Futuristic New Night Vision Goggles Just Made the US Army Even More Powerful
The United States military has long been at the forefront of utilizing technologies to make our forces more efficient and lethal than our enemies and rivals, and they just made another major advancement in that regard.
Fox News reported that the U.S. Army recently unveiled the adoption of a new highly-advanced night vision and thermal imaging goggle system that will give American soldiers an incredible advantage over their enemies on the battlefield.
The new system is known as the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle III and Family of Weapon Sight-Individual program, dubbed ENVG III/FWS-I for short, and was created in collaboration with BAE Systems. It’s said to allow our soldiers to “own the night,” even more than they already have.
U.S. soldiers have long used special night vision goggles — which pick up and amplify ambient light — to see better at night, as well as thermal imaging sights mounted on a rifle to better distinguish warm targets in the dark.
As amazing as both of those systems are, they couldn’t be used in conjunction with each other and soldiers who spotted a target through their night vision goggles would have to rapidly shift to the thermal sights on their weapon prior to taking a shot.
That split-second of time that it takes a trained soldier to switch between the two could systems mean the difference between life and death in the middle of a firefight.
This new ENVG III/FWS-I system combines both of the previous systems and integrates them through a push-button wireless connection from the weapon-mounted sight to a helmet-mounted monocular.
The device features an advanced 12-micron thermal technology that will provide sharp image contrast in both day and night conditions. It was also specifically designed to be as lightweight and small as possible with minimal power consumption, and also features an easy-to-use push-button interface that allows for different modes of view, such as picture-in-picture or scope-only.
A huge advantage of that integration is that it will now allow a soldier to “see” through their monocular whatever the sight on their weapon can “see,” even if the weapon isn’t shouldered and the soldier isn’t looking down the barrel.
That means a soldier can safely remain behind solid cover and only expose the rifle to the enemy in order to see them, which would allow for soldiers to take accurate aimed shots around building corners or high above their heads over a barrier without risk of receiving return fire.
That capability will provide a significant advantage not shared by anyone else on the typical battlefield of modern warfare — the densely-populated urban environment.
While this system will indeed prove invaluable in allowing U.S. soldiers to dominate a fight at night, the system can also be utilized during the day to help acquire targets hidden by dust, fog, smoke or vegetation.
According to BusinessWire, the U.S. Army placed two separate orders totaling $97 million with BAE in March for the advanced night vision system.
That order was part of a broader five-year deal recently reached between the Army and BAE to provide an unspecified number of the new goggles to our troops over the next several years.
There is no doubt that this futuristic night vision and thermal imaging goggle system will provide our nation’s fighting force with a technological advantage over our enemies on the battlefield that simply can’t be matched by anybody.
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