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Let me start off with a little story. This will involve a fictional character who wasn't fictional but was a helluva "character."
Said character was a survivalist back in the 90's. Truly he was more like most "preppers" are today- bought a few things, didn't really train a lot, etc. So I run into him at a huge gunshow in Orlando Florida and spend some time talking with him. He's a very outgoing guy. I know him well, I know he doesn't really train with his stuff as much as he should. He starts off on a TSHTF rant and how he is going to be better off than so many people because (wait for it), he has a couple of semi auto rifles. Now keep in mind we are standing in a very large gunshow. It's the later 1990's. It's not like "assault weapons" were uncommon. I told him "let's watch the door for a few minutes, look at what people carry in."
Over the course of about ten minutes a good number of people came in and guess what- probably better than half of them had semi autos (shocked face! LOL). I told my friend- "see how many people have weapons of this type? This was just a few minutes and you saw dozens of them. It's not HAVING a certain thing that makes it worthwhile, but being able to utilize the tool effectively. And ideally, have friends that also can do that. All this requires training."
And of course this was back when even a "bargain basement" AR15 was about $800. and during the "assault weapon ban" time period, importation bans, etc. Compare that to now, where every Bubba and Bubbette has a $350. PSA AR15....
I tell this story to relate to thermal imagers now-
Thermal imagers are now extremely common. Gone are the days when a "decent" thermal imaging was $10K, or even $8K
With some budget thermal imagers now producing a very good image and coming in under $3,000. it's no surprise thermal is everywhere now.
You need to EXPECT that. Bubba and Bubbette have those budget ARs like in the above story, but now they most likely also have a budget thermal.
The difference again being what? Training and experience.
In the now long ago, you could kind of "relax" camo discipline at night in the field- as back then few had NV and no one except gubmint groups had thermal. Now, that's no longer possible.
Day or night, you can EXPECT that your being observed and sighted on by ANYONE. The level of sophistication of that surveillance ranges from excellent for high dollar users down to "gets the job done" on the Bubba and Bubbette levels. Either way, your heat signature is out there, and you need to do things to mitigate that.
Said character was a survivalist back in the 90's. Truly he was more like most "preppers" are today- bought a few things, didn't really train a lot, etc. So I run into him at a huge gunshow in Orlando Florida and spend some time talking with him. He's a very outgoing guy. I know him well, I know he doesn't really train with his stuff as much as he should. He starts off on a TSHTF rant and how he is going to be better off than so many people because (wait for it), he has a couple of semi auto rifles. Now keep in mind we are standing in a very large gunshow. It's the later 1990's. It's not like "assault weapons" were uncommon. I told him "let's watch the door for a few minutes, look at what people carry in."
Over the course of about ten minutes a good number of people came in and guess what- probably better than half of them had semi autos (shocked face! LOL). I told my friend- "see how many people have weapons of this type? This was just a few minutes and you saw dozens of them. It's not HAVING a certain thing that makes it worthwhile, but being able to utilize the tool effectively. And ideally, have friends that also can do that. All this requires training."
And of course this was back when even a "bargain basement" AR15 was about $800. and during the "assault weapon ban" time period, importation bans, etc. Compare that to now, where every Bubba and Bubbette has a $350. PSA AR15....
I tell this story to relate to thermal imagers now-
Thermal imagers are now extremely common. Gone are the days when a "decent" thermal imaging was $10K, or even $8K
With some budget thermal imagers now producing a very good image and coming in under $3,000. it's no surprise thermal is everywhere now.
You need to EXPECT that. Bubba and Bubbette have those budget ARs like in the above story, but now they most likely also have a budget thermal.
The difference again being what? Training and experience.
In the now long ago, you could kind of "relax" camo discipline at night in the field- as back then few had NV and no one except gubmint groups had thermal. Now, that's no longer possible.
Day or night, you can EXPECT that your being observed and sighted on by ANYONE. The level of sophistication of that surveillance ranges from excellent for high dollar users down to "gets the job done" on the Bubba and Bubbette levels. Either way, your heat signature is out there, and you need to do things to mitigate that.