Model Forum / General / Models / August 2007

I believe that these were infra-red searchlights. They shined IR light
that can't be seen by the naked eye, but worked like a searchlight for
the onboard IR sensors.

Don McIntyre
Clarksville, TN

    Actually I believe they did have night vision goggles that the
tank crew used in conjuction with the Xenon searchlights.  The
searchlight could be switched ( using a filter ) from a high power
visible ' white light ' to an IR beam.  The IR beam was invisible to
the naked eye.  That's where special IR binoculars used by the tank
crew were used to survey the battlefield illumnated by the IR light.
    Yeah I know ... you thought they were out there on the
battlefield using a 75 million candlepower searchlight at night.  Yup,
something like that would definately give away your position ... and
blind you for the rest of the night.  =]

Chris

Where the hell are all the old tankers?  

I was on an M-60A1 Rise Passive tank in Germany in the late 70'.  The
tactic was to use the IR in conjunction with our passive sights, which
picked up the IR as well   The white light was used only once or twice
the entire time I was in the unit. We used it in practice gunnery. One
tank would illuminate the target for a few seconds while the others
took it under fire, turn it off and move.  Trying to hit a light at
distance at night is tough enough.  In combat conditions suddenly
having a white light in your face would be a nightmare and blind you
as well. We never did it for real, so I am not sure about the efficacy
of this tactic, but it sounds good.

The comment about Vietnam is correct.  Note that the M48-A3's used in
Nam used the old white-only light and the newer (and larger) one as
well later in the war.  Not all tanks in your pictures from the war
will have searchlights for several reasons, not the least of which was
they were subject to destruction from artillery or small arms fire. I
do know there were cases where the searchlights were used in the
defense of fire bases.  

We used the passive sights several times, but mostly at night gunnery,
where a small fire was burning in a can with diesel in it in front of
the target, providing enough light to discern the target at 1000
meters or so. We also used them on a field maneuver once where we
ambushed an aggressor unit in a valley at close range.  The passive
sights worked well, but I will tell  you that night gunnery under
remotely real conditions was not easy. Note that Passive means the
ability to use available light to see in the dark, not heat per se.  I
never used them enough to decide whether they picked up any
frequencies of heat other than visible light generated by heat
sources.

Yes, we had night vision goggles, but we used them almost exclusively
for night security operations as we had passive sights on the tanks
with telescopic abilities.  We were border troops (2nd ACR), so we
also used them on border patrols and had a searchlight scope per tank
to use in security as well.

To cut to the chase, the searchlights were used on the M-48's and
M-60's until the M-60A3 with thermal sights came into use, making them
totally obsolete.

So, that is what I know/remember about searchlights on our tanks.