U.S. Army selects DRS Technologies for next-generation Thermal Weapon Sights.

DRS Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:DRS) announced today that it has been awarded a five-year U.S. Army contract to produce a family of next-generation Thermal Weapon Sights for war fighters. The contract, with a base value of $118 million, could exceed $375 million, if all options are exercised.

The contract was awarded to DRS by the U.S. Army's Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. DRS will develop the Thermal Weapon Sights in partnership with Team Soldier in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The manufacturing work for this contract will be accomplished at the company's DRS Optronics facilities in Palm Bay and Melbourne, Florida, and DRS Infrared Technologies facilities in Dallas, Texas. Deliveries of light, medium and heavy Thermal Weapon Sights, thermal imaging module options and spares are expected to commence in September of this year and continue through March 2009.

"The award of this important contract to DRS affirms our position as an industry leader in uncooled, high-performance thermal imaging solutions and moves a key DRS soldier systems product line into high-rate, multi-year production," said Fred L. Marion, president of DRS's Surveillance & Reconnaissance Group. "Optimized for greater range of threat detection and wider field of view at a reduced cost, these sights will place increased lethality in the hands of individual war fighters, enhancing their survivability on the operational and urban battlefields. We are very pleased to be participating on a program we believe will contribute significantly to current and future force capabilities."

Using advanced microbolometer-based infrared technology, the DRS family of light, medium and heavy Thermal Weapon Sights will provide U.S. Army soldiers and armament crews with the ability to detect and identify threats at increased surveillance and target acquisition range, regardless of light level, weather conditions and adverse battlefield conditions. The light-weapon sights, weighing approximately 1.6 pounds, will mount onto handheld automatic weapons.

First year contract funding will provide for the qualification, delivery and testing of the units. Under subsequent years of funding, the company will deliver production units for use in U.S. Army programs.

DRS Technologies, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, provides leading edge products and services to defense, government intelligence and commercial customers. Focused on defense technology, DRS develops and manufactures a broad range of mission critical systems. The company employs 5,700 people worldwide.