Have You Ever Wondered?

Just about every flashlight I own has a strobe function. I have never used it for anything other than to test it out. Its supposed use is for “self defense”, but it’s never been clearly explained how strobing light, made popular during the days of disco, could be a defensive tool. If you’re like me, you may have wondered why on earth anybody would program a flashlight to do this. I decided to google it to see of I could find the answer.

How Flashlights Came to Have a Strobe Function

A former Navy Seal named Ken Good did force on force training at Combative Concepts which later became Surefire Institute. Ken specialized in low light training and CQB (close quarters combat). Ken had discovered the disorienting properties of strobing light after bringing an actual disco strobe to his training. Eventually Surefire began producing flashlights that incorporated this concept. Soon, other brands began to follow.

Is A Strobe Light A Sufficient Self Defense Tool?

I am convinced a flashlight in general is a very useful tool for safety. I carry a light and pepper spray absolutely everywhere I go. I even sleep next to these tools as I think a groggy person reaching for a firearm with extremely limited time to make a decision would be dangerous.

From my brief foray into reading about this, the main benefit of a strobe is understood by thinking about human vision and understanding Ken’s philosophy on low light tactics.

Ken believed in working from the least light towards the most light. Ken taught his students to avoid backlighting oneself. When you are backlit, your silhouette is easily identifiable. When you are in a shadow and your target is in the light, it’s hard for them to identify you because their eyes are adjusted for the ambient light, not the shadow. By hitting your target with a strobe, you would guarantee that you are not backlit as the flash of the strobe would he brighter than any other ambient light.

Using a light switch to illuminate a room will reveal your location, but strobing your target will allow you to see them and make it difficult for them to see you. It seems to be, the strobe function is not ideal as a defensive tool, but originally intended as an offensive tool to be used by a person who is using the element of surprise to clear a room as part of a combat mission, hostage rescue etc. Most likely in this scenario, the offense is using a light on a weapon in conjunction with several other parties also using their strobes as well, which would cause the defenders to be unsure of what direction and from what distance the attackers were coming from.

In testing, people who were being strobed were still able to hit a target with a firearm though it was more challenging. In further testing, lower hertz strobing made it difficult for the “strober” to see movement from the “strobee”, which is actually dangerous. If the strobe was too fast, strobing was disorienting to even the strober. 18-20hz was a sweet spot. Another factor was the brightness of the strobe. 1000 lumens was sufficient. Yet another factor is the spread of the light beam. A true tactical light should have a very tight beam so that most of the light could be directed into your opponent’s eyes.

What A Strobe Does and Doesn’t Do

For most people, our use of a flashlight in a tactical situation would be defensive rather than offensive. A strobe light is not going to make your opponent collapse or convulse, (unless they are sufficiently drunk, in which case they may fall over, or perhaps, if they are epileptic?)

What a strobe does is blind your opponent momentarily, some will close or cover their eyes. It’s primary purpose is to hide your movement, so if you’re going to throw a defensive shove or punch, retrieve a weapon from concealment, or turn to run, they may not see your movement or have enough time to counter it.

It also created problems for estimating distance. If strobing a violent person and closing or increasing your distance, they will have trouble determining which way you are moving.

It’s not a complete solution, it’s an aid to whatever your next movement will be. The strobing effect is more effective when the target is being hit by multiple strobes from different directions, so the ideal situation would be to rove around in some sort of flashlight gang, where everyone was equipped with a strobe and prepared to strobe anyone who looked like trouble. This would be quite ridiculous.

To use the strobe effectively you would want to use it in a low light situation. Your light needs to have a rear tail switch that activates the strobe function in one click, not a series of clicks. Side switches are not effective as they are hard to locate. Time would not be on your side.

How and When The Strobe Function Of A Light Could Be Used Defensively

When to use a strobe? When you realize that you’re being approached by a hostile threat. If they have a firearm, knife, or other lethal weapon, this is not the tool. This creates significant cognitive burden to overcome in a few fractions of a second. The only time I can think of where this might be possible would be in intervening in an attack of someone else where you have had time to observe the attacker, however in that case, you might as well just pepper spray them.

If deciding to use a strobe, you would then need to quickly deploy a second strategy, be it a push, pepper spray, or some other level of appropriate force. Do not simply stand there expecting your opponent to collapse into seizures. My best guess as to how to deploy this effectively from the perspective of just learning about it today, would be to use the strobe light in your weak hand, and use your strong hand to deploy your second attack, such as pepper spray or a punch. With a tactical flashlight, you may have a “crenelated bezel” or a jagged edge around the head of the flashlight. Depending on the size of your light, this crenelated edge maybe dangerous and painful enough to use as your second attack, which would allow you to have the light in your strong hand, especially if holding your light with a tactical overhand grip.

To be able to utilize a strobe you will need to practice situational awareness and have a second attack or counter attack pre-planned and staged. Using it effectively would require a lot of practice, preparation, and skill and I think most physical altercations do not occur in such a way that a person would have enough time to use a flashlight this way.

For most people, perhaps other than law enforcement or people in home defense situations who might deploy the strobe on their weapon mounted light as they cleared their house, it’s probably a useless feature on a flashlight.

That being said, it’s incredible that a feature originally intended for use by a tiny sliver of the world’s population, specifically Special Forces and other elite units who spend time raiding cargo ships and drug warehouses, made it’s way onto just about every flashlight on the planet by way of Jim Good’s work with Surefire and good old fashioned copycatism.

References:

https://www.ammoman.com/blog/using-a-strobe-flashlight-for-self-defense/

https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/self-defense-in-low-light

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/police-study-of-tactical-use-of-strobe.356772/