Here is a link from a US Special Forces
trooper that has a lot to say about our equipment. If you wish
to see the original click on the linke:
http://specialoperations.com/Deke/deke.php
It is included here for your convenience
"Dear Deke,
Q. I'm getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan and wanted to be sure
I had the right equipment for our surveillance missions. Thanks for
serving, Deke!
--Peter M., Virginia
A. Well, Peter right now I am on a trip and we are using some really
great gear for our night photography and surveillance missions. We
do a lot of stuff in close-in urban environments as well as in rural
and mountainous areas. For this kind of work, whether its SR, Recce,
tactical recons, etc., you absolutely have to have the right stuff.
We get a lot of great equipment issued to us and we get to try out a
lot of "T&E" items. Whenever I find something useful, I spread the
word to other troops and units around me. Military, police, and even
some security professionals may want to take note. All that I know
is this: when me and the boys walk into supply and S-4 these days,
th ey either go running (as they know we are about to put them to
work getting us more gear) or they pull up a chair and get ready to
start typing, as we mean business and we need good kit to get the
job done. I have tried to get every possible piece of cool gear
(that is useful) for my unit that I can, and so far, so good.
So, here is some stuff that is working great for us and you should
check out.
There are three sets of products all from the same manufacturer. A
company named "Tactical Solutions LLC" in Nevada makes adapters to
hook our cameras to night vision and to spotting scopes and the
like. For years this company has been cranking this stuff out, and
some of it is NSN issued equipment, while some of it you have to get
off the shelf. So here are the three types of products that they
make that I like and work great.
(1) MONOCAM: This nifty adapter connects a really good handheld
digital camera to y our AN/PVS-14 Night Vision Monocular. It has a
piece of rail adapter on top so that you can hook an IR pointer to
it (such as the AN/PEQ-2A TPIAL or the newer 15's). It also hooks
onto a tripod or monopod. The camera just slides in the back, and
the PVS-14 slides in the front and secures with a rubber bushing and
a throw lever. Its simple, durable, and super well made. Everyone, I
mean everyone, that has tried it loves it. What is great is that the
camera that it is made to go with, works great with the PVS-14,
especially in video mode. The camera is the widely available Olympus
1030 SW. It's a whopping 10mp (10 megapixel, that is a lot of
resolution my friends). It has a lot of scene modes, options, and
features. The still photos are super sharp and the videos are very
clear with the night vision. The camera itself our team purchased a
bunch of for under $350 retail on the internet / off the shelf . I
have used this for surveillance from a car in close as well as at
long range. We have even hooked this rig up to a spotting scope at
night using one of the monoloc adapters (in #3, below). We did an
operation one night where we had to prove without any doubt that a
particular bad guy scumbag was going to and from a location to
retrieve explosives, and then going to another and hiding them on
the side of the road for us. At both ends of his "workday" we got
him on video. As many of you know, to get "proof", to get a CONOP
approved, or to do it right and hit the right target (and not the
wrong target), you often need some good full motion video and/or
digital photos to make your case. With this piece of kit it has been
an easy day.
(2) NIGHTSTALKER: This is a special adapter that takes a standard
night vision monocular, which comes with it, and allows you to do
night photography with a digital SLR ca mera. Its pretty simple: you
connect it to the body of the camera. Then you can put any lens in
front of it. It has a long piece of rail on top so you can connect
any IR pointer, such as the PEQ-2 or the smaller IZLID. There is a
version that has "electrical pass through", meaning that the camera
will still "talk" to the lens, so you can use auto mode, exposure
modes, etc. We have taken some very impressive photos with this rig,
some of which were in complete darkness and during very low illum
and at long range. I really like this as its simple to use. Let me
put it this way - if you have to get long distance shots at night or
pictures of movers at night, there is no other way to get high
resolution photos. We have gotten pictures of people on the run as
well as vehicles going pretty fast, with and without IR illum with
this device. A lot of combat cameramen are issued this thing (so you
can do you and y our team a favor, like we did, and "procure" the
Nightstalker from them). The device is made to fit either Nikon DSLR
cameras (N model) or Canon DSLR cameras (C model). This is one of my
favorite toys.
(3) MONOLOC adapters: These have been around for at least 10 years,
and you might be surprised that they may already be issued in your
unit if you are SOF. What they are, are various size "couplers" that
allow you to connect a camera to a night vision device, or a camera
to a spotting scope, or all three (camera to night vision to
spotting scope). There are a lot of possibilities with these
devices. They are metal collars, about four inches long, with a
throw lever and they come with various size rubber bushings, so you
can custom fit these from one device to another. Before you go and
"jerry rig" something out of PVC pipe and duct tape like my team
sergeant did in the "old days", consider that these are professiona
l grade adapters and came about as far too many guys were rigging
stuff together that was just time consuming or just did not work.
Having a camera fall off the back of a spotting scope and make a
loud "clunk" in the middle of the night is a bad thing. That is what
happens sometimes when you use the old duct tape method. Buyer
beware - there is a company out there that made a cheap copy of this
that has three screws to hold it all together and its cheap ass
space junk. This copycat model of the original monoloc ended up in
one of our recon kits and we curse the f-in thing. Get the original,
real deal. I believe that there are NSN numbers on the monolocs now.
Either way, there are at least 3-4 sizes of them and they are very
modular. I know about a dozen ways to use these things and I am
really getting results using these. What is nice is that you can
hook a camcorder to a spotting scope and get license plates past 300
meters on 20x (without using much if any zoom on the camcorder).
Getting the gear:
You can buy this stuff direct, or if you are in US SOF (USSOCOM
units), you can request a lot of great gear from the SOFSA / 'SOCOM
warehouse' in Kentucky (see your S-4 or logistics guys).
If you are in a USSOCOM unit, you can often get your unit to set you
up with what is called a "no-cost loan agreement," meaning that the
JAG or IG has the manufacturer that you want to borrow a test item
from sign a form, which protects the government and you. Then, you
can take the item into a combat zone or on training exercises and
test it out. If the item is worth more than a certain amount, you
have to do some kind of legal paperwork in order to try out the
gear. This is called doing a "T&E" (test & evaluation).
I took the time to get the proper info on where to get this gear. If
you want to buy any of this stuff, here is the company to contact.
Morovision Night Vision Inc. The Monocam can be seen at
www.monocam.com. Contact Mr. Dave Newbro at Dave@morovision.com.
Phone is 949-488-3855 for Morovision. Their fax # is 949-488-3361.
To talk to the manufacturer, here is who that is:
Richard G. Brough - Manager
Tactical Solutions, LLC
rich@monoloc.com
Phone: (702) 370-1633 Cell
Fax: (702) 398-7731
Its one thing to be good at shooting, good at demo, good at your
mission planning, good at fighting and tactics and all that. But, as
is always the case, the powers that be want better video and photos
of our targets. Good luck!"
V/R
Rich