Dazzler (weapon)

A dazzler is a non-lethal weapon which uses intense directed radiation to temporarily disorient its target with flash blindness.

Whirling Spray was a system of search lights fitted with rotating mirrors which was used to dazzle and confuse pilots attacking the Suez canal.

[7] This was developed into the Canal Defence Light, a small mobile tank mounted system intended for use in the Rhine crossings.

The first reported use of laser dazzlers in combat was possibly by the British, during the Falklands War of 1982, when they were reputedly fitted to various Royal Navy warships to hinder low-level Argentinian air attacks.

[10] At the end of Operation Desert Storm, F-15E crews observed the Iraqi military's massacre of Kurdish civilians at Chamchamal.

Nonlinear optics techniques are being investigated: e.g. vanadium-doped zinc telluride (V:ZnTe) can be used to form electro-optic power limiters able to selectively block the intense dazzler beam without affecting weaker light from an observed scene.