BORELLI CONSULTING: Tactical Equipment Reviews

Night-Ops Gladius LED Flashlight Update
By: Frank Borelli, 5 September 2005

Almost a year ago (23 October 2004) I did a review / evaluation of the Night-Ops Gladius LED flashlight. The light I used for testing was a prototype. Since that time I've had two production Gladius lights to test, and the testing has been much more practical. I've had opportunity to test the claims that the light is waterproof (it is). I've had opportunity to test the functionality of the strobe feature on nere-do-wells (tends to mess with their head). I've had opportunity to use the light during power outages and camping trips. With all that in mind, I thought I'd do an updated review / evaluation to keep our readership informed.

First, a little background on the brains behind the lights: Ken Good is a former Naval Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) who had been assigned to train Navy personnel for shipboard protection while in port. The Navy was kind enough to provide a ship to work on, but no electricity to run the lights below decks. Can you say, "Dark"? So, as the training grew, so did the light use tactics. Vaughn Baker is a former SWAT Operator who teamed up with Ken and together they continued to develop Strategies of Low-Light Operations. A few years back they formed Strategos International and they both had a good idea of what an operators' flashlight should do. They set out to make their vision reality and, with the financial backing of BlackHawk Products Group, Night-Ops was born with its first product: The Gladius.

Now, the last few years have seen ONE radical shift in lighting technology. That shift has been away from incandescent bulbs to Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). There are strengths and weaknesses to both.

The incandescent bulbs are much more prone to breaking when dropped, etc, and they eat the batteries of your flashlight faster. However, they can generate much brighter light and therefore have a greater impact down range or on your target subject.

LEDs are fantastic in that they are damned near impossible to break and the power systems can be tweaked to get much longer run times out of a set of batteries. Heat control and power management become the challenges.

Recognizing that the industry as a whole was leaning toward LED technology, that is where Night-Ops started. Further, instead of asking the engineers what was possible, Ken and Vaughn pretty much told the engineers what they wanted and then said, "Figure out how to do it." What they got was an LED driven light that is versatile beyond any current competitive product.

The primary enabler of that versatility is the tailcap design coupled with the firmware that is installed in the Gladius. Ten years ago you could turn a flashlight on or turn it off. If you had a high-speed flashlight, you could actually just have it on with touch-pressure and then it would turn off when you released the button. Many tricks were developed with those "on or off" lights to develop different performance features. However, the Gladius actually incorporates those various functions into the light itself. No more tricks. Just learn to use the light right.

Taking a look at the above photo we can see four positions for the tailcap. LEFT or counterclockwise is the lockout position. In this position the tailcap can't be pushed and you avoid accidental discharges. Does an AD with light matter? Only if you're trying to sneak up on a bad guy in low-light conditions. We NEVER do that right? Yeah, right. So, having a lock-out position is a good thing. It also keeps you from sitting on the light which will, after awhile, get hot and begin to cook your butt, thigh, etc. Lock-Out good. AD bad.

Next position is the Constant On Adjustable. What's adjustable about it? Well, you can push it and the light will stay on. Push it again and the light will go off. BUT, you can also push and hold it and the light will come on and then dim down as far as you want all the way to as little as one lumen of light. I should mention that at full power, the Gladius is pushing about 85-90 lumens. That's bright enough for CQB work, so no complaints there. Back to the switch. Push it and hold it again, and it will begin to brighten. Wherever you release the light is where it will stay set until you turn it off and back on. Default from the factory, the light always comes on full power in this position. However, by following the directions in the manual, and by manipulating pushes of the tailcap, you can reprogram the light to come on at the dimmest setting, or - in memory mode - wherever you left it when you turned if off last.

The next position is Strobe mode. Where cops used to turn their flashlights on and then flicker it back and forth across a subject's face to make the light intermittent in his eyes, now you can just push the tailcap and hold it. The Strobe mode flashes the light at full power at a rate that is very disorienting to human beings. (My dogs don't like it either and it scares hell out of fish. More about that later.)

Testing on humans in strobe mode has shown that the pulsing of the light can cause dizziness, imbalance, nausea, and a sense of pending impact. That all sounds like good stuff (to me) for the bad guy to be experiencing if I'm a good guy holding the light. Additionally, if you're using the light for searching, it is imperative that you create chaos for whoever might be trying to monitor your progress. Rhythm and duration are dangerous if they become steady and predictable. Therefore, changing the angle of the beam and flashing it sporadically is your best tool. Doing both while the light is in Strobe mode makes it all the more chaotic, adding to your advantage. What I recommend to any cop using this light is this: when you deploy it against a subject, deploy it Constant On, but as soon as the light is on, switch the tailcap to Strobe. Then if you have to ramp up, just push and hold the button to expose him/her to the strobe. It is VERY effective.

Next (and last) position is the Momentary activation position. In this position the light only stays on while you are pushing on the button. To get it back to lock-out, rotate it all the way left to the stop, push the button about half way down and then turn the tailcap another click to the left / counter-clockwise. It's that simple.

Now, about those dogs and fish. The Gladius is the first flashlight that I know of with a push-button activation that is waterproof and rated for diving. Why? Because if your flashlight is pressure activated, it tends to come on at about fifteen feet. At that depth you are at 1.5 atmospheres of pressure (approximately) and the pressue is just enough to push that button. To overcome that, the Gladius has a self-equalizing tailcap. Yes, it lets water in, and how it manages to protect the electronics and connections if VERY proprietary information. But, being me, I didn't believe it until I took it diving.

On the last diving trip I took with my wife to Lake Rawlings, I managed to get my Gladius down to 74 feet. It never came on during the descent, even though I had it in the Momentary position. At depth I played with it quite a bit and found that everything worked just like it did in the open air. The local fish, though, tended to turn and swim away quickly when the strobe was pointed in their direction. As to the dogs: My dogs have learned to leave the room when I have my Gladius out. They've seen it played with often enough that they know the Strobe feature exists and they don't like being around to see it. No, for you animal rights folks out there, I haven't regularly strobed my dogs. I love them more than that.

The Gladius I have is an original with the anti-roll tailcap. A straight-bodied version is in the prototype stages now. I have one black one and one tan one. As you can see from this picture, the Gladius is also available in OD Green or "Sniper" gray.

So, what's the price tag? About $235 dollars. Is that good or bad? I'd suggest you price the competition's lights. Find a two-cell (CR123 lithium batteries) light with an LED bulb and see what it costs. Then see if you can find one with all these features (or as close as you can get) and see what THAT costs. I think you'll find out that the Gladius is very competitively priced.

As a last observation, I'd mention that the Gladius has a body approximately 1" in diameter. That means it will fit in any one-inch mounting rings you might have on your AR-15, M4, etc. Again, for CQB it's a highly effective and versatile light.

I have a comment on this article.

Also, don't forget to read the new Recreational Equipment Evaluations:

Ka-Bar D2 Extreme Combat Knife-----5 September 2005
Plus others!!!

Check out this week's Highlighted Training Article about how using Police Chaplains as part of the selection and hiring process may help us to weed out terrorist infiltrators.

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