Invisible Tanks by 2012?

[Chock]

Sorry Skybird, that was a typo, I meant to say one load of ammo, not one round of ammo: i.e. the Svir, for example costs almost 50,000 bucks a shot at current export prices, and it is by no means more expensive than some US stuff of a similar capability! Which means about 25 of them cost as much as spanking new T-72 with all the upgrades would, they being about 1.3 million dollars a throw. A much older variant Soviet-developed tank with Svir capability (i.e. any variant after the B model), would probably come in at about 100,000 bucks, so that is equivalent to its Svir capacity if it carried just two rounds, although four is a more typical load, never many more, due to the expense. Technically, such a tank could carry thirty of them if money were no object, although the wisdom of such a move would be hard to fathom.

Nevertheless, the point I was making was that anything you can do to stop your tanks being spotted has got to be worth a shot (if you'll pardon the pun), simply because even the cheap ones aren't actually that cheap, especially with an expensively-trained and valuable crew and pricey ammo on board, let alone the cost of the thing itself.

The Gulf War was a case in point for tanks in prepared positions, where the 1st Hammurabi, 2nd Medinah Manarwah Armoured Divisions, the 3rd Tawakalna al Allah and 6th Nebuchadnezzar Motorised Infantry employed just such a tactic initially, in an attempt to balance things against the M1s they knew were coming and although it does deny the tank one of its primary tactical modes, can be a sound tactic against tougher opposition if the location remains concealed, which unfortunately for the Iraqi crews, didn't happen. Most probably the Iraqis employed this tactic because they knew the M1s had better thermal imaging sights than their T-72 units did, as well as better armor, so not giving your position away with a hot engine and using a big lump of dirt in front of your glacis plate was about the best they could hope for. Some of their tanks had their own dozer blades to enable them to dig themselves in, others were in revetments built by other equuipment. In such a situation, tanks would obviously benefit from camouflage which hid them from reconnaissance and they would not necessarily be detectable from IR sources in a desert environment if they didn't have their engines running, although in such temperatures, they'd probably still give off a heat source of some description.

So I suspect such a 'stealth' system on a tank would only really be of use if it were A) actually fitted B) actually switched on, which might defeat the object if it required the engine running to provide power, especially if it had a gas turbine engine, which light up on IR like a Christmas tree. And C) able to spoof any aerial reconnaissance sorties conducted to spot spossible ambushes.

And of course they'd have to hide any tank tracks or evidence of preparations too, which wouldn't necessarily be too easy! Point A is not as odd as it sounds when it comes to Soviet equipment incidentally, as many of the systems employed on Soviet-developed tanks are only actually fitted when an engagement is expected, such as the Shtora Electro-optical jammer system, for example.

Such an optical stealth system would clearly not be of much use in combat of course, again as evidenced by the Gulf War. Thermal targetting was how the vast majority of Iraqi tanks were destroyed by M1s in mobile engagements, many through the smoke which obscured visual targetting, and being better equipped in respect of IR equipment, very few M1s actually took any fire at all, with, I believe only seven instances of T72 hits from the Iraqis having been recorded, which of course does throw major doubt on any benefits of purely visual camouflage actually during an engagement, especially at night, which was when many Gulf War engagements took place. So a tank in such circumstances could be painted in the perfect camouflage and it still wouldn't make any difference if an IR-equipped tank knew where to look for it.

I think it's an interesting idea, and I wouldn't totally dismiss it, as to do so is to imagine that it would only be one development in isolation of all others. I know what you are saying is probably how it will turn out to be Skybird, but IR jammers may get more sophisticated for example, forcing a move back to assisted optical targetting in the visual spectrum. Who can say for sure, if we are talking about over ten years in the future? Certainly projector technology is improving, for example, LG have said that they think they are less than ten years away from producing a 'holographic' TV where the picture can literally be viewed from all angles.

If the military think there's an idea that can give them an edge, it's amazing how deep you find their pockets are!

Chock

[Skybird]

Chock, why the heavy workload of writing, if you seem to agree with much I said? the porblem of thermals not being spoofed by such a prjector camouflage, we both have mentioned. The low scores of the Iraqi tanks against the americans also came from the 120mm Rheinmetall being able to deliver precise blows over a significantly higher distance than the T72 (although I admit that Americans often found themselves in a very confused situation when running into the dune fields and occaisonal ambushes from T72 in reverse iron horse formations (hope that descirptiuon fits), resulting in intense close range fire exchanges. Plus the bad weather and thunderstroms they had, plus the sandstorms in the North it was, I think.

Where I disagree is that a camouflaged tank in an entranched position would have better chances to remain unharmed by aerial recognition. the entracnhement itself would be very well visible, and thus: be a target for preparatory artiellery at least. so a tank using such a camouflage would probably need to stay away from any defensive installations.

I still think that the active camouflage approach is the better, less sensitive approach: generate generic active paintschemes depending on the colour of your actual background. Because the camouflage pattern being used today already can produce surprising results in dissolving the contours of a tent, a vehcile, whetaver. When living in osnabrück, I once ran into a camp of a training BW unit in the forest. A M113 with a tent was on th side, between some bushes and trees. I was less than 50, 60 m away before I became aware it was there. From double that distance, it seemk to be not there. Such camouflage patterns only loose their use when in the open, or when their coliurs do not match the colours of the ground they are on. If you get these colours to match each other, then the camouflage scheme does the job it is supposed to do, and it does it sufficiently well. since all this does not help that much against mutli-spectral sensors, currently no more expesnive, but probably more sensible devices would be needed - not from a standpoint of mechanized groundwarfare, I would estimate.

If you really want to make a tank invisible to all surface sensors there are, you would need to build a mechanic mole.