#ENVG

A new kind of face appears on the battlefield, as soldiers use the ENVG III night vision device. It’s interesting to see it mounted outside a gas mask, but train as you fight I guess. This Photo Of The Day was taken at the Goldmine Training Area in South Korea last month. The caption reads:

Photo Of The Day – FWS-I and ENVG-B – Although these abbreviations make sense they are somewhat difficult to pronounce and hard to remember, don’t you agree? Previously we’ve seen similar technology in our post about the FWS-CS Sight on M2HB Heavy Machine Gun and Mark 19 Grenade Launcher.

There are night vision goggles and there are thermal devices. Some people bridge the two like a FLIR Breach and PVS-14. The next level up is thermal fusion. This is where the thermal image is inserted into the night vision image. I wrote an article about DIY fusion, where you look into a thermal device with your night vision. Real thermal fusion allows you to see both night vision and thermal all in the same sight picture. The low barrier to entry for thermal fusion is to get a COTI (clip-on thermal imager). However, the ultimate thermal fusion is an integrated fusion unit that has rear projection overlay. That is the case for the ENVG PSQ-20.

Talking to some friends and one of them mentioned the PSQ-20 ENVG (Enhanced Night Vision Goggle). He described it as Night Vision with thermal vision.