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Military flash lights

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Hoping this isn't too ot for ot...

Why do military flash lights have green and red filters for them?

I know that the red is used in night but don't actually know the reason why?

Cheers.

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Red light is much less visible at night, and will not illuminate the whole scene. And it will not blind your eye, so you can use light to have a look at an map for example, and still see something in the dark.

For green filters i`m not sure to be honest.

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On my old flash light, theres a drop down metal plate that can partly cover the light. Thats pretty old school though.

Green filter is better than red for map reading in my experience.

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When I was in before, a lot of our Germany maps had red information on them, and you couldn't see it with a red filter. So if you needed to look at them in the dark, you could use green, and still make out woods well enough. Fortunately for me, I was in a TOC that was completely blacked out most of the time, so we had normal lights, even in the field.

I think the best answer is the first one, the red filter is much less visible at night, especially from a distance. Makes you less likely to give away your position.

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I repeat what has been said already:

Red and green reduces night vision less than bright light. Still advisable to keep another eye closed or covered. In very lowlight conditions it takes minutes for eyes to recover from red light.

I think i've heard that in ww2 green light was found out to be better for night vision forexample in airplanes, however nowdays ever lamp (expect military models) seems to have only red lens. So i'm not sure is it really so. Maybe they ment easiness of map reading?

Various color lens can be used to get better picture out of map. For example fields and elevation lines marked on orange/red are quite hard to see in map with red. That's with my maps. as forest is marked white (as land scape is covered with forest, no need to waste ink), and there are just few greenish colors, such as open wet marshes.

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Thanks guys, pretty much answers my question but if anyone has any extra random info then please post.

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From the Nextorch website

Quote[/b] ]

Majority of animals see poorly in red color spectrum, which hunters should take advantage of.

Green beam appears brighter at night without your eyes having to readjust. Many hunters believe green beam will not scare animals in the woods.

Blood becomes more distinct against foliage, many hunters use blue beam to track wounded animals.

Tamdaa!

If you're looking for a good flashlight I can recommend Wolf-eyes for sheer candle power, or Nextorch with a Lumens Factory bulb for uber-customisability.

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