"Imagine an infiltration through the northern border, a possible scenario that has happened in the past and can happen again in the future," says Arie Chernobrov, CEO of Elsec, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, as he demonstrates how technology that just three or four years ago was considered borderline Sci-Fi is now being integrated into the Israeli military.
"If up until a few years ago you would get an alert from a surveillance post about a 'Turkish Horseman' [the IDF's codename for a border infiltration attempt], and you would get there only to learn that it was just a cat that brushed against the fence, today we're in a completely different world."
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He links the various systems made in the plant he heads, most of them used by the IDF, to a hypothetical demonstration of something that could definitely happen in the real world: "Let's say our automatic identification systems are mounted on the border and identify the infiltration late at night. A Golani force goes to the area and by using the HattoriX system sends precise coordinates of where the threat is and directs fire at the 'Turkish Horseman' in a surgical manner without the force getting close.
"If the soldiers need to get closer, they do so by using night vision that allows them to see things as if it was daylight. If the commander wants, he can transmit what he sees directly to the eyepiece of the sniper behind him, and the sniper can end it by taking out the threat."
Elsec's facility sits in the southern city of Sderot, just a few miles from the Gaza Strip. The facility, which specializes in military-grade electro-optic viewing systems, is reinforced against rocket fire. The company employs over 200 people, 80% of whom are residents of the area. Even during the pandemic, just like during military operations in Gaza, it continues operating as usual, with employees manually assembling thousands of advanced optical devices that give the IDF a technological edge and make Israeli soldiers on land, in the air, and at sea much more effective and lethal.
In recent years there has been dramatic progress in the field of personal scopes for ground troops. If in the past soldiers mostly used night vision equipment that intensified starlight, today uncooled thermal systems are leading the way, allowing soldiers on the ground to view their targets for up to 1.5 kilometers (a mile) as if there was daylight.
This is not theory or futuristic capabilities that are supposed to be integrated into the IDF: last August, Elbit stated that it had supplied the IDF thousands of light weapon scopes of the Maccabim and XACT th64 (Maccabit) models that allow advanced daylight vision alongside quality night vision, at the touch of a button.
"While the starlight vision technology has stayed the same for 20 or 30 years, the thermal world has made a huge leap this decade. The army couldn't believe that five years ago there was something like this, and a decade ago systems like this were a dream," says Israel Grinwald, VP of Infantry and Special forces at Elsec. "We miniaturized the detectors and improved the sensors dramatically. If in the past cooled thermal systems [which have a cooling system] in a tank weighed 25 kg, today the uncooled systems weigh half a kilo and the vision through them is better."
"The goal is to make the scopes as small as possible and the range as long as possible. Today you can kill a man from a mile away, and as opposed to other means, here you can get into a completely dark tunnel and still see what you're doing as if you're outside," says Greenwald.
In recent years Elbit has been vaunting its work in promoting the soldier of the future. Through various advanced augmented reality and connectivity systems, the soldiers become much more effective on the battlefield. Chernobrov explains that the systems today on thousands of rifles in the IDF use an Android system and include internal built-in WIFI and Bluetooth, just like your smartphone. This allows the commander in the field to put soldiers in key locations and see the whole picture, or enable senior officers and war rooms to survey the battle from afar and get a fuller picture of what's going on.
"Our scopes can transfer the picture back to the war room or the commander in the field. It's enough to deploy soldiers throughout the field and the commander can see what they see using a tablet. If he wants to, he can direct a sniper, with a scope that's good for 2,000 meters, where to shoot and take out the threat. And all of this can be broadcast to headquarters. You can relay the battlefield back in a much better way – a group of soldiers that goes to the field and transfers in real-time all the information to decision-makers."
It's interesting to note that Elbit has very advanced technologies, using standard batteries, like the ones you can buy in a supermarket or local grocery. The advantage of this is that when needed, soldiers can equip themselves while in enemy territory much more simply, without the need to parachute supplies or risking other soldiers to enter the field to deliver special batteries. "These devices use simple batteries, completely standard, that you can buy in a grocery just like the ones your kid has in his toy car."
Alongside the small devices, Elsec has much larger ones too, that give a wider picture of the battlefield or border. The SupervisIR system produced by the company offers a particularly broad observation point, day and night, of the area, and unlike in the past, it can identify targets by itself and switch directly to a probing camera which is equipped with a laser measure. "This is a different world from what we knew a few years ago. The detectors have much higher resolution, stronger processing capabilities, and the AI and automatic capabilities allow you to put much more trust in the machine, and less in the human.
In an event like the infiltration of terrorists into Kibbutz Zikim, for example, today the system would automatically identify the terrorists and focus on them, day and night. These systems, says Chernobrov, will be even more advanced in the next few years and will provide greater control that will hermetically seal the borders of the State of Israel.
Chernobrov reveals a new system called HattoriX that brings capability that once only existed in special units to any infantry unit. "This is a system whose goal is target acquisition that any soldier in any infantry brigade can operate. If in the past target acquisition only existed in special units, today the computer does the work automatically."
Ronen Shnitzer, VP of Security and Surveillance Systems, explains: "We saw in the war in Crimea that any weapon with a drop of radiation was hit by a missile, anything that fired in the arena - got hit, so we developed a concept based on image processing." Unlike more advanced technology, the HattoriX system has researched images of the fighting ground and when the soldier photographs the area he's in and submits the picture into the analyzing tool, he receives an exact coordinate. "You don't want to mistakenly bomb a house, and so must be precise, and that's what this system provides. The system gives the possibility to know 100% it's the right target, and if there's no confirmation that the landmark is correct then the air force or artillery don't attack the target."
"A few years ago there was a senior officer here who said that if it will work he'll eat his hat," Greenwald smiles and sums up the advanced capabilities that are already being used by the IDF and are expected to change how the next war will look, as well as routine activities of the present. "He came back two years later in a more senior position and asked for a hat."
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