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Soldiers Can Hip Fire Accurately With New Night Vision Gear

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In what is an improvement on hip firing techniques with the use of technology, the U.S. Army has announced that they have are working on a new Thermal Scope and ENVG with Wireless Connection that will communicate with each other. The scope will be allow the soldier to see the target as seen through the rifle via the ENVG even with the weapon not needing raised to eye level. This allows shooting from the hip accurately.

The benefit will be even quicker reaction times from soldiers when they need to shoot at the enemy who is about to fire at them. Since they can fire from the hip accurately with the new system, the time to react gets reduced and danger eliminated quickly.

In a news release by the U.S. Army, the new equipment promises and enhanced image of the battlefield and soldiers can fire without necessarily using traditional firing positions:

The Enhanced Night Vision Goggle III, or ENVG III, is worn on a helmet in the same way earlier models were worn. The device can be wirelessly linked to the Family of Weapon Sights - Individual, or FWS-I, which can be mounted on the M4 carbine, M16A4 rifle, M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, M136 AT4 rifle, or M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, Col. Michael Sloane said.

Because the FWS-I wirelessly transmits a video signal of the weapon sight to the ENVG III, a Soldier will be able to accurately fire his weapon without having to bring the weapon up to eye level. Soldiers will be able to point the weapon around a corner, acquire a target wirelessly though the FWS-I, and fire - all while remaining in defilade.

An outcome of this technology combination is a capability called "Rapid Target Acquisition". New techniques, maneuvers and tactics will be developed using the FWS-I and ENVG III by  Maneuver Center of Excellence, or MCOE at Fort Benning in the State of Georgia, and the Army Training and Doctrine Command located in Fort Eustis, Virginia.

The U.S. Army plans to equip 18 Soldiers per platoon with the FWS-I and 24 Soldiers per platoon with the ENVG III units to be fielded beginning in 2017 and FWS-I units beginning in 2019.

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