Elbit Systems Of America

Elbit is a manufacturer of both imagine intensifier tubes and many iconic night vision housings, such as the AN/PVS-14.

History

• In 2011, Exelis, the defense arm of ITT, became an independent defense company.
• In 2015, Exelis was acquired by Harris.
• In 2019, during the merger of L3 and Harris, the night vision arm of Harris was sold to Elbit, in an effort to avoid monopolizing the night vision market.

Products

Products that have been developed by Elbit's night vision arm (even when it belonged to Harris, Exelis, or ITT) use a four-digit designation prefixed by the letter F, e.g. F4212 or F9800.

Elbit's website features a catalogue of all its products, including the category of night vision.

Devices

Binoculars

• AN/AVS-6 (F4212/F4210)
• AN/AVS-9 (F4949)
• AN/PVS-23 (F5050)
• AN/PVS-31D / Lightweight Night Vision Binocular (F5032)
• Squad Binocular Night Vision Goggle
• TM-NVG (F6044)
• AN/PSQ-44 / ENVG-B (F6025)

Monoculars

• AN/PVS-14 (F6015)
• AN/PSQ-20 / Enhanced Night Vision Goggle
  • AN/PSQ-20 / ENVG (F6023)

Bi-Oculars

• AN/PVS-7 (F5001)

Others

• Clip-on Weapon Sight (F7030)
• Quadeye and Mini Quadeye (made by Kollsman, a subsidiary of ESA)
• HDTS, Helmet Display and Tracking System

Image Intensifiers

Elbit manufactures filmed third generation image intensifiers exclusively.

Pinnacle

Pinncale™ is a trademark for Elbit's thin-filmed image intensifier technology.

Naming

All series of Elbit's image intensifiers use the F-designation (identifying format and phosphor color).

A suffix of one or more letters or numbers denotes a specific class of image intensifier tubes, defining performance ranges as well as other ratings.

• The first digit is always 9 to identify an image intensifier tube.
• The second digit denotes the phosphor color.
  • 4 stands for P-45 (white)
  • 8 stands for P-43 (green)
• The third and fourth digit denote the tube format.
  • 00 stands for MX-10160
  • 10 stands for MX-10130
  • 15 stands for MX-11769
  • 16 stands for the proprietary tube format of the ENVG (F6025)
  • 21 stands for the proprietary tube format of the AN/AVS-10

Example: F9800XLSH refers to green phosphor MX-10160 image intensifiers in the XLSH class.

Classes

This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it.

M16G / M18G / M20G

M16G / M18G / M20G are three classes of image intensifier tubes with rising performance minimums.

The two digit number, when multiplied by a factor of 100, indicates the minimum FOM (1600 / 1800 / 2000).

They were developed when the night vision arm was still operating under Harris to comply with the U.S. Department of Defense guidelines for Gen. 3 export.

XLSH / XLSH2

XLSH is Elbit's class of commercial image intensifier tubes.

P / J

Export model, max. 1600 / 1250 FOM. P meets the Omni V spec.

FG

⚠ This section contains unverified information. You can help by adding references to it.

Export model, produced for the UK. military. Most likely meets Omni V spec.

Further Reading

How Pinnacle won over filmless:

How ITT's Development of the PinnacleTM Thin-Filmed Image Intensifier Tube Redefined the U.S. Military's "View" of Night Vision Technology