Trickle-down theory...

A comment on another thread got me to thinking about this.

When the wife and I visited Carlsbad Caverns two years ago, all the park rangers were carrying their issue 3D MagLites. Not ONE of the many we spoke to had heard of SureFire or StreamLight, and all were amazed by my Stinger, 6P, and 6Z.

I find it interesting how some segments of government/industry embrace the latest/greatest- as the military has done with the SureFire MU system- and others are content to get by with older, traditional gear.

Perhaps it takes a major catalyst- such as the cave fighting in Afghanistan- to wake the bureaucrats up. I know that my agency began issuing Stingers only after a near-fatal incident due to the weak beam of a MagLite.

Or perhaps not. In Nam, the tunnel rats used that old weak-*** plastic angle head 2D light; and that thing is still general-issue to the non-specialized troops. A 6P, or something like it, would have saved a few lives that I know of. Sure, such was non-existent back then. But not now.

Any other thoughts/observations on this?

I believe that now some of the low end SF's are getting into the hands of some of the non-specialized troops or at least this was a "rumor" I was told. There was a time that the angle head light was superior to what was available at the hardware store. It seems from the outside that the military both leads as well as follows (sometimes well behind) when it comes to implementation of new technologies and products. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Hi Steve,
Having been part of the cannon-fodder in the South African Military for more than a few years, it will probably take the death of a big shot's son or daughter in a battle zone to wake up the bureaucrats.
Maybe the aforementioned bureaucrats won't and don't let their kids go near wars.....
Change takes time, unfortunately.
Stu

<<...I believe that some of the low-end SFs...>>

As an issue item?

I know that SFs are a popular gift around here for deploying national guard types.

<<It seems that the military both leads as well as follows...>>

Ain't THAT the truth! That miserable pig (M60 machine gun) is a prime example of the latter.

One of the things the military takes into consideration when outfitting troops is proven reliability. Older designs, such as the plastic anglehead flashlight, have been around for many years. You know exactly what to expect of it. Surefire, as good as their products are, is a relative upstart. If you outfit the troops with some hot new item which fails en masse in the field you'll have a lot of explaining to do. I recall hearing some anectotes lately about a certain Streamlight model not standing up well in Iraq.

[ QUOTE ]
nikon said:
One of the things the military takes into consideration when outfitting troops is proven reliability. Older designs, such as the plastic anglehead flashlight, have been around for many years. You know exactly what to expect of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, you can expect that the slide-switch on the military 2D anglelight is prone to bad contact and downright failure. It seems that the military could come up with a better design for a flashlight switch.

[ QUOTE ]
nikon said: I recall hearing some anectotes lately about a certain Streamlight model not standing up well in Iraq.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be the Scorpion...

I think it is important to note that it is not just having the light that matters - it is more important to know how, and when to use it. Giving everyone a G2Z withouth giving them even basic training could lead to accidents such as lighting yourself up (or worse - lighting up your friends).

The yu-Peu-tit Tribe are awesome fighters armed only with their "wy-peu-ta" battle wands - to the untrained observer these appear much like wooden toothpicks but I certainly wouldn't pick a fight with a yu-Peu-tite. I don't think it is appropriate to issue wy-peu-ta battle wands to our troops - they'd likely just chew them or something...

Al

<<...without even giving them basic training...>>

????????????

C'mon, Al. We're talking about a flashlight; not teaching the Rogers method with a Beretta.

We didn't have a problem with those angle-head POS's; when they worked.

And you're right, nikon; we knew exactly what to expect of it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsdown.gif Hence my use of it as an example of what NOT to buy.

The modern "tactical" lights are much brighter. I think perhaps brighter lights mean that they can be used in different ways to the angle-head POS's.

Those who are issues lights surely must have also had some training how to use them? Rolling that out to larger, less specialised fighting forces wouldn't be easy or quick.

Al

I would like to see real proof that the scorpion failed
over there.

show me the proof-where is the beef ?

I use to work at the dept for the blind and they issued blind folks with top of the line dectalk speech synths. Man, they were critized for doing this when much cheaper inferrior equipmnt existed on the market.

I guess you cant have it both ways?

This thread seems a good opportunity to roll out my "How I became a flashaholic" anecdote.

In 2001, I participated in a Simunitions exercise with my law enforcement agency. Simunitions are paint filled bullets fired from realistic guns. My partner and I were to "chase" a suspect into a dark house. The instructor asked if I had a flashlight. At the time, I didn't bring my agency issue Stinger to daytime training. The instructor handed me a dim plastic Eveready-style $1.99 flashlight. "Oh, great," I thought, "not even a Stinger."

With my gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, I attempted to slowly clear the dark front room from outside the doorway--a tactic that was taught to us. I was able to see an armed suspect and I ordered him to drop the shotgun and come out.

He dropped the gun, then slammed the door in my face. I opened the door and started clearing again. He slammed the door shut again from behind it. Again, I opened it (breaching charges would be nice). As I circled around the outside of the doorway with my flashlight and gun, Simunitions bullets flew out of a pitch black doorway on the opposite wall directly across the room from me. I took a round in my shoulder. I thought, "This is BS. I'm forced to stand here in the light with this piece of crap flashlight that just serves as an aiming point for bad guy #2 in the totally dark back room. He can see me but I can't see him." Of course, a fully charged Stinger probably would've worked. The instructors said we should have charged in to the room. Hey, if I want to commit suicide, I'll leave a goodbye note.

I began to take an interest in flashlights after that. I bought three expensive Surefires from a range safety officer and that caused a bit of a commotion there. "Oh, yeah, you're the guy who spent all money on the flashlights." Interestingly enough, Surefires are now de riguer by range safety officers, but not anybody else.

TO finish my story, the dectalk was converted from hardware to software and is also standard use today for making computers talk.