Sir:
When I was a young Marine in the first gulf war I heard that it was quite common for tank crews to blind the enemy with the tanks laser. Do you know of any protective glasses/goggles that would prevent retina damage from lasers? Thanks, – Keith
JWR Replies: The problem is that you need a separate filter for each ranges of wavelengths (measured in nanometers). By the time that you stack enough filters to stop all of the non-eye safe laser threats, you end up with something about as opaque as welder’s goggles. I guess this explains why the Stormtroopers in Star Wars
There may be some practical countermeasures. My best guess is that it would be Alexandrite lasers that would be used for intentional blinding, as I described in “Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse”. Do a web search on “Dazer and Stingray.” You will find some scary stuff. I discussed both eye safe and non-eye safe lasers in a series of articles that I wrote when I was a full time associate editor for Defense Electronics magazine, back in the late 1980s. These articles concerned the U.S. Army’s now defunct Dazer (hand held) and Stingray (tactical vehicle and aircraft-mounted) laser weapon programs. Both had been intended to counter enemy EO sensors, but were unfortunately indiscriminate in damaging the Mark I human eyeball. (They used high power Alexandrite lasers, which have a wavelength that is not eye safe.) As I recall, the Dazer program was cancelled around 1992, and the larger Stingray system development was de-funded in 1996, right around the time of ratification of the UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons. (Main reference: Rawles, James W. “Directed Energy Weapons: Battlefield Beams.” Defense Electronics, August 1989. v. 21, no. 8, p. 47-54.) If you buy a pair of goggles or sunglasses designed to protect against Alexandrite lasers (+/- 755 nanometers), they would also have some effectiveness against lasers in adjacent wavelengths.