Welcome back to Night Chenanigans. Did you enjoy the little break of pace with video overview of various NVG pouches? Well today we take a look at some images I found off @frontline_defenders on instagram. The focus? Why Frontline Defender NVGs of course!
@frontline_defenders is a treasure trove of images and videos of global counter terrorism units. Of course many of these agencies and departments will have night vision goggles for use in low light situations. I have compliled several examples to highlight today. These are in no particular order but the images intrigued me.
Here are some GIGN opertators rocking low profile nvgs (LPNVGs) on their helmets.
The distintive inverted and flipped goggle with eyepieces now facing forwards is an iconic characteristic of LPNVGs. Since they are GIGN, they are running Thales nvgs. And these Frontline Defender NVGs look to be the Thales Minie-D. The photo is low res but they do not look as angular as the Thales LUCIE. I think I also see the removable battery pack which is unique to the Minie-D. The Minie-D is similar to the LUCIE and somewhat kissing cousins to the PVS-7. It is a night vision biocular. It has a singe objective lens, with a single image intensifier but the ikmage is split into two eyepieces, like a PVS-7.
Next we take a look at some Polishborder guards. While the goggles have forward facing eyepieces, these are situated above the helmet instead of in front like LPNVGs. This leads me to believe they are some sort of PVS-7 or similar biocular.
See the outline of the Frontline Defender NVG below? You can see the unmistakeable shape of the PVS-7 battery tube and battery cap.
I am curious oif these Polish border guards shoot with their PVS-7 Passive aiming is hard to do but not impossible. Also biocular NVGs are not great for depth perception and they apear tobe running eye cups which blocks their limited peripheral vision already. I say it is limited since the PVS-7 eyepieces have a short focal depth smaller lens meaning you need to run them a lot closer to your eyes to see the full FOV.
Next we have a South Koreak SOU operator rocking a monocular and a suppressed Glock kitted with an ALG Defense 6 second mount.
To my surprise he appears to be using a MUM-14. You can tell by power switch next to the objective lense which is coverd by the day cap. Also the knob fo securing the MUM-14 to the J-Arm is not the same as the J-Arm for a PVS-14.
For a Frontline Defender NVG comparison you can see a Belgian SFG operator wearing bridge PVS-14s on his helmet. You can see the knob for the mounting screw sticking up since the nods are now inverted on his helmet. This is one reason I am not a fan of the rhino mount, which he is clearly using. It does get the nods out of the way but now they are on top of your helmet. They stick out like a sore thumb and can snag or hit low lying obstacles you are trying to navigate around. Interestingly the SFG operator is using what looks like an FNH Five-Seven pistol with an Insight M6X weapon mounted pistol light and laser.
Austrian EKO Cobra Operators appear to be using Theon Seonsors' NYX binos but in their tan variant.
The same goggle, but this time in black, is used in Switzerland. Some sort of cross training exercised with EKO Cobra.
The Swiss IE St. Gallen operator is using the Theon Sensors NYX binocular and their NVG mount. He has a Reinmetall Vario-Ray LLM mounted on his Sig 552, notice the blue training cable for his tape switch.
Even this Finish police officer has a set of Theon Sensors' NYX binos.
Here are some interesting Frontline Defender NVGs. I dont recognize them. At first I thought they might be n/SEAS but they are not. If you know what they are please comment below. They are a bridged set of monculars with individual power supplies.
Here a Swiss IE operator uses a similar goggle.
The most interesting Frontline Defender NVG I have seen is the one below. It the Thales Bi-Monie. Bridged Monie monoculars.
The Monie is a moncular version of the Minie. But bridging two of them gives you stereopsis aka depth perception.
I hope you enjoyed looking at these Frontline Defender NVGs. After a while you get bored of seeing the same commercial and military binos or monoculars used in the US and these uncommon night vision devices are intriguing. Look forward to an indepth review of one of these devices in the next month or two. Thanks to reading.
Hello! The night vision in this photo of the frontline defenders is a variant of the MU-3M 16mm unit, manufactured in Poland by the company PCO. The MU-3M and its variants are given to Polish special forces and supplied to various other units around the world. I own a set if you would be interesting in looking further into them, they are pretty hipster and uncommon. Hope this helps!