[MB.]

http://defense-update.com/wp/20110216_tws.html

The U.S. Army is ordering 21,877 Thermal Weapon Sights at an investment of about $195 million. AN/PAS-13 According to the U.S. Army Program Executive Office PEO Soldier, Thermal Weapon Sights (TWS) gives Soldiers with individual and crew served weapons the capability to see deep into the battlefield, increase surveillance and target acquisition range, and penetrate obscurants, day or night.

The TWS systems use uncooled, forward-looking infrared technology and provide a standard video output for training, image transfer, or remote viewing. Thermal Weapon Sights are lightweight systems that are mountable onto a weapon rail and operate to the maximum effective range of the weapon.
 TWS are providing soldiers in Afghanistan better capability to see and aim at night, or in dark indoors and underground space where Image Intensifier sights do not perform well.

The Army is fielding three different types of TWS Sights. The heavier one, fitted with x10 magnification is issued to leaders, snipers and operators of heavy support weapons. Photo: U.S. Army, PEO Soldier
PEO Soldier is fielding three types of TWS – the An/PAS-13(V)1 Light weapon thermal Sight (LwtS) weighing only 1.95 pounds (0.88 kg) is issued to infantry soldiers using M16/M4 type assault rifles and carbines as well as for the M-136 Javelin guided missile0 system. The (V)2 Medium weapon thermal Sight (MwtS) weighs 2.9 pounds (1.3 kg) and offers magnification of x5, is used with M249 and M240 series medium machine guns, and the 3.9 pounds (1.76 kg) An/PAS-13(V)3 heavy weapon thermal Sight (hwtS) issused for squad leaders using M16 and M4 weapons, snipers using M24 and M107 sniper rifles, and heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers (M2 HB and MK19). This type has a magnification of x10.

Three TWS manufacturers have recently won orders for this equipment, Raytheon, DRS an BAE Systems have won new orders for Thermal Weapons Sights, under ongoing indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quality contract (IDIQ) contracts with the U.S. Army. Raytheon and DRS have each received orders worth $68 million while BAE Systems received an order worth $58 million. The unit costs represented by the different orders may reflect different types of thermal sights, as the DRS and BAE systems won the orders at unit price of 9922.- and 9670.- respectively while Raytheon is selling its product at a cost of $7630.- All deliveries will be completed by mid-year 2012.

[Cartertonian]

Do these systems work with any sort of 'friend or foe' ID technology?

I can see a rise in blue on blue if you give trigger-happy Yankees better sights, but don't give them any assistance in interpreting what they are seeing.

[Typhoon]

It might be applicable to some of the panels applied to vehicles for the purposes of identification but in general I would say no. But that said if the cameras provide beteer resolution images at range it should improve the ability to identify the target or at least give more time to watch before opening fire...

...not that access to such things saved others...

[Wolfman]

I don't know if it'll be integrated, but the US Army uniforms (as much as I hate them) have a 'button' on them about the size of a quarter. According to them, if shows up as a bright color when looked at through the current NVGs used by the US. They're placed on the shoulders and there's another which on the front of the helmet, and some on combat vehicles. As of yet, these are on the uniforms of the Army and Airforce, and the new Navy Uniforms (just started being phased in about two years ago, so the old ones will probably be around for another few years). Marines are apparently getting new combat uniforms in a year or two (that none of us are looking forward to), and I'm going to guess we'll have our own little buttons.

It might not help us from accidentally killing the British or Afghan soldiers, but it'll help prevent soldiers from accidentally killing each other.

[killim]

Yeah and who cares about Brits

[Cartertonian]

[Wolfman]

I'd have to know if British uniforms include those same buttons.

[Social_Critic]

Well, if I were you guys I wouldn't be discussing the little buttons and things like that which may be used by "bad guys" to shoot at "our guys". I'm opposed to US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UK, but I also think it's important not to feed anything to prospective bad guys which they may use to shoot back at us.

Regarding the thermal sights, I heard from a Russian friend the Serbs had figured out how the USAF was using imaging to figure out where they had their gear (this was during the 1999 Clinton "humanitarian" bombing. The Serbs looked at their own signature, then had mock ups made (inflatable, wooden, etc), and they put light bulbs and heating elements inside or wherever, to make them look like military hardware. My Russian friend was laughing his butt off, explaining how the Serbs even had a way to mimic the way a tank loses heat as the sun goes down - they dialed the mockup heat signature the same way. So the US was bombing the hail out of this fake hardware, while their real hardware sat deep underground. And this explains why the NATO forces had to go on to bomb civilian targets, they felt they had to bomb something to change the Serbs' minds, and so they shifted to Belgrade and so on.

Lesson learned: Sometimes US forces are very smart, but they forget the other side may have tricks up their sleeve. Which explains why, in spite of all this sophistication, Pat Tillman is dead.

[Wolfman]

I'm opposed to US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UK, but I also think it's important not to feed anything to prospective bad guys which they may use to shoot back at us.

This forum is for discussing military hardware, not military policy. That would go to the International Relations section.

[Social_Critic]

Yes, but the point is you are discussing things one may consider giving tips to the enemy. I was just pointing out there's being anti war or being a technical wizard in this field of military hardware, and there's the somewhat related issue of giving tips to the prospective enemy.

I don't visit techno-military sites, but if you guys are blogging this type of material, you may want to be cautious, that's all. You may be providing a how to manual for English speaking Al qaida types to hit back at us.

[Smilin' Dave]

I don't visit techno-military sites, but if you guys are blogging this type of material, you may want to be cautious, that's all. You may be providing a how to manual for English speaking Al qaida types to hit back at us.

There hasn't been a single thing mentioned that isn't already freely available online in a variety of languages. If you want us to accept AQ can read this forum, then you have to accept they can do their own Google searches... so do you really believe this warning was necessary, or was it just motivated by a desire for attention? You apparently didn't mind giving away secrets about Serbian tactics

[Social_Critic]

I'm not Serbian. And if I hear about it, I'm sure everybody else did. I'm not a spook. I do hear about stuff you don't see in the media unless you dig really hard, because I happen to be there sometimes, or I know people who were there, or something like that. Like the time I heard about 10,000 germans being buried in a tunnel offshore Sakhalin. I'm sure everybody knows about it in the CIA, but it sure was news to me.

Now take these little buttons deal. I never heard about it. And I got the feeling a couple of you guys work for some kind of skunky type corporation inventing death rays and sh*t like that. So I thought it would be a good idea to say it may be better to keep quiet. But if you say this is common knowledge and the Taliban know about this, then I'll take your word for it.

Which makes me wonder, how come Pat Tillman got nailed by his own guys if he was wearing these little buttons? Or are these something you guys invented after Pat got offed?

[Smilin' Dave]

I'm not Serbian.

Well I guess that makes it okay to 'leak top secret information' then Hypocritically, you are happy to hand out information about 'guys you know', but insist the same sort of information is too hot to handle when someone else does it.

And I got the feeling a couple of you guys work for some kind of skunky type corporation inventing death rays and sh*t like that.

Yeah, that's right. Typhoon is working on the weather machine program while I think Wolfman runs the super-soldier program.

Which makes me wonder, how come Pat Tillman got nailed by his own guys if he was wearing these little buttons? Or are these something you guys invented after Pat got offed?

What makes you think he was shot with carefully aimed fire?

[Social_Critic]

I asked if Pat Tillman was wearing the lttle buttons or not. Seems to me he was out in the open. He got shot by his own side. He knew he was being shot by his own side, according to the accounts I read. So I was wondering, did they have these little buttons then? Or maybe the guys doing the shooting didn't have these sights?

I didn't "insist" on anything. I was only pointing out the information about these buttons should not be posted if it was confidential. Since you told me it wasn't, then I think the case is closed.

I do find the comment about the US Army ordering 21,000 thermal sights to be a bit odd. I thought they all had these gizmos. Don't they make it part of their standard kit? Or am I watching too many war movies?

[Smilin' Dave]

Seems to me he was out in the open. He got shot by his own side. He knew he was being shot by his own side, according to the accounts I read.

Where exactly did you glean this information from? Since for a change this is apparently something you read, rather than witnessed or heard from a mystery friend this will be something I can look up.

I didn't "insist" on anything. I was only pointing out the information about these buttons should not be posted if it was confidential. Since you told me it wasn't, then I think the case is closed.

Which is why you spent half your last post justifying your belief that it was in fact confidential rather than saying "sorry, my mistake".

[Social_Critic]

Huh, let me see. Where did I hear Pat Tillman was shot by his own guys? Back when it happened the Pentagon claimed it was done by the Taliban, and made up a story (which turned out to be fake) about his supposed bravery and so on.

Later, a couple of the rangers in his chalk began to talk, and the word got to Pat's parents. And they started making calls, and the next thing you know some of the media heard the claims, and they interviewed the people who were there, and they reported it sure looked like Pat had been shot by his own side. So there was an inquiry by the Army, and they concluded that Pat had been shot by his own guys. According to the accounts, his last words were "Don't shoot, it's me, Tillman".

This was kept hushed by the Pentagon - they weren't about to do a jessica lynch show with it, of course. And the right wing media sure didn't pick it up either. Where did I hear about it? I guess from the media which did pick it up. But I can't recall exactly. I read a magazine called "American Conservative", and they were publishing a lot of material about the war back then, because the editors were anti-neocon (and I'm very anti neocon, of course), so maybe I picked it up there. Why don't you google something like "Pat Tilman fatricide" and see what you get?

[Oxymoron]

why do russians need tanks?

[Social_Critic]

I think Russians need tanks to stop the US invasion coming in via the Ukraine, of course. Or maybe to stop the Chinese? It's the same reason we need tanks, it's to stop the Canadians and Mexicans in our case.

[Wolfman]

So I was wondering, did they have these little buttons then?

No, actually, they didn't.

[Thompson_NCL]

I think Russians need tanks to stop the US invasion coming in via the Ukraine, of course. Or maybe to stop the Chinese? It's the same reason we need tanks, it's to stop the Canadians and Mexicans in our case.

This guy HAS to be a troll