LEXINGTON, Mass. – BAE Systems has completed U.S. Army qualification of the next-generation family of light, medium, and heavy thermal weapon sights (TWS) and has received additional base and option production contract modifications valued at $73 million. The modifications bring the total current contract value to $200 million.

There are three variants of the TWS II, all designed around BAE Systems’ MicroIR® microbolometer-based sensor architecture. All three are being developed and qualified in partnership with Program Executive Office-Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Va., to provide Army infantry and U.S. Marine Corps with the ability to detect and engage targets day or night, in all weather and battlefield obscurant conditions.

TWS II enables individual and crew-served weapon gunners to see deep into the battlefield, increasing their surveillance and target acquisition range.

“These thermal weapon sights will give our fighting forces a technological advantage on the battlefield by greatly improving the individual soldier’s capabilities for surveillance and target acquisition under day and night battlefield conditions,” said Bruce Zukauskas, BAE Systems’ director of military IR products at Lexington, Mass. “We are proud of our team’s efforts, in partnership with PEO-Soldier, to successfully complete the TWS II qualification and begin delivering our thermal weapon sights into the hands of the war fighters.”

BAE Systems received a five-year, $111 million TWS II contract in March 2004, with total options of more than $250 million to produce up to 28,000 thermal sights. The latest order is part of this total.

BAE Systems
11.05.2006