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Blinded by the Light: Difference between revisions
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* [[World War I]] / [[World War Two]]: Attacking out of the sun was a popular tactic for both fighters and dive-bombers.
* During the age while armies still utilized campfires at night, it was not uncommon for those to be used as a means of deception. Merely looking at a light source at night temporarily ruins the eye's low light adjustments, meaning that while looking at such a campfire (or for that matter any other light source at night), it was impossible to actually see the people (if any) that existed around it; only the light source would be visible. Armies got pretty creative with this back in the day, from setting up false camps (the enemy won't know theres no one by the fire until its too late), to lighting a minimal number of fires to hide their number (sometimes going as far as just one big fire; good luck guessing how many people are sharing it), to ordering the camp to make several times its number in flames. A cunning general may even combine the various methods, essentially rendering the enemy's attempts to scout his position at night futile or downright counterproductive. Even in warfare, there are [[Subverted Trope|uses for fire]] [[Kill It with Fire|other than killing]].
* One of the armored vehicles used in the Normandy landings in [[World War Two]] was essentially an outdated tank with the gun replaced with a very high intensity lamp, entirely encased in the turret save for a narrow vertical slit. The turret would pan back and forth, perodically painting the German defenses with blinding light to make it impossible for them to see the troops on the beaches. They also had various filters they could put onto the light while in action, so as to make it harder to determine how far away the vehicle was if you wanted to [[
* In [[World War II]], the British "hid" the Suez Canal with an array of spotlights and shifting reflectors intended to dazzle the eyes of bomber pilots. When they tested it by having two British planes fly into the area, they found the effect disoriented the pilots so much that both planes nearly crashed—just from flashing lights. Best part? This was just ''one'' stunt thought up by [[wikipedia:Jasper Maskelyne|Jasper Maskelyne]],[[Stage Magician|War Magician]].
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