Night-vision devices were introduced in the German Army as early as 1939 and were used in World War II. AEG started developing the first devices in 1935. In mid-1943, the German Army began the first tests with infrared night-vision () devices and telescopic rangefinders mounted on Panther tanks. Two different arrangements were created and used on Panther tanks. The Sperber FG 1250 ("Sparrow Hawk"), with range up to 600 m, had a 30 cm infrared searchlight and an image converter operated by the tank commander.