It might seem that weapon-mounted lights are a relatively new phenomenon, but that simply isn’t true. There are examples of oil lamps attached to guns from the late 17th century for hunting at night. The lightbulb was famously invented patented in 1879, the transportable chemical battery in 1888, and they combined to make a flashlight back in 1898. And just before World War I, Fred Forrester of Los Angeles patented the first electric WML.
Development of WMLs remained stunted until Dr. John Matthews, founder of Laser Products (now known as SureFire), combined the then-new Duracell lithium 123 battery with a voltage-regulated high intensity discharge tungsten bulb. This multiplied the light output of a compact flashlight by a factor of (see RECOIL Issue 35 to learn more). It wouldn’t be until the Global War on Terror and the U.S. total domination of modern night fighting before WMLs
