoot the good guys even when they weren't shining a light directly at him. He wasn't concerned with fratricide of a family member. He didn't care if there were "innocents" in the area. All the people hunting him had to take these things into account while hunting him, however.

Jeff White said:

Try it sometime and see how fast you lose your night vision. You have to employ it correctly. Yes if you walk down the hall with your light on you are a target. If you use the light in bursts and move as you light it up it’s a force multiplier. Read the stickied thread on low light for more tips on how to use white light.

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Been there and done that. You do have to do it correctly....on both side of the light. The key point here is that having the light doesn't necessarily give you all the advantages.

I would much rather go against a person with a flashlight if I was using thermal than the other way around, the dichotomy presented. They can use all the smart light management that they want to use and I will just watch them run around flicking their lights on and off trying to find me, right?

1000 lumens isn't going to blind thermal, which means I can see just fine.

Double Naught Spy said:

Back when Thunder Ranch was in Texas, the Terminator was the shoot house. Clint had an employee (Tam, IIFC?) from Vietnam that would play the bad guy in FoF. The goal was to deal with the bad guy in the house. The only thing is that Tam almost never lost except against multi-person teamsand even then he didn't always lose. He shot light sources which means he could shoot the good guys even when they weren't shining a light directly at him. He wasn't concerned with fratricide of a family member. He didn't care if there were "innocents" in the area. All the people hunting him had to take these things into account while hunting him, however.



Been there and done that. You do have to do it correctly....on both side of the light. The key point here is that having the light doesn't necessarily give you all the advantages.

I would much rather go against a person with a flashlight if I was using thermal than the other way around, the dichotomy presented. They can use all the smart light management that they want to use and I will just watch them run around flicking their lights on and off trying to find me, right?

1000 lumens isn't going to blind thermal, which means I can see just fine.

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Ok.
If the bad guys i'm facing are using thermal, I have bigger issues than the average home invasion.
Burglars be using much thermal these days?

JDeere said:

SD situation you need to KIS as your mind will be focused on the threat and not gearing up to use NV...

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I can see that but I have never needed to defend myself at home, mostly the others that share the place with me, everything likes the way chicken tastes. I suppose HD is an even broader topic than SD and roles would vary as much as homes do, thats a lot.

An awful lot of such devices cannot be focused @ that short of a range( bedroom to front door) & have a limited field of veiw. Seems like it would make your response much more complex & awkward. Keep it simple. If it's too dark to see, the invader can't see either.

White light really isn't as much of a blinder as one might think, especially indoors. There's going to be so much splash off the walls, ceiling, and floor that everything, including the person holding the light will be lit up. This is easily testable at home with a flashlight.

The obvious reaction to that will be to turn the light off in which case both parties night vision will be significantly impaired although the recipient of the thousand lumens will be more so.

The catch is that once a potential threat is identified its not a good idea to turn the light off.

Flashlights and weapon lights are great but tactically just flip the light switch. If something goes wrong like me getting shot, dropping my cell phone, or physically going hands on with the subject I really don't want to be dealing with that in the dark if I can help it.

Kleanbore said:

We have those--timed lED candles

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I feel like command detonated or trip wire IED candles would make for having to replace the interior and home furnishings less often.

shafter said:

White light really isn't as much of a blinder as one might think, especially indoors. There's going to be so much splash off the walls, ceiling, and floor that everything, including the person holding the light will be lit up. This is easily testable at home with a flashlight.

The obvious reaction to that will be to turn the light off in which case both parties night vision will be significantly impaired although the recipient of the thousand lumens will be more so.

The catch is that once a potential threat is identified its not a good idea to turn the light off.

Flashlights and weapon lights are great but tactically just flip the light switch. If something goes wrong like me getting shot, dropping my cell phone, or physically going hands on with the subject I really don't want to be dealing with that in the dark if I can help it.

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White light is absolutely a blinder. I have a 500 and 1k lumen light. Take either of those, go into an inside room with a mirror and no windows, turn the lights off, aim your light at the mirror, and look into the mirror as you turn on your light. Let us know how quickly your vision returns. See how easily you can aim at your own weapon light, how easily you acquire a confident sight picture. See how visible the person behind the light even is

silicosys4 said:

White light is absolutely a blinder. I have a 500 and 1k lumen light. Take either of those, go into an inside room with a mirror and no windows, turn the lights off, aim your light at the mirror, and look into the mirror as you turn on your light. Let us know how quickly your vision returns. See how easily you can aim at your own weapon light, how easily you acquire a confident sight picture. See how visible the person behind the light even is

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I'm well aware. I teach these topics to people who actually go into harms way. Sure if you turn the light into someone's eyes and then turn it off their night vision will be ruined but so will yours. If the light stays on then all they have to do is squint, and put a hand up to shield their eyes. The bad guy doesn't need a sight picture. He's just going to point and shoot and at close range he'll probably hit something.

It's very different outdoors where there is nothing for the light to splash off of.

shafter said:

I'm well aware. I teach these topics to people who actually go into harms way. Sure if you turn the light into someone's eyes and then turn it off their night vision will be ruined but so will yours. If the light stays on then all they have to do is squint, and put a hand up to shield their eyes. The bad guy doesn't need a sight picture. He's just going to point and shoot and at close range he'll probably hit something.

It's very different outdoors where there is nothing for the light to splash off of.

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Do you assume I'm going to be doing nothing except pointing my light at something? What do you suppose I'm doing as the bad guy is squinting and putting his hand up to shield his eyes?

This is like a fantasy situation. No one is wandering around pitch black buildings with no lights. It's not a thing. There's either enough ambient light where no lights are needed or the bad guy is going to be using a light to navigate your home if be doesn't turn on the lights himself which I've seen done.

Because bad actors would never try to take advantage of a brownout or natural diaster.....

This topic is like trying to pick up one piece of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and figure out what the puzzle is with no other context than that one piece.

I don't have night sights or Optics or thermals or any of that on any of my guns mostly because I can't afford it.

My apartment is 30 ft long. Somebody already said it but I went to Walmart and got a couple of strings of White Christmas lights and a strung them all the way down one side of the apartment from one end of the other.

I make sure my doors and windows are locked and I mostly use them to navigate my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

In reality it comes down to “your house, your rules”. Just don’t whine if your choices don’t work out.

Jeff White said:

So how many of us are going to face an opponent who is equipped with the latest generation thermal imaging in CONUS? If that is the threat you are preparing for you are preparing to fight a government agency.

What’s a current generation set of goggles cost today? What kind of sighting equipment do you need on your firearm to aim while looking through thermal? What does that cost?

My wife’s sampler says everything that needs to be said about this. The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

No one is inadequately equipped if they don’t have thermal imaging capabilities. I honestly don’t see a good cost/benefit ratio for the average person looking to defend their home.

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I live in a borderless (and increasing lawlessness) Arizona county on a remote, retired horse ranch, very close to designated wilderness areas. I don't have IR, but I do have IR compatible red dots for ARs and shotguns. I have thermal for outdoors, and I'm going to add another thermal that has longer battery life and an identifying range at ~300 yards, our stables are about 100 yards from home. I could have definitely used a thermal last week to pick up on a heat signature (daytime) in mesquite (we also have very large 4 legged predators). For home defense and for those who have draperies, table cloths, shower curtains et al, thermal will pick up heat signatures that a white light can't. I'm also reading that there's an increase in the number of adversaries who illegally enter residences/businesses. I learned decades ago to train for the 5%, not the averages, we have ambient night lighting inside and a pair of German Shepherds, we've experienced attempted entries during the last couple of years, and I've had to fall back on decades old military/LE training and experiences (experiential knowledge), but that's a different story...I don't assume there will be electricity on should there be an attempt to gain entry. (long sentence)

For inside, I train with high lumens flashlight (one hand) and WML (one hand) together, an issue with laser/light combos is after the first shot, the muzzle blast will create home dust and that dust will illuminate the laser path to the weapon. During a home invasion, I doubt there's enough time for IR or thermal to boot up, when things go bad, they go bad extremely fast, but, with proper training, the human brain can multitask very efficiently.

FWIW, I remember a speech from 2008 about having a trained civilian army as large and well-equipped as our standing Army. Why? Where would recruits come from? I see a lot of positives for currently owning quality thermal/IR equipment.

One of the major HD issues that is always there is in target identification, in being absolutely sure of what is or is not a "target."

One of the significant differences in currently available NV/Thermal is in just how clear a target image is presented. It that blob out there a pig, a big, dog, or a crouching bad guy, or the neighbor's kind doing something dumb?

There's also the issue of situational awareness. Most of the NV/Thermal wind up giving you a fairly distinct "cone of awareness" (aka "field of view") that can be as narrow and tight as a high-power scope. Let's be generous and presume a 30° angle of view. As wide as that is, it's only 1/6 of the 180° to your "front." Who else is out there? Neighbor's cow, troop of coyotes, den of foxes, drunk person tripped over their own shoe?

We are talking about pointing a deadly weapon at 'something' and making a shoot/don't shoot decision. One you are likely going to have to defend in the stark artificiality of a courtroom.

I'm not sure there is a single good answer to this.

And, I have a distinct bias in that my training with such equipment involved being one of a dozen similarly-fitted people, and with middling certain knowledge about just what, and just who, was "that way." Even then, there was considerable quantities of "Let's double check that report." And that was for a squad's sector of a company front. Which does not scale well to a 2200sf house on a 9600 sf lot.

Your mileage is likely to vary.

Gary H said:

I never considered helmet mounted optics, because my chief concern is bang in the night quick response, but with the advent of more affordable rifle mounted smaller thermal and night optics, are such optics a reasonable addition to SBR, or PCCs for home defense?

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Home invasion - likely not. Home defense, i.e. roving mob - I think it very well might have a role there.

I put my trust in my dogs more than thermal they are on alert if they think they heard something outside.

Gary H said:

I never considered helmet mounted optics, because my chief concern is bang in the night quick response, but with the advent of more affordable rifle mounted smaller thermal and night optics, are such optics a reasonable addition to SBR, or PCCs for home defense?

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I'm going to go with "no" based on cost, bulk, weight, and most tactical considerations. IMO a mounted white light is a much better choice, since these encounters are generally indoors and at close range, and generally happen very quickly- not to mention the tactical necessity of identifying your target- both to insure that someone doesn't get shot who should not need to be shot (like a sleepwalking relative, drunk neighbor, house pet, etc.) and also to correctly assess the level of threat, if any. Also, night vision, IR lasers, thermals, etc. must be turned on to be used- another task which must be completed that the defender may forget to do or just not have time to do. Of course, if I lived on a sprawling ranch in South Tejas that is a primary thoroughfare for large amounts of illegals of every type, I would likely be praising the idea of not only maintaining such capability "at the ready", but to add additional items like body armor, eye/ear protection, redundant communications, and so on. When deployed to war zones, we always had our sidearms on us, and we slept with our fully kitted M4's and all of the other mentioned items within arms reach even when sleeping on a "secured" US base. Of course, in a war zone, we are vulnerable to things like indirect fire, insider attacks (erroneously called green on blue), suicide bombers, and even coordinated ground attacks by large amounts of enemy forces on the facility. While this level of craziness is way more intense compared to nearly any "typical" home defense scenario in a civilized country, there is an overlap with living in a conflict zone and dealing with the threat of things like the South Tejas scenario previously mentioned, and possibly in a situation of elevated civil unrest (such as any number of wrong time/wrong place conflicts during the summer of 2020).

Have you tried to ID someone with thermal or infrared?

Zerodefect said:

Have you tried to ID someone with thermal or infrared?

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I imagine the idea is that if they're shooting at you, or at someone else who you don't want shot, you're not terribly focused on identifying them in that moment.