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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Javelin

When Raytheon exhibits you can't call it a Booth, it's more like a Zip Code. You could fit 30 or more conventional booths into the space they occupy. I went over there however, to check out Air Warrior, their new system for Helicopter Pilots for increased Situational Awareness in flight and on the ground. They had even sent out a little PR to note it's presence at AUSA. It's presence amounted to a video giving an overview of the program and it's goals. Oh well. There was an eMaginocentric device though on the floor as the picture above can testify. I got to fire the Javelin Trainer pictured above (I got it Yuval, it's a "simulated weapon") and in doing so managed to learn some interesting things about the FGM-148 Program. They are convinced that the deal with India is fait accompli so that will take up the slack created by the withdrawal from Central Asia. BTW Javelin's mode of departure from Afghanistan is a new and experimental one. All the Systems will leave together and arrive together at a central depot where not the missiles but the CLUs will be sent to their destination by private carrier. The military is actually using some common sense in recognizing that the CLU although classified as a munition is harmless and unusable without the ability to unlock it. Anyway that's beside the point. Saving $ is a good thing.
   Raytheon had bought 3 different eMagin Displays to try in the Launcher and have settled on the new XGA. As near as I could tell that will be the only design change for the Next Gen Javelin. So, in real terms India  will not have much to do in terms of development.  I'm trying to get a handle on numbers but no can't do. The Indian Army is huge. Javelin seems destined for the mountainous border areas with Pakistan and China to be deployed with what India is calling a Mountain Strike Corps.  Javelin's surveilling ability plus better performance in high altitude & cold temperatures, is why it won out over it's competition. India has talked about thousands of systems but we'll see. Generally the Javelin is designated 2 per platoon. The trainer they had at AUSA was an original one from long ago but it certainly gave the flavor of firing one. The CRT display looked like a primitive video game but the new trainers have identical optics to the fielded ones. The Trainer is sold with the package and it takes a week of training to get soldiers proficient.  I was hoping to see a Raytheon Clip-On Thermal for light weapons but they were only showing the old clunkers. The most impressive Clip-On there had to be the Vectoronix (eMagin Inside) Clip-On. They have shrunk it to extent that if in your pocket you might forget it was there. It was good to visit the FLIR Booth as I heard the bracing statement, "We buy a lot of displays from eMagin." I thought, please buy more. The eMagin booth was pretty busy yesterday, I thought, please sell more.
 Yes, Burris is working on a new Smart Scope and Barrett is sticking with their Computer served scope for the time being. Oh, Raytheon is working a Joint Project with Kongsberg for a vehicle mounted Javelin. I'll take one.



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