Just another example of the garbage I have had to deal with over the years. This is an exchange from CANVS V SOCOM about a CANVS Color Night Vision Goggle that was tampered with without my knowledge prior to going to be tested by operators!
Mr. Francis Vangel was in charge of all the visual augmentation systems from the head-mounted, handheld and weapon-mounted devices for USASOC. The Defendant called Mr. Vangel as a witness, he testified about a set of CANVS Color Night Vision Goggles sent to him by Kurt Badertscher of SOCOM in April 2007. He spoke of his experience with the goggles in his testimony:
"I just got a snowy GEN 1-2 type of picture which means not good, not clear, not sharp, not high-def resolution. Nothing that I would be interested in. So I started playing with the objective with the diopter settings, with the gain controls and I adjusted everything that I could but I couldn't see any color."
Prior to Mr. Vangel taking the stand, while I was on the stand he inspected the CANVS Color Night Vision Goggles produced into evidence by the Defendant. I testified that one of the goggles had filters not supplied by CANVS, and that a goggle configured with the two identical LIF filters that were on the goggle as entered into evidence by the Defendant would not function properly. I then removed the incorrect filters that were on the objective lenses, and replaced them with the proper optical elements provided by CANVS that were originally shipped with the goggle.
Under cross examination, looking through the same CANVS Color Night Vision Goggle that he originally examined in 2007 with the wrong filters, this is what Mr. Vangel testified to after looking through the same goggle but with the proper filters as delivered with the goggle by CANVS:
Q Do you see any colors in the flag behind the Judge?
A Yes, sir.
Q Excuse me, what?
A I see red, I see white and then I see black for the -- you know, I know it's blue because it's a flag but I see black. But I do see red and white. And then the -- you know, the background of the stars is black to me. Based on what I saw here I would say that the performance of the tubes that I saw (in 2007 with the wrong filters on the objective lenses) was lesser than these tubes" (note the goggle and tubes were identical, just the correct front end filters were on the goggle after I fixed it earlier while was on the stand)
I do not know if the incorrect optics were placed on the CANVS Color Night Vision Goggles sent to Mr. Vangel intentionally or by accident, what is known is that by placing two identical LIF filters not supplied by CANVS on the goggle; the device was effectively sabotaged resulting in no possibility of demonstrating a color night vision capability.
I couldn't resist, enjoy: Sabotage (Beastie Boys)
