Flashlights in combat

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

According to their website the traditional Mini Maglight barely reaches 100m while the LED version is slightly above, making it obvious that the LED version also has a wider beam.

Huh? First of all, it's not at all clear what 'range' means for a flashlight, since photons continue moving indefinitely. Secondly, if you mean range to a specific luminous intensity, it scales as sqrt( lumens ) / beam width, so it's not obvious that the beam is wider.

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

Actually most modern flashlights only use reflectors to direct the beam, no lenses. Thats why they have a much wider beam (=cone) and are not laser-like focused.

Traditional flashlights have always predominantly used reflectors. The issue is the shape of the reflector and bulb; different shapes produce different light patterns, and LEDs also inherently produce light in different patterns.

Originally Posted by fifiste

What about strobing lights.

It interferes with trying to see by the light being generated; blinding effect on someone it's pointed at is probably not significantly different from a normal bright light. If you're trying to see by a strobe, it interferes with your vision between pulses, and if the pulses are bright enough, basically reduces your visual frame rate to the pulse rate of the strobe.

[Der Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Huh? First of all, it's not at all clear what 'range' means for a flashlight, since photons continue moving indefinitely. Secondly, if you mean range to a specific luminous intensity, it scales as sqrt( lumens ) / beam width, so it's not obvious that the beam is wider.

Range or Throw is defined as the distance where the illumination falls below 0.25 lux ( == 0.25 lumen / m^2 ). So its very well defined. Since GURPS does not mention any other rule, we have to assume that they used this standardized method. However, this is quite irrelevant as the question continues. What if I can build a handheld flashlight that delivers 10k lumens, what about 100k lumens? Of course at one point it will start dealing burning damage and finally simply melt the enemy.

It is my simple impression that a high powered flashlight is very potent in a brawl. I also believe that there is not much finesse required to point the light-cone at an enemy.
If I look at basic boxing stances both hands would only need a minor re-positioning to hold and aim a flashlight. You could probably make a whole street-fighting-MA-style with two flashlights. I think you need a pretty big knife for the same combat potential. Flashlights have a very similar potential to pepper-spray with advantages and drawbacks (are there rules for pepper-sprays?)

Pro Pepper-spray
- Incapacitates enemy for a prolonged period of time. Especially god if you want to get away.
- Immediately recognized as a weapon (Advantage and Disadvantage, being recognized as a weapon might prevent a conflict)

Pro Flashlight
- Not immediately recognized as weapon
- Multiple use, much lower maintenance
- Anything short of welding goggles does not protect
- Easier access / legality. Can be carried everywhere. This might also be important if the enemy gets hurt badly, because you defended with a flashlight and did not attack with a pepper-spray (Legal problem).
- Not affected by wind!

Originally Posted by fifiste

What about strobing lights.

What Anthony said. Unless you do it in broad daylight of course, still I think you are better of just using a steady stream of light if you have to look in the same direction.

[trans]

For a lower-tech, cinematic take on this there is the fight with rapiers and shuttered lanterns between Michael York and Christopher Lee in the 1973 The Three Musketeers.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

It is my simple impression that a high powered flashlight is very potent in a brawl. I also believe that there is not much finesse required to point the light-cone at an enemy.

I don't think it's useless, but I doubt it's as potent as you think. Humans have some very good reflexes for not looking at the sun, and those will carry over to this. That allows you to limit the directions in which they can face, but you also have to watch out for reflections back off people dazzling you. Caucasian skin reflects about 40% of incident light.

Turning the light on suddenly has surprise value, once per fight, but you need it as a free action, since keeping a light pointed at someone is going to be an attack.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by mr beer

Anyone else read that as "fleshlights in combat"? No, just me then? OK, carry on.

Wrong forum dude.

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

Pro Pepper-spray
- Incapacitates enemy for a prolonged period of time. Especially god if you want to get away.

Incapacitating god seems awfully powerful.

[Ulzgoroth]

You know, it's implied by the writing that the Tactical Shooting dazzle rules are applicable to dark-adapted eyes, not necessarily to all eyes all the time. However, the roll doesn't actually make any reference to dark-adaptation, and losing dark-adaptation is only the least of the drawbacks.

If applied universally, one would think that the average person looking up on a sunny day would be visually impaired for a few minutes.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon

Although most handgun users throughout history would disagree. The two-handed style we're familiar with is a rather recent development compared to how long handguns have been used. The Weaver Stance is only about 50 years old, and the current techniques are even newer. Even plenty of competition shooters still fire one-handed.

It is very difficult to control two independent weapons separately in actual combat. This is why most martial arts with two weapons train heavily in movements that pair the weapons together (in some way, not necessarily for simultaneous attacks, but with each weapon movement paired with a movement or guard with the other). For a pistol and flashlight, it is a good idea to have the flashlight point-of-aim and your firearm's point-of-aim aligned at all times.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

No, it used to be a great flashlight and state of the art but its terribly outdated.

*sigh*

Okay, instead of getting distracted with semantics about whether a flashlight is or is not still great despite more advanced flashlights existing, how about the actual point I was making: The Mini-Mag is listed as having a 100-meter range by the manufacturer, but you'd be lucky to even notice the light-on-target at 100 meters on anything smaller than a building.

Amusingly, from what I can find, the Olight S10 is also listed as having a roughly 100 meter "max" range, despite hitting 400 lumens. From the demonstrations I've seen, I seriously doubt it would count as 100 meter range in GURPS.

The GURPS range isn't the distance that you can see any light on the target, it's the range where it will illuminate an area enough to light a target as well as if they were holding a torch or standing next to a fire. A 100-meter range Mini Mag will absolutely not do this, and even many of the 100-meter LED lights would fail to reach that.

From the context of how the rules work and comparing to other light sources, it looks like the GURPS range for light sources is closer to 1 lux (Give or take a fair amount due to the iffiness of working backwards like this with some vague terms). That's because the rules specify a light's range as the distance it can illuminate an object and reduce darkness penalties to only -3, with twilight (Roughly 1 lux) listed as -2 to -3. Illuminating enough to remove all lighting penalty would require a few orders of magnitude more light: even 100 lux (A "very dark overcast day") is still -1 penalty.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

For a pistol and flashlight, it is a good idea to have the flashlight point-of-aim and your firearm's point-of-aim aligned at all times.

Okay, but I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was talking about...

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

Range or Throw is defined as the distance where the illumination falls below 0.25 lux ( == 0.25 lumen / m^2 ).

Wow. That's.... roughly moonlight level. In an urban environment you are unlikely to ever get light below that level. 0.25 lux at 100m is actually not that impressive, it's only 2,500 candela, you can get flashlights in excess of a million candela.

Originally Posted by Der Wanderer

So its very well defined. Since GURPS does not mention any other rule, we have to assume that they used this standardized method.

I'm not aware of a 'standard' for flashlight range; that's just what MagLight used as a standard. In GURPS terms, what you want is the range at which it generates a darkness penalty of zero, which is somewhere between 3 and 5% of the above range.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I'm not aware of a 'standard' for flashlight range; that's just what MagLight used as a standard. In GURPS terms, what you want is the range at which it generates a darkness penalty of zero, which is somewhere between 3 and 5% of the above range.

While it seems Campaigns focuses more on fantasy-campaign light sources like torches, it seems to suggest that the "range" of (most) light sources is the range that they reduce vision penalties to -3, or about the same as the dim-side of twilight (About 1 lux). Tactical Shooting seems to support this, stating it explicitly, but with an exception: TL8 flashlights reduce vision penalties within their range to only -1, the equivalent of a very dark overcast day (About 100 lux). But then all of this is further skewed by the size and scope of the light, as at least part of the penalty probably has to account for the need to point the beam right at the target. Older and lower-power lights that make up range by using a narrower beam (Like the Mini Mag when compared to more recent LED lights) will likely have poorer vision-penalty reducing power than a straight-up lux comparison would suggest, due to being less consistent illumination. On the other hand, sometimes you might get somewhat more effective lighting via contrast, if your target is nearby and the backdrop is distant, and therefor less lit by your light.

All together it suggests to me that the small tactical light in High Tech, which apparently reduces vision penalties to only -1 within 25 yards, is fair, possibly even generous.

Though now it makes me wonder how other night-shooting aids work with tactical lights. Would using tritium-illuminated sights and a tac light give zero vision penalty? That might be a little silly, but I could see arguments made either way.