Tanks Test Infrared Camouflage Cloak 309
LibRT writes with this excerpt from the BBC:
"Tanks could soon get night-time invisibility thanks to a cloaking device that masks their infrared signature. Developed by BAE Systems, the Adaptiv technology allows vehicles to mimic the temperature of their surroundings. It can also make a tank look like other objects, such as a cow or car, when seen through heat-sensitive 'scopes. The hi-tech camouflage uses hexagonal panels, or pixels, made of a material that can change temperature very quickly. About 1,000 pixel panels, each of which is 14cm across, are needed to cover a small tank. The panels are driven by on-board thermal cameras that constantly image the ambient temperature of the tank's surroundings. This is projected on to the panels to make it harder to spot. The cameras can also work when the tank is moving."
Just imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
"Uh sir, I can see through my night vision a line of cows coming towards us at 40mph..."
How do they cool them that much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tanks produce a LOT of heat.
That excess heat has to go somewhere. Otherwise you'll see very HOT cows moving towards you at 40 mph.
Yet checking TFA produces:
I'm thinking that this will later be shown to be extremely limited by the amount of freon carried by the tank.
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Tanks produce a LOT of heat.
That excess heat has to go somewhere. Otherwise you'll see very HOT cows moving towards you at 40 mph.
Hotty cow!
Can't they at least make a tank masquerading many cows in the same time and mimic a 40 mph stampede?
Not that it would help, a RPG is bound to make a good defense against both scenarios (with the added benefit of a quite fresh and tender [wikipedia.org] stake if it turns out to be an actual stampede).
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Scratching head ... (Score:2)
But if you turn off the engine, you don't have a heat signature anyway. No need for infrared camouflage. Regular camouflage netting will do.
I don't think a tank's exhaust works like that. I think it kind of spews all over the place.
Which gets ba
Re:Scratching head ... (Score:4, Informative)
But if you turn off the engine, you don't have a heat signature anyway. No need for infrared camouflage. Regular camouflage netting will do.
You'll still have a lot of residual heat energy, as it can take a long time for energy acquired from sunlight to be dissipated at night. And metal would generally have a different heat signature at night than surrounds unless they were also metal - but the shape would be easy to make out even then.
I don't think a tank's exhaust works like that. I think it kind of spews all over the place.
Look at your car. Does it "spew exhaust all over the place"? No, it is directed...
Which gets back to the original point. What to do with the heat?
If the panels are actively cooled as well as heated, you could have the cooler panels masking the outgassing source to let it dissipate in the air before leaving the blanket.
But basically the main point is that you can no longer see a giant tank shaped thing clearly using night vision, as most a few odd sources of heat that could be small mammals...
No, I think it is different. (Score:2)
That part of the discussion is about after the tank has cooled. When it is "dug in". And from TFA, this works best in the 300-400m range. Otherwise the enemy would have to miss the tanks driving up less than half a klick away.
The exhaust goes out the exhaust pipe. And then it rises and spreads
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Air has near zero emissivity, so while the exhaust pipe will light up on an IR scope like a christmas tree, the exhuast itself does not. For example the F117 stealth fighter uses exhuast redirection to dramatically reduce its thermal profile even though it is producing tons of heat. The trick is to keep an visible part of the vehicle from showing heat. I imagine that from some angle (above) that the actual exhuast port on this thing will be quite hot, and therefor not hidden, but only from that POV.
Diffusion (Score:2)
Dude, within a couple of meters or so most of the impulse of the exhaust leaving the tailpipe is spent, and it starts to diffuse generally into the surrounding atmosphere. If the vehicle is moving, there is even more turbulent mixing. In short, yes, in the big picture it does "spew exhaust all over the place." After a short jet of really hot exhaust, you have a much larger, more diffuse region where the air is generally heated. It would be pretty easy to conclude that this heat is not natural.
Just look
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Yes, there are such things as electric and solid-state cooling units, but those only work by creating even more heat somewhere else... much like
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Dump the heat via somehing with a very liw emissivity, something high tech like AIR. If you get the heat out without creating IR light, then nonlaws of physics are broken.
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In other news Night vision does not use IR, but visible light. That is why they are called Image Intensifiers.
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In other news Night vision does not use IR, but visible light. That is why they are called Image Intensifiers.
But FLIR does use infrared, and it's still used to find targets, both domestically and abroad.
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"While a tank produces more heat than a cow, the thermal shape and distance above the ground is very similar to an Abrams which is why cows are hit every year with TOW missiles at Ft. Hood. The crew that hits a cow and anyone else that pisses someone off higher in the chain of command has the privilege of working cow cleanup detail. The government apparently compensates ranchers very well for any cattle killed. As for cattle being there in the first place, that has to do with agreements made decades ago with the neighboring ranchers. The presence of cattle is also why the TOW missile fiber optic has to be cleaned up when finished."
The shape and elevation may be similar to a cow, but the intensity ("brightness") is not. That was my point. An old-school TOW missile is not very "smart", by today's standards. But I can see how such a system could fool exactly such relatively low-tech devices.
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TOWs are not "smart" in that they do not choose their targets. Now the soldier looking through the sight may not be "smart" enough to avoid being fooled; that is nother question.
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"Um, no. Even solid state heat pumps are nowhere near 100% efficient. The potential energy gained by increasing the heat gradient accounts for only a fraction of the electricity consumed. The rest is converted into heat. In other words, they generate considerable heat themselves."
Go back and read again. That's what I said. Basically, but not exactly. I was not talking about "heat pumps", but solid-state "direct cooling" units, which do indeed cool their immediate surroundings. Geez, guy, they've been around for years. If they actually generated heat in their own immediate area, they would be completely useless in those cheap "plug in to the cigarette lighter" coolers you can get at discount stores. But in fact they don't, and they cool just fine.
BUT... my original point: they sti
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Um, no. Even solid state heat pumps are nowhere near 100% efficient. The potential energy gained by increasing the heat gradient accounts for only a fraction of the electricity consumed. The rest is converted into heat. In other words, they generate considerable heat themselves.
Further clarification: yes, even those chips put out heat, but on the opposite side, which is dissipated by a fan. So I see what you are saying. They are "heat pumps", in a real sense. So pardon my earlier reply.
But the point remains that they still generate more heat than they soak up.
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"Stirling engine to turn the heat differential from the exhaust back into electricity (at a loss, of course, but really you're just trying to dump the heat)."
You're just generating more heat. A Stirling engine is nowhere near 100% efficient, so it contributes to the heat load, too.
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No, that isn't a heat plume from a Honeywell AGT1500C turbine raising 30 feet into the air. The cow is farting.
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And all that just to evade attention of a pedestrian with an anti-tank weapon.
When was the last time that tanks were relevant for any war in the last 50 years?
To quote WP:
"In the 21st century, with the increasing role of asymetrical warfare and the end of the cold war, that also contributed to the increase of cost-effective russian anti-tank weapons worldwide, the importance of tanks has waned."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank [wikipedia.org]
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the good thing is we get to use this cool stuff in years to come.
i remember a physics teacher in highschool noting that the only two 20th century inventions of note that weren't applications of military tech were the microwave oven and velcro (which was from the space program).
now, i doubt the accuracy of that (magnetrons were invented for radar IIRC), but it makes a good point.
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Does this help at all in Afghanistan? (Score:2)
Or is this more for some imagined future conflict with tanks rolling around China or Russia?
Re:Does this help at all in Afghanistan? (Score:5, Funny)
Or is this more for some imagined future conflict with tanks rolling around China or Russia?
Remember, the classic military mistake is to plan on fighting the previous war. Of course, the current US military seems hell bent on not making that particular error by trying to fight every possible combination of conflict simultaneously. The weaknesses of that policy are left as an exercise to the reader.
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What, exactly, is it that is bad about preparing for wars you have empirical evidence to indicate can happen?
Nothing. Just costs a lot when you try to prepare for everything. Nucs, Carrier battle groups, B1s, B2s, F22s, F35s for the big nasties. Littoral combat ships, helicopters, helicopters, helicopters, planes, trucks, trucks, bombproof trucks, soldier proof trucks for the little guys. AWACS, satellites, boosters, XB-37, the Space Shuttle (oopsies) Lots and lots of people. We spend, I think, 7 times more on military pieces parts THAN THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED
Time to take a break folks. Put the
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In theory, I don't see why this stuff wouldn't work against those(though not against the other flavors); but I strongly suspect that the sales pitch involves an enemy equipped w
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IEDs, can have all sorts of triggers depending upon the locale and the resources available. IR is definitely one, but unfortunately, the main limiting factor is ones imagination. Some switches are more practical than others are.
Re:Does this help at all in Afghanistan? (Score:5, Informative)
I actually used to be an electronics countermeasure tech in the Marine Corps. Our main job? Stop heat and radar seeking missiles from hitting our birds. Something like dangling a toaster from a pole isn't going to confuse a missile. They (the missiles) are frequently programmed in the field (via presets of course) for various kinds of targets, sometimes down to the engine IR signature frequency (think setting a missile to "AH-1" or "CH-53). Most common was to use a pair of different frequency coding disks to generate false engine signatures which would give a missile a 1:13 chance of hitting the "real" engine. Effectively, we gave the missile 12 engine signatures along with the real engine. That, combined with chaff, flares, and radar jammers, gave your average helicopter pilot a pretty good margin of safety against missiles. The countermeasures are handled automatically with manual overrides provided so things like flares can be manually launched. Basically, in every fighter movie where you hear that "beep beep beep BEEEEEEEP!" upon missile lock? That is what I worked on. Fun stuff :) Remember, you can't really dodge a missile in a helicopter...
Many cows died to bring us these results. (Score:2)
make a tank look like other objects, such as a cow
("Many bothans died to bring us these plans." Yes, it's an attempt at humour.)
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Ok. Put it on cows to make them look like tanks.
my cloak of invisibility... no make smart does. (Score:2)
You know, the problem with all this cloaking stuff is... we're not fighting wars where it matters. Most of the people we're chasing around aren't in tanks, don't care much about tanks, and don't worry about it's infrared signature because their neighbors are like "holy f*ck! Do you hear the GIANT DIESEL-POWERED TANK coming?"
Tanks are a WWII holdover. We don't use them much anymore. We use fast armored personnel carriers that can survive an IED strike. We need tech that can spot snipers and control large sec
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We need tech that can spot snipers and control large sections of urban landscape where hostiles and non-combatants co-mingle and sometimes even co-habitate as well. The only way to spot them right now is either to wait for the bang (and we sure love those bangs), or drive around in a semi-truck with some backscatter x-ray equipment stuffed in the back that's busy giving the operators and innocent passerbys on the street cancer looking for hidden weapons.
This isn't quite true any more. There are a number of system now in use that use sound [defense-update.com] and muzzle flash characteristics [defenseindustrydaily.com] to pinpoint and identify the direction and gun the shot came from.
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This isn't quite true any more. There are a number of system now in use that use sound [defense-update.com] and muzzle flash characteristics [defenseindustrydaily.com] to pinpoint and identify the direction and gun the shot came from.
I believe those systems fall into the "wait for the bang" category mentioned, which, of course, is less than an ideal combat situation.
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Just because we don't use tanks right this second doesn't mean we don't use tanks. If you want to throw away everything we've learned in the last 100 years of industrialized warfare because the current enemy isn't in tanks, then you are very short-sighted.
You are right: we need tech that does all the things you listed. But you are wrong: we need tech for all the things you don't think are important any more.
Just 8-ish years ago, some large conventional armor battles were fought in the deserts of Iraq (coinc
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You know, the problem with all this cloaking stuff is... we're not fighting wars where it matters. Most of the people we're chasing around aren't in tanks, don't care much about tanks, and don't worry about it's infrared signature because their neighbors are like "holy f*ck! Do you hear the GIANT DIESEL-POWERED TANK coming?"
Nitpicking some details: we don't have any main battle tanks with diesel engines any more. (And, strictly, the Army doesn't use diesel; it's all JP-8, which is aircraft fuel that happens to work in a diesel engine.) That said, yes, the Bradley has a diesel engine and is loud as fuck, but it's one of those vehicles that's been around a lot longer than you'd expect because it's also incredibly versatile.
Tanks are a WWII holdover. We don't use them much anymore. We use fast armored personnel carriers that can survive an IED strike.
We *want* such an APC, but what we have are MRAPs, which are just big ass armored trucks and anything but f
Tanks are old school. (Score:2)
Nope. That's what drones are for.
It used to be helicopters that were the "tank killers".
Then it was the A-10.
Now (and into the foreseeable future) it is unmanned drones.
Tanks are expensive and drones are cheap.
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world war 1 begs to differ.
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While a troop of super technological super stealthy tanks yields a great tactical advantage, this advantage is absolutely neutralized when your enemy can manufacture 50 not-so-good-but-good-enough-to-kill-you tanks to your one. All you need is defense in depth and eventually the numbers work in your favor. The US always seeks out an expensive technological approach to try to solve problems. While this can work sometimes, it sometimes results in hundred million dollar state-of-the-art planes that can't fly.
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Interesting... (Score:2)
Peltiers are really fun devices; because they are all solid state, respond quickly, and can be driven with a simple DC current; but they aren't wha
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Each hexagon module, in turn, would have a thermal sensor on the outer surface a
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Considerably smaller than the output of anything much more than a toy engine, though...
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The solution is obvious, we need to breed larger cows.
The best way to save your tank and your life... (Score:2)
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Of course the only reason that is true is due to some level of combat keeping bad guys out. Not supporting the way out of bounds wars we're in now, but there are bad people out there and whether they "hate our freedom" or just want our big screen TVs, factories and other resources, they are only kept at bay by men in tanks or other defenses of the time. This has been true all through history.
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Right, that's the thing, you can't take land with air power. If you want to take the land, you're going to need boots on the ground and preferably something more substantial to support the ground troops. Sure you might get a few surrendering to drones, but you're not going to take and keep ground like that.
Just imagine the mocking potential. (Score:4, Funny)
Forget cows. If the enemy already knows the tanks are there and have nothing to hit them with make the tank sides look like bull's eyes just to tick the enemy off.
Better yet, have a line of tanks, assign a letter to each, and have 'USA RULEZ' visible only in infrared.
Why do I see 2 tank tred marks and a warm area... (Score:2)
Commander: Look to where the treads are forming and shoot your TOW missile there.
Target (Score:2)
Pixels (Score:2)
Better wait for the 2 kilopixel model.
Hacking the pixel array (Score:2)
I can just see how an enemy will hack the pixel array to marquee "ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US!" or some animated target and the poor tankies won't know it because they can't see their own thermo picture!
Apparently the Army thinks the enemy is deaf. (Score:2)
To quote HTTYD: "Blind spot, yes! Deaf spot, not so much!"
All the fancy anti-IR plating ain't gonna do much when the sound of yer diesel engine is more than enough to let the enemy know you're coming.
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that's why they added the megaphones that go "MOO MOO MOO MOO!"
now the enemy will be lulled into complacency at the screeching hot metallic cows bearing down on them at 40mph
Where does the heat go? (Score:2)
Presumably something like a tank generates a lot heat if it has its engine running. Where does that go without giving off tell tale signs?
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Funny)
Go ahead and do that as the enemy - then please post results.
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:5, Funny)
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"US Government Contracting: Selling useless crap at highly inflated prices to uniformed people for over 200 years."
Fixed it for you
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Heaven forbid that you give away the position of a light. Hint: you can be some distance away from the light.
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Yeah, you just shot my precious light bulb! What, did you think I would be right next to it?
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Yeah, you just shot my precious light bulb! What, did you think I would be right next to it?
And do you think that I am in my remote-control tank?
I'm actually right behind you!
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:5, Insightful)
Using a searchlight is far more likely to tell the enemy your position than to tell you the enemy's position because any searchlight will leak some light off-axis and it takes far less light to spot a light source than to use a light source to spot a target.
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And searchlights can't be operated remotely.
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:5, Informative)
Look, I'm sure this seems logical to you. Take it from a former Armored Cav officer, what you are describing makes about as much sense as running under a Saturn 5 and lighting the fuse with a Bic to send it to the Moon. The army did threat analysis based on video footage of enemies that actually tried to use visible search lights in various battles from just post Vietnam to Desert Storm, and the number they came up with is that once night vision came in, it deceased the average life span of the enemy to about 0.3 seconds (yes, 3/10ths of a second, and no, I'm not exaggerating). It's actually been doctrine for most modern militarys since WW2, long before light amplification gear became standard, never, ever do this stupid thing in armor vrs. armor combat, and Night Vision didn't make it more feasible but much, much less.
US Main Battle Tanks have a working range of around four miles. Fire up a searchlight that can even reach that far and it will take several seconds to warm up, then you need time to search with it. The user, and every other armored vehicle it is in a group with, will all die before they see what is killing them.
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I see what you did there.
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Parachute flares are very common. They can be fired from a 40mm grenade launcher, mortars, artillery, naval guns, or even dropped from aircraft. But they are still risky. If your enemy has counter battery radar, they can see the trajectory and return fire on your mortars/artillery within seconds. Another problem with these flares is they tend to swing back-and-forth as they hang from the parachute, causing the shadows on the ground to move back and forth as well, which makes it hard to pick out many details.
Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parachute flares, if memory serves, substantially predate armored vehicles, possibly even internal combustion vehicles of any sort; so I was curious about anything developed in the contemporary 'highly sensitive optical instruments on expensive but extremely dangerous armor' period... With modern vehicles in the multiple millions a pop, I imagine that selective-illumination systems in the hundreds or thousands per shot might be seen as viable, and that kind of budget might give you room for things more interesting than magnesium-on-a-string.
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Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Insightful)
The enemy can shoot at the light all they want. They won't hit anything.
Except, perhaps... the light? Rendering your expensive remote-control light useless.
not really (Score:2)
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I suspect that remote-control lights are cheaper than tanks.
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Not to mention that firing up a phosphor flare will light up plenty of ground and is a heck of a lot cheaper than any remote control searchlight. No expensive power source to get blown up either. The thing is you have to know the enemy is coming or lying in ambush.
That whole "remote control searchlight where you're not" thing is only any good at all if you're the one with a stationary position. Even then it's still acting as a beacon saying "I am around here" because it has to be on all the time or the ste
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not without that light.
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The tank wouldn't be firing at it, the UAV providing tactical support will.
Tanks are awesome but can still be defeated by trenches large enough that they cannot cross and iron/concrete pilings arangde in certain configurations. They can look ahead pretty well, but they will not see a trench until they get close to it. A UAV on the other hand, can see the drop off and forward the information to the tanks.
The UAV will also most likely be armed as it's a war zone if tanks are sneaking up on your position.
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Re:And presumably this can be defeated by... (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like a true warrior, hiding behind a civilian so the enemy doesn't shoot you.
Civilians working to further military efforts are fair game in a war. You certainly wouldn't fault a country's military for blowing up a tank factory or munitions plant staffed by civilians would you? And if that causes more people to enlist into the military of that country, does it really matter?
As for your Supposed satellites being hacked, I doubt it would happen for the control of the UAV, The satellite could be destroyed maybe, but then control would be switched to another source and life would go on. You do not seriously think any war machine would put all it's eggs in one basket do you. I mean it's common sense to not have only one way to control or communicate with troops or devices in active operations. The US military puts something like two satellites every 3 or 4 months into space and has more rocket launches then NASA To give an idea of what this means, in 2009, there were the US military put 21 publicly known satellites into orbit. In 2010, that number was 13, and so far in 2011, it has placed 10 publicly known satellites into space. This is just what we admit to.
And you are crazy of you think we would send tanks into an area that we do not control the airspace of except in some extreme and rare situation in which case you are not going to put a remote controlled spotlight up in the first place. The biggest military threat to a tank is air power. I
mean a jet or even some planes can come on at over 600 MPH, launch a missile target the next tank, launch, and clear out before it ever gets into the range of anything the tank could muster to destroy it. You cannot really do that from the ground. At least not covering the same amount of area as effectively.
I also do not think you understand just what these UAVs are capable of if you think a foreign airforce would just shoot them down like an Rc plane. We have weapons systems that are better then fire and forget with them. The remote operator can decide to change or even wait to set the target of a missile mid flight to intercept a more threatening enemy if the computer recognizes it's possible to do so), and this can be done regardless of the UAV's survival. So in your scenario, what would likely happen is 2 or 4 jets would acquire and target the UAV. It would transmit a friend or foe beacon and if not replied to, wait until it detects a weapons launch or an intercept course, then fire enough missiles to cover the threat, do a U-turn to flee to safety. and even if it is shot down, the 2 or 4 jets would be shot down too. So we lose a UAV, they lose a couple jets and the trained pilots operating them. We put another UAV in the air for a fraction of the cost and use the same experienced pilots and weapons crew.
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If you had bothered to read the fine article, you'd have seen this tidbit:
"Earlier attempts at similar cloaking devices have hit problems because ... they were insufficiently robust," said Adaptiv project manager Pader Sjolund at BAE Systems in a statement. By contrast, he explained, Adaptiv panels add to the armour on a fighting vehicle.
In other words, they have made similar panels before, but these are the first to be durable enough to actually double as part of the tank's armor. I'm sure they'd break if hit by an RPG, but the point is not to get hit by the RPG in the first place. By that point, they already know you're there, and the RPG would have wrecked your reactive armor anyway.
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All you have to do is purchase your system with BAE 4-hour gold support(additional charges may apply). Whenever you are hit by small arms fire, explosions, rocks kicked up by the vehicle in front of you, or any of your camoflauge hexagons is exposed to temp>100 degrees C for too long(which causes TECs to start to break down), just whip out your satellite phone and put in a support call! Your rep should be out there in no time, with a supply of replacemen
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Given the amount of explosives required to blow up a tank, I am going to make an educated guess that the same amount of explosives used on a cow would not leave much behind. Most of the meat would be blown high in the air and scattered. So maybe you could make sliders out of it, not "real" hamburgers.
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Depends on what you drive. Tanks use simple kinetic penetrators against other tanks so the cow would just have a rather large hole (possibly toxic if you use DU rounds).
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Treat every cow you see through your infrared security system as a tank. If you're right, you're saved, if you're wrong... hamburgers?
Tender stake [wikipedia.org]
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Okay, recent Cavalry Scout here.
Or is this system only effective when the engine's off?
Thermals don't look like they do in movies, or the cherry picked pictures they show on the news. For starters, you're not zoomed right in... you're trying to pick something out against a sea of fuzzy blobby shapes.
And for the ones I've seen, exhaust doesn't show up. I guess if a track was sitting around warming some object up there would be a hot spot against all the background crap. But I suspect that unless you're using them in cold areas, it's going to be hard to increase
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Not to mention, this system would only work against thermal sights like a TWS, etc. Normal light-amplification device NODs (PVS14, etc) would still just look like a tank..... with yet another kit added on.