Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video episode on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, and I am here today at the Rock Island Auction Company
taking a look at some of the cool stuff for sale in their December of 2014 Premier Auction.
And one of the things that they have is this kit for turning a very nice light M1 carbine
into about a 34 pound, not incredibly effective, night fighting weapon.
So specifically this is all the kit required for an M3 infrared sniper scope.
... Actually originally development began in 1943. The very first versions of them were ready
during World War Two, and in fact several hundred of these ... (or not quite these),
several hundred of the first version of this weapon system were actually deployed on the island of Okinawa,
and accounted for a significant number of Japanese casualties.
The idea behind all this gear is that this was a very early infrared, or night vision, scope.
We have up top here an infrared spotlight to provide illumination.
This optic is an image enhancing optic, it can see into the infrared spectrum and magnify the available light.
And this is all mounted on top of an M1 carbine.
So ... a lot of people look at this and say, "A sniper with an M1 carbine, that's a total non-sequitur, that doesn't make sense."
When in fact ... it only had an effective range of between 75 and 150 yards, depending on the version.
The very early versions that were on Okinawa, about 75 yards was the maximum effective range.
At that range an M1 carbine works just fine.
And it's that much lighter of a gun, given all the extra weight that you have to pack in to run this system.
So we have a vertical front grip, this was used for one thing, to help balance the weight of the rifle.
In this case it's not installed, but we have it here.
This was also the switch, right there, that you would use to turn the spotlight on and off.
We have the battery pack that goes with it to power this whole thing.
This was a 6 volt battery with a transformer that would boost the voltage up to, believe it or not, 20,000 volts.
This is all labelled "Sniperscope, Infrared, 20,000 Volts."
And tactically this was used primarily in defensive positions, the idea was
this would allow American troops to spot, say, enemy sappers who were trying to sneak through the American lines
at night when they couldn't be seen. Well, with this you can see them.
And if you're doing this from a defensive position like that, you don't have to lug around all of this gear with you.
Total of this is a little bit in excess of 30 pounds just to run an M1 carbine.
So it makes a lot more sense from a defensive position.
Let's bring the camera in and take a little bit of a closer look at just what's going on here, because this is a really cool setup.
This is ... in fact the first effective and issued American night vision rig.
Alright, let's start by taking a look at the receiver, because this is one of the places where the different versions
of this gear can really be differentiated. The very early guns were actually designated T3 carbines.
They were only made by Inland and Winchester, and only a little under 2,000 were originally manufactured.
And these guns were made as dedicated night vision carbines.
They didn't have a rear sight, and instead they had a specific ... optics mounting rail that only went this far,
between the front and the rear of the receiver.
Now, it wasn't too much later before the Army Ordnance realised that this wasn't really that effective of an idea,
it would be much better if they had a simple mounting bracket that you could put on to pretty much any M1 carbine.
So that this could be a conversion done in the field.
This is an example of that later development. That system became known as the M3.
It has the later version of the scope which had ... an improved range, this was good out to about 125 yards.
The front end of its rail is attached out here with a pair of locked nuts.
And then it has an attachment point back here. You take off the rear sight
and this slides into the dovetail that the rear sight originally fit in.
See the shape of that attachment bracket here on the other side.
So the first version of this was called ... a T3 carbine with what was designated as a T120 scope,
and a small number of those were made.
They then improved the scope and redesignated it the M2 scope, and then they improved that and designated it the M3.
This is an example of an M3. You can see the case here has that clearly in the label.
Of the M3 about 20,000 units were made. All the earlier versions put together had a total production of about 4,700.
So the vast majority, probably 80% or more of the manufactured examples are this, the late M3 version.
It had an effective range of about 125 yards with the spotlight.
And eventually, after the Korean War most of these were sold as surplus.
When these were sold off the batteries were retrofitted. They were a pretty standard 6 volt battery
with a transformer to boost the voltage to the amount required to operate the scope.
And they came with these universal mounting rails, so they were pretty easy to mount with just a little bit of work to an M1 carbine.
In the military these were used on both M1 and M2 carbines interchangeably.
There was no ... these didn't have to be on full-auto carbines, some were and some weren't.
If you're looking at one of these that you find, it's important to check and see if it's an M2 carbine.
If it is, of course it requires NFA paperwork. This particular one is just a plain old regular M1 carbine.
No full-auto, and thus no special regulations on its sale.
Ah, I should point out, we do also have a flash hider that was mounted to these specifically for this purpose.
So this whole system is run by a rather large battery.
We have battery connections down here on the bottom. This is in a rubberised canvas case.
There you go, you can see into the internals of the battery.
And on the back this has a pair of pretty typical US GI shoulder straps for carrying.
And you would plug that into this two part cable.
That cable runs into
this mess of wires here. And from here it powers the scope, it powers the light
and it has one circuit running through this vertical front grip to give you an on/off switch.
So that switch operates the spotlight ... basically so that you can have the spotlight off
if there's any chance someone else is out here with infrared gear [and more importantly to reduce power consumption].
As long as that spotlight is off your effective range is significantly reduced,
but you are not emitting any radiation, so no-one can see you.
When that spotlight's on, anyone else who has infrared gear, you stand out like,
well, like you're standing out in the middle of the night with a big flashlight.
So in total this is 28 pounds of material that gets added to the weight of your M1 carbine.
... I should point out here, you do have a pistol grip on this, it's not currently attached,
but it does come with the plate and the hardware to mount up on a carbine.
And of course the carry case.
This would normally come with a number of spare parts,
there is a spare light bulb and a couple connections and that's about all that's still with this.
I hope you guys enjoyed the video, I hope you enjoyed taking a look at this early and pretty cool piece of kit, as bulky as it may be.
This is of course an auction house so this is for sale, coming up in December.
And if you want to add this to your collection you can, it's a standard M1 carbine, so this can all be owned by anyone who can own a firearm.
If you take look at the link below in the description text, that'll take you to Rock Island's auction page.
They have their description and all their pictures, and you can go ahead and sign in and place an on-line bid if you are interested in it.
Thanks for watching, and good luck if you take a bid.
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