Navy asks L-3 electro-optics experts to build shipboard fire-control systems for surface warships

WASHINGTON – Military electro-optics experts at L-3 KEO in Northampton, Mass., will provide shipboard sights to provide the fire control necessary for U.S. Navy and Coast Guard warships to hit enemy ships and aircraft with naval gun fire under terms of a $14.1 million order announced Wednesday.

Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, are asking L-3 KEO to produce additional MK 20 electro-optical sensor systems (EOSS), radar cross sections kits, shock ring kits, engineering support services, and spares for the Navy and Coast Guard.

The EOSS electro-optics system is a check sight and targeting sensor for anti-surface and anti-air warfare and naval gun fire support missions, Navy officials say.

The MK 20 EOSS is a major component of the MK 34 5-inch guns aboard Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, as well as aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter, for use against enemy ships, boats, and aircraft.

L-3 KEO has been building the EOSS since 2005. That year L3-KEO won a Navy contract to provide the EOSS for the Ticonderoga-class Cruiser Modernization Program. Company electro-optical engineers built on the MK 46 Optical Sight System to blend new technologies into the MK 20 shipboard MOD 0 EOSS, as well as integrate the system into the MK 34 5-inch deck guns.

Related: BAE Systems to build computer-controlled deck gun for U.S. Coast Guard national security cutter

The MK 20 EOSS has digital stabilization with fiber-optic gyros, a separate eyesafe laser rangefinder with diode-pumped laser, enhanced built-in test, and improved sensor-to-sensor boresight alignment. The EOSS meets MIL-S-901D heavyweight and large-displacement shock tests.

The MK 20 MOD 0 incorporates several technology improvements over the MK 46, and new features that support integration with the MK 34 Gun Weapons System (GWS).

To integrate with the MK 34 deck gun, the EOSS has a new interface electronics unit (IEU) that interfaces with as many as two deck gun computers and three deck gun consoles to provide video, target bearing and range, and system status data to all three, while taking commands from any one, L-3 officials say.

On this contract modification L-3 will do the work in Northampton, Mass., and should be finished by August 2021. For more information contact L-3 KEO online at www2.l3t.com/keo, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.

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