The gunner is often described as the heart of the tank. He searchesfor, identifies and fires at target. As such, he has the richest complementof vision augmentation devices in the vehicle, devices that allow him toaccurately perform allhis functions to a range of 3km, under a wide variety of vision capabilities.His vision is enlarged by magnification (three or ten power, dependingon the task at hand), infrared (gathering stray light) and thermal, orheatsensing, which extends vision to the realm normally reserved for thesense of touch.

One of the most vital functions of this human component of the tank isthat of target identification, that is distinguishing friend from foe.Not only must the tank search for, find and destroy targets with greatprecision and speed, it must do so accurately. In conflicts in which theenemy and allied friendly troops may be using the same hardware, this becomesall the more crucial.

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