There's something to be said about hammer-painted apparatus from the Cold War era. They are sometimes functional, often uncomfortable, and always heavy. These Polish Night Vision Goggles tick all the boxes! Use with a vintage Warsaw Pact steel helmet for the best effect.
The goggles are mounted to a frame with an adjustable linkage system, IR illuminator, and a claw mount for attaching the whole thing to the front of a helmet. The illuminator and goggles have separate cables that run to a battery box with a shoulder strap. The whole thing comes in a box but there's also a canvas bag for easier carrying in the field.
The device attaches to the front of most Warsaw Pact helmets and makes the helmet front-heavy, probably to keep your head down. It should be a reasonable hack job to mate it with a more ergonomic headband system.
Batteries are not included and the nominal operating voltage is 6 Volts so coming up with an alternative should not be difficult if you're tech-savvy. The battery case has plenty of room so capacity should not be a problem.
The wooden box (yes, wood, to emphasize the space-ageness of this instrument) is rather exciting in itself and includes some extra trinkets of various types, for example, two IR Pass filters that probably fit the headlights of your UAZ or maybe they are just spares for the headlamp. Outside measurements of the box about 41 x 31 x 23 cm weight 9.5 kg (16" x 12" x 9" / 21 lbs).
A bright future
These work just fine with your "regular household infrared flashlight" so if you're willing to sacrifice cool for performance, you can remove the huge headlamp. If you already came up with an alternative lightweight power source and headband system, this might actually be somewhat usable!
Polish surplus
These are used but in a good condition and tested to be functional by our supplier, but not by us so no guarantees on that. Understand, that these were made in Poland over half a century ago so if they work, we can't guarantee how long these remain operational. We're selling these for collectors, not serious users.
Stephen H.
Martin M.
Trent F.