The Army last week announced two contracts, each for roughly $500 million, to FLIR and Leonardo for delivery of what is termed the Family of Weapons Sights-Individual.
In a nutshell, the new FWS-I, when paired with the equally new ENVG-B night vision/thermal goggle, allows the user to link the sight on his rifle, carbine, or light machine gun to his goggles remotely, kind of like a really secure Bluetooth, which then allows them to aim and fire the gun by just aligning the augmented reality reticle without bringing the weapon up to their eye.
This means cool things like shooting around corners or from under a car, with just the rifle in the open if you can get the angle right.
Also, as it is infrared, the sight works day or night and sees through smoke and harsh weather (fog, rain, hail), giving the user a sort of “Predator vision” without the crab face or catching lip from Austrian bodybuilders.
Of course, the sight is dependent on batteries– 3 AAs– only lasts only about seven hours before needing new ones, and, like any tech, can break, but if it works, could be super interesting on the modern battlefield. This isn’t 1914 or 1941 anymore, guys.
