[Milsurplus] Amazing Electronics of WWII - Night Vision

[Rob Flory]

Hue put out a list that included night vision equipment as a possible
candidate.

In my (biased) opinion, the equipment had reached the "useful but not yet
amazing" stage by the end of the war.  The reason that it was not yet
amazing was that it was big and clunky and not that sensitive, requiring
active illumination with near infrared sources. The heart of the receiving
devices was the 1p25 image converter tube.

The widest use was in signaling between Navy ships. (US/C-3 receiver US/X-*
transmitters)  The transmitters were also used in conjunction with
automatic keyers for IFF within task groups with a 2-letter code
identifying a ship.  A limit to that use was that not all ships were
equipped with the gear yet, some having it installed in forward areas like
Ulithi.  A carbine-mounted scope hit combat at Okinawa with a 75-yard
effective range limited by the power of the spotlight.

Some early devices that used radiation to excite the sensitive portion of
the device may have killed more sailors than it saved.   (US/AM receiver)

Tech. info at http://home.earthlink.net/~robandpj/id14.html
and
http://home.earthlink.net/~robandpj/id13.html
and
http://www.virhistory.com/navy/flory/id24.html

There is a government report with a whole lot more info out there that I
will have to dig up later.

RF
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