Really a giant lamp, the device produced a beam of light five degrees high and 40 degrees wide. The cone could completely light up a person 100 feet away. Powered by a dozen “D” batteries, the light would run non-stop for 15 minutes.
Troops could strap the whole setup to a tree or to the carrying case—which was a standard ammunition box. In the field, soldiers could daisy-chain multiple lights together, and turn the whole array on with the flip of a a single switch.”
Yeah, we have come a long way even since Surefires debuted. This was high technology once and now it is so obsolete that you would have to pay someone to dispose of it…
A friend of mine once bought a bunch of surplus aerial photography flash bulbs. They were about the size of a basketball. They could easily dazzle your eyesight from over a mile away. Up close, cause permanent vision problems… and they were rather sensitive to static electricty… They were basically a glass sphere filled with magnesium/zirconium wool and high-pressure oxygen.
i had over 100 of these n the 70’s.
they looked to be filled with loosly crumpled foil.
once had the cops come by on the 4th because someone a mile away thought they were flashes from nukes!
wish i would have saved some but teens dont think about that.we lined a metal washtub with foil as a reflector and shield.
since i knew what a press 25 did i wanted no part of viewing these directly!
when I was a kid we used to make “flashbangs” from magnesium shavings and Potassium permanganate. boy did they flash,
but my favorite was 2 carbon rods from F cell, car battery, and a tin can. a diy carbon arc light.