Italian Army advances plans for 155m wheeled artillery fleet
With a requirement for 60 systems, the Italian Army is preparing to complement its tracked artillery with a modern wheeled solution based on domestic industry.
FLIR Systems has acquired precision optics company Armasight for around $41 million, it announced on 28 June, with the acqusition set to enhance FLIR’s tactical scopes and sights offerings.
Armasight produces night vision, thermal, and daylight imaging products for military and commercial customers. Its range of rifle scopes, spotting scopes, binoculars, goggles, and illuminating tools are designed to enable military users to detect, recognise, and identify targets from extreme ranges at any time of day or night.
Following the acquisition, FLIR’s lines of thermal weapon sights and personal vision systems will be combined with Armasight’s products. The combined business unit, which will be called FLIR Outdoor and Tactical Systems, will come under FLIR’s Surveillance segment.
Andy Teich, president and chief executive officer of FLIR, said: ‘The addition of Armasight to our existing scopes and sights business provides us with meaningful additional scale and injects additional market expertise to better serve the growing hunting and military scopes markets.
‘We are pleased to welcome this talented team in further leveraging FLIR’s established channels into global military and law enforcement customers, as well as utilise our advanced thermal sensor development and vertically-integrated production capabilities to advance their products and reduce costs.’
With a requirement for 60 systems, the Italian Army is preparing to complement its tracked artillery with a modern wheeled solution based on domestic industry.
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