Future soldier
and their peers, the defenders in the Winter War are leading the way once more. Nor are the Finnish Defence Forces alone. From Norway to the UK, other countries are improving their night-vision capabilities too, with potentially revolutionary consequences for warfare at large.
The night idea
As the Soviets learned more than 80 years ago, winter near the Arctic is often savage and brutal. In December, Helsinki sees only a mere six hours of sunlight a day, a number slumping to practically nil up towards the Norwegian frontier. It therefore makes sense, argues Major Jari Tiilikka, that night vision has become a staple of Finland’s armed forces. That is especially true, continues Tiilikka, an infantry officer in the Finnish army, given the country’s terrain. With thick forests and low hills, training exercises are often intimate, with combatants as close as 50m apart. This, he adds, is the kind of terrain where the “most benefits from dismounted night combat capability can be had”.
If nothing else, this is reflected in the kind of equipment the Finnish army has procured. In his role as programme manager for Finland’s dismounted soldier system, Tiilikka has helped ensure his colleagues have access to a range of night-vision goggles, including thermal observation devices for squads and platoons, as well as sight units for heavier weapons like anti-tank missile launchers. At the same time, this work is shadowed by other militaries nearby. “Norway is well- equipped on the soldier level with night-vision capabilities,” says Lieutenant Colonel Rune Nesland-Steinor of the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency. “We have it on a fair number of individual dismounted soldiers, and we have also been able to field weapon sights to both soldiers and crew- served weapons.”
Not that the Nordic obsession with night vision can be chalked to climate and landscape alone. For years – but especially since the invasion of Ukraine – defence ministries from Tallinn to Stockholm have been conscious of the Russian mammoth to their east. Finland and Sweden’s recent applications to Nato certainly imply as much, as does the region’s dramatic boost to military spending. In March 2022, to give one example, the Norwegian government announced it would fork out an additional three billion krone ($300m) to “strengthen the defence capability of the armed forces”. When it comes to night vision in particular, it helps that equipment has become so much cheaper over recent years. In the 1990s, only major Nato armies could generally afford to ‘rule the night’, as the saying went. Today, however, the cost has gone down substantially. As Tiilikka says, that means his country can “afford to
procure [goggles] in numbers that have a notable effect on our capabilities”. Yet, if the Nordics now possess a robust mix of night-vision equipment, the machines available to them are far from perfect. That can basically be understood in technological terms. One common type of night vision involves ‘photomultiplying’, essentially amplifying existing light sources, for example flares or stars. But while these devices function well in darkness, the sudden arrival of a new light source – searchlights or explosions among them – risks temporarily blinding the wearer. It goes without saying that this sort of distraction is far from ideal in the heat of battle. Other types of night vision also have problems. Thermal night vision, which detects temperature differences in the infrared spectrum, is ineffective in rain or snow – both things the region enjoys in abundance.
Photomultiplying will remain the backbone of night-vision technology due to its cheaper production costs.
“Norway is well-equipped on the soldier level with night-vision capabilities [...] and we have also been able to field weapon sights to both soldiers and crew-served weapons.”
Lieutenant Colonel Rune Nesland-Steinor Dark and bite
Compared with Lockheed Martin or Raytheon, Senop is hardly a household name. Yet, this Finnish defence contractor, based in a docile business park outside Tampere, is in the process of transforming the country’s night-vision capabilities. A case in point is the firm’s EVA 40 night-vision goggles. Boasting aspheric, high-precision glass optics, and made from state-of-the-art composite materials, the goggles are reputed to be among the lightest around. Nor is that the only area where the Finnish Defence Forces – which hopes to fully deploy EVA 40 goggles by 2024
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
$9.5bn
The predicted value of the global night-vision market by 2030.
The Brainy Insights 29
Alexander Smulskiy/
Shutterstock.com
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