Thermal Scope

In-Game
The Thermal Scope is a weapon attachment in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Thermal Scope can see through smoke and weather conditions, but not thin materials like sheet metal or cloth. Images are in grayscale and blur slightly with movement and heat sources glow white, similarly to the thermal camera used in Killstreaks like the AC-130 and the Predator Missile. The crosshairs are bright red and the zoom appears to be more than that of an ACOG but less than that of a sniper scope. The Thermal Scope drifts, but can be steadied by not breathing, similar to sniper scopes. However, a major drawback is that your overall view through the scope is smaller than both the sniper scope and the ACOG, and your peripheral vision is eliminated. In multiplayer this limits your overall situational awareness since you can't see anything to your sides, unless you are constantly scanning them by not looking through your scope. It is not as effective when firing weapons on full automatic due to the recoil (the picture's already-fuzzy appearance combined with the motion blur of the recoil and the bright white tracer rounds makes precision shooting during full automatic fire very difficult). The scope does not work well in snow covered conditions, as snow appears white through the thermal, about the same as people. It is extremely useful for spotting partially concealed enemies at a distance or enemies using Smoke Grenades since they appear bright white. However, opponents using the Cold-Blooded perk will appear in the same shades of gray as the environment but can still be easily spotted if moving. In real life, the scope works by detecting thermal radiation given out by all warm things but in the game it is simplified to more of a human location scope. A real thermal scope is able to see through the smoke generated by explosions and smokescreens, this is because the particles in the smoke are too small to block infrared wavelengths, this is one of their primary uses on the battlefield. In a thermal sight snow appears cold (black). Unpainted metal is reflective and will appear to take on the temperature of whatever is reflected in the surface. Reflected sky generally makes objects appear cold.

Obtaining
The Thermal Scope can be unlocked for all types of primary weapons (with the obvious exception of the Riot Shield) by getting 20 kills looking through the ACOG Sight.

Trivia

 * When looking at snow through a thermal camera, the snow will appear very light-grey. this is highly innacurate as it should be near pitch-black. This limits the player's ability to see well with the thermal scope on snowy maps.


 * When looking at an enemy equipped with a riot shield equipped through thermal sights, the riot shield also appears white hot for some reason.


 * If you are wearing a Ghillie suit obtained through the Ghillie in the Mist challenge, your ghillie suit will not glow.


 * In reality, when looking through a thermal scope, one's equipment, such as ballistic vests and spare mags, would not glow white, but this feature was probably excluded from the in-game version for ease of use.