An attacking armored vehicle, probably like no other combatant, needs thermal imaging equipment. And the point here is not only in the search for targets from the category of their own kind, but in the timely detection in the day and night in any conditions of tank-hazardous infantry, which is sometimes equipped with extremely effective weapons systems. The appearance of thermal imagers in tank history slightly corrected the expression "The main combat range at night is equal to half the combat range during the day", which is true for active night vision devices of generations 0 and 1, to a new one - "The main combat range at night is equal to the combat range during the day."
Domestic tankers started with the Agava-2 thermal imager, which first appeared on the T-80UM in 1992 and was very warmly received by the Ministry of Defense - the creators received the Kotin Prize. By that time, the lag of the domestic military industry in this direction from the West was taking on alarming proportions.
"Agave-2" Source - thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.ru
It is noteworthy that on the Agave-2, for the first time for a Soviet-designed tank, the video image was displayed on a television screen. The predecessor was the Agava thermal imager, which was produced in the amount of 17 pieces, but the army refused to finance purchases and defined new requirements, which they implemented in the second iteration. The field of view of the Agava-2 sight was twice as large (2.5 ′ x 4 ° instead of 1.3 ° x 1.9 ° for its predecessor), the number of vertical expansion elements was 2.5 times greater (256 elements instead of 100 elements), the target identification range of the "tank" type was increased immediately by 20-30% to 2600 meters. By the early 2000s, Agava-2 was both morally and technically outdated, which forced functionaries from the defense industry to look for new ways. We found them in France from Thales and Sagem, which provided their Catherine-FC and Matiz models, respectively, as the core of the Essa thermal imaging sighting system. The resolution of the sight matrix is 754x576 pixels, the French guarantee the detection of infantry at distances of up to 6 km, armored vehicles at 10 km, helicopters at 14 km, and aircraft at 18 km. The French sold us a second-generation single-channel thermal imaging equipment operating in the range of 8-12 microns. The most interesting thing is that the origin of the "Essa" sight also cannot be called completely domestic - it was developed in the Belarusian design bureau "Peleng" and by now part of the T-90, T-80 and T-72 family with its variants is equipped with such an international sight, as well as export modifications. At the same time, in accordance with the requirements of the main customer, the assembly of similar thermal imagers was also organized at the Vologda Optical and Mechanical Plant under a French license. Vologda also paid attention to light equipment - the gunner's combined sight of its own developed PPND B03S03 "Sodema" for BMP-3M was also created around the cooled matrix Catherine-FC. The Belarusians on the T-72BEM, "tuned" by their own forces, have installed an already updated multichannel version of the Essa-72U sighting system.
Sight "Agat-MDT". Source - shvabe.com.
Russia is working on new tank thermal imagers on its own. In particular, JSC "Krasnogorsk Plant named after S. A. Zverev" (JSC KMZ) has developed, as they claim, the first domestic sighting and observation complex for the tank commander "Agat-MDT" on the basis of an uncooled photodetector of the 3rd generation produced by NPO Orion ", having a resolution of 640x512 pixels with a step of 15 microns. Open sources claim that the spectral range of this thermal imager extends from 3 to 5 microns. The night channel provides a human detection range of up to 1400 meters in the tank version, and in the modification for BMPT up to 1000 meters ("Agat - MR"). KMZ also offers a thermal imager "Nocturne" with a detection range of a tank by a thermal signature of at least 7.5 kilometers and can be used when upgrading the T-72 instead of the 1A40 and 1K13 guidance devices. It seems that JSC KMZ, which is part of the almighty Shvabe, is becoming the leading developer of thermal imaging equipment for Russian heavy armored vehicles. Their range now includes a cooled thermal imager for the gunner of the Irbis-K tank based on the Russian element base (cadmium-mercury-tellurium photosensitive film), capable of distinguishing contrasting thermal targets at a distance of up to 3250 meters.
Gunner's sight 1PN-96MT Source - gurkhan.blogspot.ru
1PN-96MT is one of the latest thermal imagers for a tank gunner, developed at the Vologda Optical and Mechanical Plant, designed to modernize the T-72 series. According to open data, the sight is based on an imported UFPA 640x480 microbolometer, which provides it with a tank detection range of 3000 meters. At the moment there is information that Russia has mastered the production of its own uncooled microbolometers, which will be used as the core of thermal imagers for the Armata, Kurganets and Typhoon families. We have become the fourth country in the world after the USA, France and China that has managed to develop our own production of this level of complexity. It is reported that the matrix, the head developer of which is the Moscow Central Research Institute "Cyclone". installed on MANPADS "Verba" and "Igla".
The M60A3 TTS is the first production tank with a thermal imager. Source - commons.wikimedia.org
The tank building of a potential enemy introduced a thermal imaging sight much earlier - in 1979, an AN / VSG-2 gunner's sight appeared on the M60A3 TTS (Tank Thermal Sight), which has an eyepiece retraction of the thermal imaging channel for the commander. They tested the sight in the proving grounds since 1977, and from 1981 they began to bring the tanks in service to the level of the M60A3 TTS. Later, the thermal imager was upgraded to the GPTTS version and exported for installation on the South Korean Type 88. The American "Abrams" from the very birth possessed thermal vision in the already classic wavelength range of 8-12 microns - a GPS (Gunner periscop sight) sight was installed at the gunner, which made it possible to distinguish heat at a distance of up to 2000 m already in the early 80s. The M1A2 thermal imager was also presented to the tank commander in the form of a panoramic observation device CITV (Commanders Independent Thermal Viewer) with a visibility in azimuth of 3600 and in elevation from -100 to +200.
Optics EMES-15 for Leopard -2A5. Source - Wikimedia Commons
The German arms industry did not lag behind - an EMES-15 gunner's sight with a thermal imaging channel was installed on the Leopard-2, which he shares with the tank commanders. However, such informational limitations did not suit the Bundeswehr, and in the next modification the German tank receives a combined PERI-RTW90 all-round periscope device from the world famous Zeiss.
The PERI-RTW90 all-round periscope for the Leopard-2 tank commander. Source - ZVO.
The French "Leclerc" at birth also did not have a separate thermal vision channel for the commander, while the gunner worked with the HL-60 sight with two fields of view (1, 9x2, 90 and 5, 7x8, 60) and shared his thermal vision with the commander … The British installed a similar technique on their Challenger 2 in the form of a VS580-10-05 sight from the French SFIM. The same company has developed thermal imaging equipment (commander's sight "Kasimir") for the Brazilian EE-T2 "Ozorio" tank. Now it is clear why Russia in the 2000s turned to the French for help in developing a tank thermal imager? The gunner's workplaces of the BMP M2 "Bradley" and "Marder" in the A3 version, in contrast to the British and French counterparts, were also equipped with thermal imaging sights. Interestingly, with the introduction of thermal imaging sights into the fire control system of tanks, laser rangefinders have undergone modernization. The working body of the laser was transferred from yttrium-aluminum garnet to carbon dioxide, which made it possible to generate a beam with a wavelength of 10.6 microns, so that it can be used as an illuminator for thermal imagers operating at wavelengths of 8-12 microns. The laser radiation received by the thermal imager helps the operator to more accurately identify the target by increasing its contrast under laser illumination. European gunsmiths gave the palm to the Americans in equipping tanks with thermal imaging sights, but they had an ATGM with a thermal imager earlier. It was the MIRA-2 sight for the Milan complex jointly developed by France, Germany and Great Britain with a decent detection range for a “warm” target of 3200 meters for the late 70s. All the specified foreign tank thermal imaging equipment as a photodetector uses a series of semiconductor detectors (about 120 elements) based on mercury, cadmium and tellurium compounds (MCT matrix). The photodetector requires cooling to -196 degrees and below, and the image of the area is focused on it due to a rotating mirror. This is the technique of the first generation of thermal imagers, in which the receivers are assembled in a line or matrix and do not have built-in systems for reading and processing signals - there are only amplifiers located in an uncooled area. In the technology of the second generation, detectors are combined with processors that read and process signals directly in the plane of the receiver. This gives compactness, which means that the number of sensitive elements can be increased to 1000 or more, which provides almost television (of course, for the end of the 80s) quality of the thermal image of the area.
Modern western armored vehicles have already mastered completely different heights of thermal vision - the Leopard 2 Revolution is equipped with a fully digital fire control system, in which the commander has an optical-electronic sighting system SEOSS (Stabilized Electro-Optical Sight System). The complex is equipped with the latest thermal imaging sight of the 3rd generation Sapphire.
Head optics OMS SEOSS. Source - rheinmetall-defence.com
In variant 2A7, the SEOSS control system uses ATTICA thermal imagers from Cassidian Optronics (part of AIRBUS), one for the commander and the gunner. Situational Awareness system (SAS 360), offered as a bonus in the latest modifications of the German cat, is also equipped with thermal imagers with target detection and tracking functions. Overseas "colleagues" in the newest modification of Abrams M1A2 SEP V3 also replaced thermal imagers with 3rd generation IFLIR equipment that can work in medium and long waves, as well as display the situation in FullHD format on the gunner's and commander's monitors. Similar trends in the massive transition to photodetectors of thermal imagers with a multiple increase in the number of sensitive elements are observed in the heavy armored vehicles of the rest of the NATO countries.
