Headlamp on helmet of coalition soldier?

Just watched CNN, there was a scene where British or American soldiers did a raid in a house and one or two of them had a headlamp on their helmet.

Anyone know what brand they could be? The housing was black and I think I could see the headstrap over the helmet, though I'm not sure.

Velcro

Could have been any one of a number of brands. Nevertheless, I'm glad to see the troops have enough sense to use headlamps. In my opinion, the main lighting instrument is (should be) a headlamp, and not a handheld flashlight.

Velcro,

Brittish?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Al /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Sorry Al. What was I thinking? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

I'm not Scotch you know... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

I saw that too, but im not sure what it was either.
I also saw surefire lights on the rifles of the paratroopers that landed in the north. they were really muddy.

I saw the headlight. It was definatly on the helmet of a British trooper.

I believe I saw it on at least two people in the house search so it may be issue.

AL, check on this would you please? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'll pop over during my lunch break on Tuesday...

If the headlamps were gov't issue we could narrow it down easier, but I'm afraid it might have been a personal purchase in which case there are lots of possibilites...

Not knowing anything about these lights, I've got to ask: how is it turned on/off? It seems as though it would not be momentary-use oriented, since it is what it is, a headlamp. I personally wouldn't want a constant-burn "direct fire here" marker on my forehead while working in a hostile environment. Give me a handheld and the ability to move the light source away from my brain housing. Just a thought...

What you see on the helment of the US forces is a mounting bracket for night vision devices.

DRAX series IV NATO headlamps

Anyone know where there are pics of the nato headlamp?

NATO has some. Maybe AL could pop over to NATO and pick up some pictures.

How's that AL? A little closer then Iraq, and much safer. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[ QUOTE ]
ewick said:
Not knowing anything about these lights, I've got to ask: how is it turned on/off? It seems as though it would not be momentary-use oriented, since it is what it is, a headlamp. I personally wouldn't want a constant-burn "direct fire here" marker on my forehead while working in a hostile environment. Give me a handheld and the ability to move the light source away from my brain housing. Just a thought...

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to use a handheld light along with a rifle or machine gun, and not all countries are willing to spend the money that we do (for our SF/Rangers etc, at least) for the neat toys. These do have the obvious disadvantage of creating a very nice target though. They's be useful with an IR filter though.

Unicorn,

Like I said, I don't know anything about these lights. I'm not saying that a handheld is ALWAYS the best solution, but I am saying that mounting a light onto one's helmet might result in a serious loss of cabin pressure. But we're not talking about reading a map in the dark. We're talking about forces involved in room clearing applications. I agree with you about the awkward use of handhelds with long guns, but that's why manufacturers offer weaponlight mounts. It just seems as though having one's primary light source attached to his head could hurt more than help in this type of situation.

I agree, as I said it's a pretty obvious problem. Unfortunately some countries, the UK for example, have a much smaller budget than the US military. They tend to have less updated military equipment. There is no way that anyone, with the possible exception of the SAS or SBS that they will spend the money for a real weaponlight. We (US Army) don't even have them as general issue. The lowest level (least elite) unit that gets the light for their M4's are the Army Rangers.
As I said, maybe if they were using IR filters, and weapon mounted night vision scopes (and that the enemy didn't have NVG's) they'd be less dangerous to the operator.
They could be useful for other operations than room clearing though. I don't know if that's what they are being used for. They would be great for EPW searches, or searching wounded/dead enemy.
I wouldn't use one myself for any type of CQB though. You are right about that.

[ QUOTE ]
Unicorn said:
The lowest level (least elite)

[/ QUOTE ]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif


bewshy

Today in a german newspaper
I saw a picture of a british soldier
who has mounted a Mini Mag (!) with tape
at his gun ....

My EDC is more powerful than that ...

Cheers
Ralf

Actually the taped Maglite was just to make the german / french / russian believe that US and british troops are using outdated equipment - why do you think it would have been displayed in a german magazin in the first place ?

In reality the british headlamp is using very advanced technologies which René from Switzerland partly tried to explain a couple of months back. Let me try to find it back - oh here we go - while René only talked about the "battery-equivalent" used.

QUOTE: No, I'm never joking! My parents told me they earlier used some small round things they called batteries. But this was long before I was born. We then had a generation of excellent scientists here in our country which is midst the alps. Albert Einstein then also lived here but as far as I know he was not involved in this project. These physicists developed an extremly small nuclear power station which should be used instead of such batteries. After they found out that the risk was much too high they started working on a project they called fuel cell. Initially they used natural gas to produce energy but as we had to import this kind of gas they later changed to hydrogen.

We have a couple of watch manufacturers here (Omega, Tissot, Rolex, Swatch and some more) which were able to produce real tiny fuel cells so about 20 years ago our governement has completly forbidden to use batteries. Today we can buy these fuel cells everywhere in every shop in every size and with every kind of output voltage. So I'm always wondering what you are discussing about runtimes. Seems the batteries you still use are not quite state of the art (old technology from last century). My Minimag mods with a LS in it will continously run at least for 5 years without having to refill the fuel cell. ENDQUOTE

Actually the other parts of the headlamp are just as high-tec as well - it uses advanced photonic self-stimulating emitter phase-shift technology which result in very much reduced power consumption which together with the advanced power source provide a superior brightness coupled with extended runtime. Guess why they always trample over poor Iraqui Elite troops at night ? (Song "Blinded by the light" slowly phasing in). Somehow reminds me of the roman troops successfully invading the British islands 2000 years back only because they always started the attacks during tea-time when the pre-brits where sipping their teas ......

And possibly Al will have a hard time finding any decent data on this advanced head-lamp I just talked about - why - because its not a Surefire after all - so I fear Al might not try hard enough to find anything which then in the end might even frustrate him .....

And as always these are just my 2 €cents

Klaus