US Army
The United States Army recently dropped a fascinating video showing how different the battefield look while wearing their new Enhanced Night Vision Goggles-Binocular (ENVG-B).
According to Business Insider, the footage using the new ENVG-B was taken on April 19 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington while soldiers assigned to 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division conducted a platoon live-fire exercise.
https://twitter.com/lancer_brigade/status/1385318416106475522
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The Army’s new Enhanced Night Vision Goggles-Binocular were first introduced in the fall of 2019, replacing the older PVS-14 monoculars used by their soldiers as well as NATO forces.
The view mode seen in the above video, which Task & Purpose first reported, is “Outline Mode Fused + AR/RTA,” AR standing for “augmented reality” and RTA standing for “rapid target acquisition,” Capt. Daniel Matthews, a spokesman for 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, told Insider.
The outline view is one of several settings available to ENVG-B users. An Army video from last fall, for instance, showed the goggles lighting up the night as if it were the middle of the day.
The new ENVG-B provide a larger field of view and gets rid of the classic green images we’ve all become accustomed to seeing.
The new goggles can also connect wirelessly to a soldier’s rifle through the Family of Weapon Sights-Individual for more accurate shooting and rapid target acquisition.
With a picture-in-picture setup, soldiers can simultaneously see what is in front of them and wherever their weapon is aiming. Not only can they shoot more effectively in general, but they can also shoot accurately from the hip or around corners.
Capt. Will Hess, commander of C Troop, 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, said about the new ENVG-B, “in terms of target detection and clarity, the difference between the ENVG-B and the PVS-14 is night and day … the guys wearing the ENVG-Bs were taking targets out to 300 meters and even beyond, whereas our guys with 14s are having trouble seeing beyond 150.”
Next up? The Army is working on a new Integrated Augmented Reality System (IVAS) which feature digital thermal, night vision, and low-light sensors with a 180 degree field of view, as well as mapping capability and the tracking of friendly and enemy forces on the battlefield.