Night Vision Gen 3, Omni VIII.

[cj7hawk]

I know this phrase tends to get thrown around a bit, so thought I'd write up a quick article to cover what it means, for the latest Gen3 Omni VIII systems.

Firstly, civilians can't typically get true Omni VIII systems. To be a true Omni VIII NOD, it would have had to have been purchased by the US government under an Omni VIII procurement. So unless your monocular has a NSN number, it's not Omni VIII.

However, for the sake of simplicity, it's not unreasonable to identify a Milspec tube produced over the past 12 months an Omni VIII tube, as long as it meets the full Milspec. The only way to know for certain that it does, is to compare it to the datasheets for Omni VIII.

Now most Milspecs for Omni VIII systems are classified, however the US government has always made performance specifications for the MX-10160A/AVS6 and related tubes ( including the MX-10160C/AVS-6 ) public. These can be tied back to a genuine Milspec contract, so any tube performing to this level, and produced since the Omni VIII contract was made public, can reasonably be considered "Milspec Omni VIII"

The most public of these specifications to date has been the performance specification - PS/09/JXQR/078 which was released in December 2010. This covers the MX-10160 GS.

In many ways, the Omni VIII specification appears inferior to earlier specifications, particularly Omni VI and Omni VII, which aimed significantly higher. A notable increase in EBI acceptability and Halo are notable as are reductions in tube life - 7500 hours which is nearly half of Omni VII targets - and other metrics have been reduced.

This would seem to indicate that the goals of Omni VIII are to increase yields, not to increase performance. Fortunately, the introduction of the MX-12389 which provides even lower specs than the typical MX-10160, seems to have been introduced as a back-stop to limit the slide.

Overall, the Omni VIII systems are still excellent, but on paper at least are well below Omni VII specification target levels. To put it in context, Omni VIII seems to sit at the cutoff of FOM-1600. As such, Omni VIII systems can be guaranteed to sit only slightly higher than foreign-sales NV.

However it's worth considering that any tube that comes with a datasheet can be checked against the Milspec for performance conformance. This information is vendor agnostic.

Gen3, Omni VII specs, as per PS/09/JXQR/078.

Contract Omni VIII

Resolution lp/mm 64
S/N 25 min
Photocathode sensitivity uA/lm@2856K 2000
Sensitivity at uA/lm@830nm 190@830 80@880
Gain fL/fc 25,000-110,000
[email protected]/mm Nominal
[email protected]/mm Nominal
MTF@15lp/mm 0.61
MTF@25lp/mm 0.38
Halo (mm) 1
Phosphor P-43
EBI (x10^-11) 3

Please note that for Omnibus VIII statements of work, relating to NODs, the following milspecs also apply.
Document
Number Rev. Title
MIL-PRF-49184 C Eyepiece Lens Assembly, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49190 C Objective Lens Assembly, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49313 E AN/PVS-7D System Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49324 D AN/PVS-14 System Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49325 B 3X Magnifier Lens, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49427 C Eyepiece Lens Assembly, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-49453 E MX-10130/UV Image Intensifier, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-A3256342 B Objective Lens Assembly, Performance Specification
MIL-PRF-A3256363 E MX-11769/UV Image Intensifier, Performance Specification


Regards
David.

 

[km2006dmax]

Re: Gen 3, Omni VIII.

So your saying every vender who advertises milspec systems is incorrect? Due to not actually being purchased by the government?

 

[cj7hawk]

Re: Gen 3, Omni VIII.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: km2006dmax</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So your saying every vender who advertises milspec systems is incorrect? Due to not actually being purchased by the government? </div></div>

Not really - though you've actually picked up on something completely different. If someone really claimed that they had Omni VIII Milspec, then they are not really telling the complete truth, because tubes made for MX10160 and MX11769 under Omni VIII are not actually Milspec. They are made to a Performance Specification.

You could read this: http://www.dsp.dla.mil/app_uil/displayPa...mp;contentid=28 to understand more - though in practice, let's just call it Milspec because it's close enough to the truth for our purposes.

I certainly would not have an issue with someone claiming a tube produced under a performance specification was Milspec in any event. It's a very minor technicality at best.

And a vendor can still sell a Milspec system. It's just that true Omni systems are rare, because they would have to originate from a government contract. A good example is the DTG2 tube, which is believed to have originated from a government contract where the tubes were eventually sold commercially. AFAIK, these are true Omni VI/VII Milspec tubes.

Omnibus VIII is a government procurement contract so unless a tube was produced for that contract, and sold under that contract, then it's not really Omni VIII tube, is it? It might conform to the specifications of that contract, but it was never actually produced by the government was it?

And while a vendor can say something like "These tubes meet Omnibus VIII milspec", they would have purchased the tubes commercially, not directly from the US government - unless it was for FMS or related sales.

But beyond that, I do think it is OK for Vendors selling Milspec systems to claim them as such, because they can probably reasonably demonstrate that they systems meet the same level as would a milspec system. And to that extent, can probably demonstrate that the system they are selling would meet the relevant performance specification under Omni VIII. But then, as an example, most ITT Night Enforcers sold would qualify as "Omni VIII Milspec" by that definition. Actually, most would even qualify for the much higher "Omni VII Milspec" and more than half exceed the "Omni VII Milspec Objectives" which is really saying something.

So because of that, I think it's important that people understand what the "Omni VIII Milspec" actually means.

Some notes about Omni VIII Milspec -
* The objectives have all been removed within Performance Specification PS/09/JXQR/078 and only thresholds remain.

This is a significant lowering of the bar from Omni VII milspec, which had clearly stated Objectives, well above the threshold levels. This means a lot more tubes from a batch will "scrape over the line" with Omni VIII than under previous US government OMNI contracts.

* EBI levels are now are <3.0 -
A significant increase over <2.5 from Omni VII. Rather staggering too, given a lot of the recent Commspec tubes have been in the low decimals - less than 1.0.

* Photocathode Sensitivity Level requirements are down, as are other criteria for the tubes.

* The tubes are <span style="font-weight: bold">NOT SUITABLE FOR WEAPONS USE.</span>
That last one is a biggie. A REAL Biggie. A standard Omni VIII Milspec tube system is NOT RATED FOR WEAPON USE. Maximum shock is 75G's.

Compare that to a Weapon Shock rated tube at over 500G's rated. That's HUGE as a difference. Technically, base-level Omni VIII tubes are not even suitable for a .22 rimfire! So unless someone gets a spec-sheet from the factory that shows the tube was weapons-use rated ( See Weapon Shock testing criteria for PVS-14, of the relevant specifications ) then they should only mount it on their head.

This one worries me the most, since it means that by default, any Omni VIII Milspec system is not suitable for mounting on a weapon. It will be necessary for anyone purchasing such a system to gain confirmation in writing that the tube is weapon shock rated before attaching it to their AR.

For those looking at Datasheets for test criteria, Weapon Shock rating is different from Shock Rating. It's important to distinguish between the two.

Regards
David.