The U.S. Army aims to field a pair of new weapon attachments in the next 18 months in an effort to help dismounted soldiers detect and engage targets through darkness, fog and smoke.The service branch said Tuesday it expects to deploy the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle III system in the second quarter of 2018 and the Family of Weapons Sights-Individual technology in the first quarter of 2019.
In 2015, the Army awarded a potential $434 million contract to BAE Systems and a potential $367 million contract to Leonardo DRS for the production of integrated night vision and thermal weapon systems.
ENVG III will feature night vision image intensification tubes from Harris and L3 Technologies.
FWS-I is designed to integrate with M4 and M16 rifles and transmit sight pictures to helmet-mounted ENVG III systems wirelessly.
The Army noted the weapon sights technology can also operate with the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, M141 Bunker Defeat Munition and the M136 AT4 Light Anti-Tank Weapon.
