South East Asia
In South East Asia, the infantryman has had a head or weapon mounted image intensifier (II) with support weapons fitted with a thermal imager (TI) having longer range and better vision. A combination of the two NVDs is currently under examination—integration of the device within a single device or use of clip on thermal devices to existing II devices which appears more affordable and exploits the existing capital investment. Sales of NVDs to South East Asian countries have been reported as follows: Psyer sold their PNP-MS and PNPMUNS II sights and their PNP-MT and PNP MUNSTI TI sights to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Sagem sold their MATIS and OB50 TI sights to Malaysia. Optix sold their Diana single tube NVGs to Thailand and Exvision Thermal Camera to Singapore. America Technology Network sold THOR TI sight to Thailand and sold NVG-7 and NVM-14 NVGs to Indonesia and sold monocular, biocular goggles and hand-held sights to Vietnam. The Electro-Optical Systems Technology met Republic of Korea night vision II requirement using Photonis tubes. Qioptiq sold 350 VIPR 2 sights for Australia’s Land 125 Phase 2 programme. Trials have been held in Malaysia and Singapore. Infrared Security Systems sold 35 thermal sighting systems to Malaysia and thermal imaging viewer (TIV) to Malaysia and Thailand. ITL sold Mini SEAS to Australia, Thailand and Singapore. Pulse Inteco sold 800 of its Rantel-2 night vision monocular devices to Thailand. ITT sold PVS-14 and -7 night vision goggles to Australia, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. A number of systems incorporating image fusion are now available. Clip on devices are gaining ground in the fusion arena. Qioptiq launched a new clip on thermal sight during 2012 for use with the Thales Optronics Lucie-D goggle. Similarly, Vectronix’s 300metre range thermal acquisition clip-on system (TACS-M) which is NVG host agnostic although the company has naturally built in compliance with its Tarsius I2 solution.