Britain receives Thales range finders

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LONDON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Britain's Ministry of Defense has received is final shipment of surveillance system and range finder units from Thales UK.

The delivery, two months ahead of schedule, brings the total of SSARF units supplied by Thales UK under a $48 million contract to 707.

"The SSARF project has been a great success," British army Col. Bill Pointing, the ministry's Dismounted Soldier Systems Integrated Project Team leader said. "Thales and the DSS team have incorporated the experience of delivering the earlier Surveillance and Target Location System Urgent Operational Requirement into this important program and delivered excellent kit early, which the user is already exploiting on operations."

The SSARF units are the size of a large pair of binoculars and are used in a similar way. They combine daylight and thermal vision with eye-safe laser range finding. Embedded military Global Positioning Satellite and azimuth angular referencing provide accurate target location data for both mortar and artillery fire control.

SSARF units have been deployed operationally and are providing British troops in the field with an ultra-lightweight, compact, multi-role, night vision target locator capability.