 A buddy of mine recently said that passive aiming at night is the same as using iron sights during the day. And I thought that was pretty profound. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we're here today to talk about passive aiming versus laser aiming, active aiming. I don't know what the other one is called actually. So for those of you who aren't familiar, under night vision, you have two options to aim your rifle. Cause you gotta remember, you gotta helmet on, you gotta nod in front of your face. So there are two different ways to kind of do it. The first one is to use your laser, right? So I'm gonna bring my rifle up and I'm just gonna shoulder it right here. I'm not trying to look through the optic. I'm looking over the gun and then I'm using my laser to kind of point it stuff and do, you know, whatever. That's what I'm doing. I put the laser on what I wanna hit and then I can send the round. So I'm not actually, you know, getting into the gun, the traditional stance of getting behind the gun, that's unhappening. The gun's just kind of here and I'm just using the laser to point and then send the bullets that way. That's the most common way to do it under night vision. Now there is some, I don't know about debate. Let's say discussion around that because if you're facing a peer force and by that we mean someone who also has night vision or night vision capability, then anytime I send my laser out, right? Lasers work both ways. So if I'm sending a laser out, they can trace that right back to me and then they know where you are so you reveal your position by sending out lasers, right? Same reason, you know, you have light discipline when you're on night patrols, right? Because if you emit light, well now they know where you are. So there's some discussion around that of well, you know, hey, should you use your laser? Should you just passive aim? Passive aiming is just not using a laser. So it's with your helmet on and you're not on, right? Sorry if I messed the mic up here. I'm still trying to get behind the gun. So I'm trying to sink my whole mod in my head behind the optic in order to look through the optic and then passively aim and then shoot what I want. And I've done both a little bit and I was out the other night and me and my buddy were shooting and just practicing and afterward he got done and he said that what I thought was a fairly profound line that, you know, active passive aiming under nods is basically the same as like using your iron sights during the day. Like it's a skill and you should have it okay but is it really that great? And I think that's actually pretty accurate. So in general I'm gonna default to the laser. There's a couple reasons for that. The first one is it's easier, okay? And by that I mean that it's just easier to just pull the gun up here. Again, night vision, all my equipment on, right? Looking just right over the gun, just line up the laser and then I can just send it around. The second reason and in my opinion, the most important reason is that active aiming, I don't know how to call it that. I don't know what else to call it when you use your laser. There's probably a term for it, I'm just ignorant. But when you use your laser, I can hit much further. And what I mean is, you know, the other night we went out and we were probably standing at, I'm guesstimating here, about a hundred yards away. Now at night, you know, distances look further so maybe it wasn't quite that far but when I would think it's safe to say we're about a hundred yards out and I could pull the rifle up, I could put the laser on and I could send it and I could hit, I could hit at a hundred just standing just with the laser. When I tried to look through that through my optic for passive aiming, not a chance. Not a chance. I think your limit is depending on how dark it is and everything and it wasn't super dark out. I mean I'd say the moon was like, I think it was 37%, I think is what the moon was at. So, you know, it's not pitch black, it's not terribly dark, it's kind of premier night vision, whether honestly, in the sense that there's not enough light for it to be bright but there's just enough light for your nods to function really well. So in that sense, it was kind of ideal conditions. And I'm telling you, not a chance for passive aiming. I think passive aiming, you got maybe 25 yards and in. So 25 yards and in is kind of the limit for passive aiming. Maybe you can push it to 50 if you're really gonna get set up and squared away or whatever. But the capability to see, the problem is seeing. The problem is not getting behind the gun. It's seeing my target, bringing the rifle up so that now I'm on target and when I'm looking through my nod, through my optic, try to get out the target, there's just not enough light to be able to see. You know, at 100 yards, I can barely see the steel as is to find it with my laser. So to then pull up and passive aim on that is gonna be very difficult. And if you're 25 yards and in, why not just use your laser anyway? What does it really matter at that point, right? Like, what does it really matter? You're 25 yards away, that's not that far. You might as well just pull up your laser because you need to shoot quicker. And I'll tell you right now under nods, right? Pulling up to here and beaming it with my laser is a lot quicker than sinking my head behind the gun. So because I can't see very far and because the main benefit to passive aiming is concealment, meaning I'm not exposing my position with the laser, right? I'm able to shoot out there and conceal my position of where I am. But if it's only good 25 yards and in, well, they're probably gonna see me anyway, that's not that far away, right? So what's the real benefit there to passive aiming would be my question. Now, I'm just running a PBS-14. You know, I just have a standard AR. I have a D2 laser on here. Like, I don't have anything super fancy. I will say when it comes to passive aiming, I do have the EOTech. And I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that this is known as the best light transmission optic for passive aiming. So maybe there's some super, you know, special just night vision only optic out there or whatever or thermal or something like that. Okay, maybe we could have that discussion. But as it stands, just as a grunt minute man guy, I'm doing my patrol stuff, passive aiming is just kind of out for me. Like that's not a realistic option for how I'm gonna be able to effectively send rounds out. Again, maybe there's some super special equipment that would make it more feasible. But I don't have that. I don't have the capability to carry that likely. Like, if you're sitting in an A1 Abrams tank, I'm sure you can passive aim all day long, right? Cause you get all kinds of systems and sensors and whatever. So of course you can passive aim, not a problem. But just again, for you, me, everyday grunt people, to passive aiming, I just don't really think is that great. I don't think it really gives you any of the benefit. If the main benefit is concealing your position, but you only can use it when you're close, you've kind of traded away the main benefit of it in my opinion. I don't understand what I'm really gaining from passive aiming at that point. So the problem is right with the laser, it exposes your position, right? Cause you're giving that away by sending a laser out. I understand that and I guess I just gotta say, I don't know, that sucks. What are you gonna do? Like that's just part of the game. Send more bullets faster and make sure you don't die. Like what else are you really gonna do about that? You're moving at night, fighting at night has always sucked for all mankind since we've left the garden, right? Traditionally, and by that I mean for most of human history, we really haven't fought at night. Yeah, there've been some raids here and engagements there, but when it comes like full scale battles and stuff, everybody just decides, eh, that ain't worth it. And then general, they don't do it. It's only in the last, I don't know, 100-ish years since World War I really that we've continued fighting at night, right? Cause World War I, they're able to start sending up illumination rounds like from artillery. And then, you know, that was able to, again, give light so people could see and they could fight, right? And you can still send artillery at night. And then with the advent of night division vices and stuff like that, then night fighting has become more and more prevalent. The Japanese during the war in the Pacific were known for their night fighting, right? So it's become more and more of a thing as technology has advanced a little bit. But by and large, it's always sucked. It's always sucked and it's always terrifying. And there's a reason, again, that for most of human history, by and large, night fighting has been eschewed. So that's my thought on passive aiming versus, again, active aiming, aiming with the laser. I don't know what else to call it. So if you've got more experience with this or you've had some secret success with passive aiming, why don't you go ahead and enlighten us because maybe you know something I don't. But in general, like I said, I think that's just kind of a non-starter at this point. Hope that's helpful. Hope that gives you something to think about. Do brave deeds and endure.