Battlefield illumination

Ancient armies would always prefer to fight with the sun behind them in order to use the visual glare to partially blind an opposing enemy.

[5] In 1583, during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–90), the Ottoman Empire used lanterns to defeat a Safavid army in a night time encounter, that became known as the Battle of Torches.

In 1882 the British Royal Navy used searchlights to prevent Egyptian forces from staffing artillery batteries at Alexandria during the Anglo-Egyptian War.

A similar design called LUU-19B can provide covert illumination in the near-infrared (IR) spectrum with virtually no visual signature.

These are usually large portable devices that combine an extremely luminous source (usually a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direction.

[10] The United States Air Force (USAF) opened Operation Shed Light as a development effort on 7 February 1966.

Ten C-123s were slated to receive the AGIL system under Southeast Asia Operational Requirement (SEAOR) 50, issued on 6 June 1966, the programme was changed to fit the system on 11 Lockheed JC-130A aircraft (re-designated RC-130S), but only two were completed and tested in South-East Asia, where it was found that the aircraft was, understandably, vulnerable to enemy anti-aircraft fire and was generally less effective than the emergent AC-130 gunships.

The two BIAS equipped RC-130S, remained in SE Asia for an unknown length of time and were eventually returned to the United States (US) and de-modified by 1974.