The US Army is preparing to field new night vision goggles and an integrated weapons sight that will change the way US ground forces go to war.
The new Enhanced Night Vision Goggles - Binocular (ENVG-B) and the Family of Weapons Sights – Individual (FWS-I) will make US Soldiers and Marines deadlier in the dark by offering improved depth perception for better mobility and increased situational awareness at night, as well as the ability to accurately shoot around corners and from the hip.
The Army will begin fielding this capability next week at Fort Riley in Kansas, where this new technology will be delivered to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
The night vision goggles offer higher-resolution imagery, as well as improved thermal capabilities, giving ground troops the ability to see through dust, fog, smoke, and other battlefield obscurants.
The goggles wirelessly connect to the weapon sight, delivering Rapid Target Acquisition capability. With a picture-in-picture setup, soldiers can see not only what is in front of them, but also whatever their weapon is aimed at, allowing them to shoot from the hip or point their weapon around a corner.
"This capability "enables Soldiers to detect, recognize and engage targets accurately from any carry position and with significantly reduced exposure to enemy fire," according to the Army.
This system was tested with US soldiers, special operators, Marines, and National Guard personnel.
Sgt. First Class Will Roth, a member of the Army Futures Command Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team, was skeptical when he first learned about this technology, he told the Army in a statement. "I couldn't envision a time when Soldiers would accept this product and trust it in the field," he said.
His mind changed after he saw a Marine lie down on his back and fire over his shoulder at targets 50 to 100 meters away, relying solely on the goggles paired wirelessly to the optics on the Marine's rifle. "He hit five out of seven. It gave me chill bumps," Roth said.
"I decided this was an insane game changer," he added. "I'm a believer, one hundred percent. Nothing else offers these kinds of capabilities."
Senior Army officials are optimistic about the capabilities of this new technology.
"It is better than anything I've experienced in my Army career," Lt. Gen. James Richardson, deputy commander of Army Futures Command, told Congress earlier this year, adding that Rangers had "gone from marksman to expert" with the help of the new optics.
Read more: US soldiers will soon deploy with game-changing night vision that lets them shoot around corners
Brig. Gen. Dave Hodne, director of the Army's Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team, told reporters last October that he "can't imagine, right now, any future sighting system that will not have that kind of capability."
The ENVG-B and FWS-I mark the first deliverables of the US Army's one-year-old four-star command, Army Futures Command, which is dedicated to the development of next-generation weapons and warfighting systems.
