For as long as people have been fighting one another, it’s been self-evident that he who can avoid getting hit has the best chance of coming out of the fight alive, if not victorious. Warfare has come a long way from hunter-gatherers dodging atlatl-thrown spears, but this ironclad rule of combat remains. Body armor and camouflage are both virtually ubiquitous, but exposure-reduction technologies and techniques have several times been tried, as well. The Krummlauf is perhaps one of the most famous ones, that being a curved attachment for StG-44 assault rifles to allow firing around corners and from within vehicles, while the more modern CornerShot is another. Ian and Karl with InRange takes a look at another such product that I had not heard of, the HideSight, which consists of a set of mirrors allowing aiming without requiring the shooter’s head to be directly behind the sights. Take a look at the video below:

HideSight is a very well-though-out piece of equipment, but it still faces some challenges before acceptance. One that comes to my mind is the question of how infantry equipped with these devices would be trained to use them. Would the HideSights be stored in pouches most of the time, and then attached at the user’s discretion, or when the squad leader gives the order? What situations are the ones where something like the HideSight would give the rifleman an advantage, versus being a detriment? These are the kinds of questions that can be answered, but only with testing and experience, and those take time.

HideSight has been around for a couple of years now, and retails for about $164 USD (145 €).