Just a thought, but if I were projecting to 21xx I would assume that a tank
would have cameras covering the surface feeding a computer that turned the
images into 3d feed, if not directly into the tank commanders brain, into a
set of 3d glasses that give the tank crew a full 360 view. That is assuming
humans can learn to deal with a 360 view.
Get out and look? Why, when your tank is not only feeding you the world
enhanced but the sattelite imagery is feeding you realtime pictures at.5 meter
resolution and you have copies of a full scan when the satellite is
"unavailable"?
In a message dated 2/3/00 8:18:26 AM Central Standard Time,
> books@mail.state.fl.us writes:
<<
Get out and look? Why, when your tank is not only feeding you the world
enhanced but the sattelite imagery is feeding you realtime pictures at.5 meter
resolution and you have copies of a full scan when the satellite is
"unavailable"?
> [quoted text omitted]
Yes! Get out and look - but besides that - even if they do look at a 360
scan down to the smallest ant on the battlefield: 1)Human beings will still
want to observe with their EYES 2) The more eyes looking and brains processing
the better 3) Crewed weapopns are more efficient killing machines from the
point of view of human psychology and one man doth not a crew make 4) Outside
sensors are easily foxable or knocked askew or out of operation in the
artillery barrage that precedes an attack or counter-attack. The Human
Eye will still be the primary sensor of any human operated or human moderated
system in the forseeable future - even when you turn the battle over to
the
computer (al a Aegis system) their is human moderation of the event - at
least as soon as the magazines are dry.
There is a new Ann McCaffery brawn brain novel in her "The Tank that
Reconnoitered"
> On 3-Feb-00 at 16:17, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
That's just it, if you have ever played with a decent VR system you already
feel like you are looking with your EYES with the added bonus that you don't
have to worry (much) about that guy with the sniper rifle.
> 3) Crewed weapopns are more efficient killing
horse drawn cannnons are more efficient killing machines therefore we will
never do away with the horse.
> 4) Outside sensors are easily foxable or knocked askew or out of
We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Human sensors are
trivially foxable by any number of things, hell, what is the biblical story
about the soldiers with the polished shields? You
aren't going to do this to multi-wavelength solid state sensors.
Sure, you might take out 15% of them with an artillery barrage. So what? I
have 5K of the things in the side of the tank, which gives me eyes which are
the size of the tank. I can zoom in on that ant if necessary, and the pattern
recognition in the computer will even highlight that tripwire that no human
could pick out or the difference in dirt color and heat radiation pattern that
signals a mine. That guy with the RPG in the ghillie suit will be highlighted
in bright orange. Want to know if you can make it between those buildings? The
optical systems will tell you how far apart they are. Want to know if you can
drive through the wall? A single "ping" from your radar will give you complete
info.
> The Human Eye will still be the primary sensor of any human
The human will make the decision, but he is going to be much more
"intelligent" in the military sense of the word. Much more information
presented in a manner which is quick and easy to understand (we're learning
from too much info in combat planes.) It's going to make the guy who gets out
of his tank to look at the ground a complete idiot. You don't risk the tank
driver for this, the soldiers on the ground look, that's their job. Because
that is their job they do a far better job of it than the tank driver.
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Thu, 3 Feb 2000 Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
> system in the forseeable future - even when you turn the battle over
Aegis isn't always broadcasting. There is an interesting story about a wargame
between a US Carrier Battle group and a French Carrier Group. The day before,
the french carrier had been killed and was then added back to the mix. Both
Carriers were at EMCON and ended up steaming along
sea lanes of the area waiting to find the other. An Anti Sub Helo took up
station off the US carrier as per standard procedure in the dark and the
crew suddenly realized that they were keeping 6 miles off from two carriers
one to each side.
They quickly alerted their carrier and turned to make an attack run for the
French carrier. There was a hasty set of strike launches, fighters and in the
confusion the SH was able to get close enough to launch its "torpedo" and was
awarded the kill for the French Carrier.
The moral of the story is that sensors are great, but you don't always have
them on, and even the mark one eyeball will save your bacon.
> Just a thought, but if I were projecting to 21xx I would assume
Will he still have to turn his head to see behind him? Sounds plausible. If
you're talking a 360 degree view all the time, that sounds like a rewiring of
Human senses and perception.
> Get out and look? Why, when your tank is not only feeding you
BTW just curious, all this talk of "all knowing" sensors. What have the ECM
guys, counter reconnaissance guys, counter sensor people (Scientists,
Research, Materials Technicians, as well as military men who concern
themselves with such matters) been doing for 200 years? Did they pretty much
give up? All this all knowing capability and not one power is doing anything
to keep the other side from looking in their knickers? Bullshit. I'd like to
porpose that that in 21XXs if you have all that wazoo stuff and you fight a
technologically inferior foe then sure you are perhaps all knowing and seeing
to some extent. But if the NSL is fighting the FSE or the NAC is fighting the
ESU in a heads up all out modern war, then it's back to the same paucity of
information that you have in every war since both sides will have the means
and technology to defeat to a greater or lesser extent, whatever wazoo gadgets
the other sides brings to play.
Look no farther than the NTC or the JRTC. There is an immense amount of
sensor data and real-time information available today. At the JRTC
where there is for part of the battle a real qualitative advantage in sensor
and information, the blue force commander attains to some extent an edge over
the OPFOR. Still even though for most of the battle it's pretty much just
small cells of guys running around like guerillas we stumble around with
varying degrees of difficulty, depending on who' the BC is and who is the
unit.. That's with GSR, ground and air sensors, intercept and a whole slew of
other digital battlefield assets.
Then you go and see a battle or partake in a battle at NTC (BTW I have been to
both places fighting with good guys and bad guys), and now you see two equally
advanced forces. Sure you've got all these same assets but so do they, and
both sides are doing everything they can to keep data from each other. And
everyone is still pretty much in the dark about where they are and what
they're doing. (despite some of the scripted nature of individual battles.)
I don't know what specific countermeasures there will be in 2180s (though we
could probably figure some out fairly easy), though I know active and passive
counter measures as well as operational techniques will continue to figure
prominently in denying the enemy the knowledge he needs. It's a basic tenant
of war. ALl this will keep war in the realm of uncertainty and chaos.
> On Thu, 3 Feb 2000 Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 2/3/00 8:18:26 AM Central Standard Time,
they will rapidly learn to prefer electronic senses when those senses become
as or more reliable and accurate than the eyeball, human, mark 1. an analogy
is the uptake of guns; when they first came in, one wouldn't dream of using
guns to the exclusion of pikes, but today, a soldier with a sharp stick is a
soldier trying to get a psychiatric discharge.
> 2) The more eyes looking and brains processing the
and if those eyes and brains can be looking at images that are the result of
the fusion of data from tens to thousands of sensors, with extensive digital
preprocessing, then that's better yet.
> 3) Crewed weapopns are more efficient killing machines from the point
i would like to draw a parallel with the horsemen of old here; a one-man
tank is more like cavalry than a modern tank, in a way. perhaps the team
spirit within the tank crew will be replaced by a team spirit within the
platoon.
obviously, a one-man tank is only possible with serious computer
assistance; think of the computerised driving system as a little like the
horse in wetware cavalry: it can't do tactics, but it can travel in the
desired direction, deal with obstacles and varying terrain and is somewhat
controllable though channels other than those used to direct weaponry (you can
nudge a horse with your legs somewhat, i think (i've ridden a horse exactly
once)). plus, the fire control, comms, EW, surveillance and PDS
will all have to be highly automatic. for a good SF example of a one-man
tank, see 'hardwired', Walter Jon Williams iirc. top stuff.
> 4) Outside
> artillery barrage that precedes an attack or counter-attack.
the human eye is also vulnerable to a host of insults - smoke, laser
blinding, an unstable platform, darkness (the human eyeball can be
replaced by night-vision goggles, read using said eyeball) - all of
which
can be tolerated by well-designed electronics. remember that many of the
sensors won't even be on the tank, they'll be in RPVs hundreds of metres up or
klicks behind the battle, with the info downlinked by maser, or on other
elements on the battlefield, sidelinked by the battlefield data net.
> The Human Eye
<rotfl/>
> - even when you turn the battle over to the
i think that saying the eye is a primary sensor because the commander is
looking at his tactical display with it is a bit much.
tom
Sensors becoming a problem? Someone is going to find a way of taking them
out or fooling/blinding them.
Buck
In a message dated 2/3/00 6:36:12 PM Central Standard Time,
> thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk writes:
<< > The Human Eye
> will still be the primary sensor of any human operated or human
<rotfl/>
> - even when you turn the battle over to the
i think that saying the eye is a primary sensor because the commander is
looking at his tactical display with it is a bit much.
tom >>
BArring direct neural interface - I willstand by my statements.
In a message dated 2/3/00 4:37:47 PM Central Standard Time,
> laserlight@quixnet.net writes:
<<
Why, exactly? If I can get optical, thermal, UV, ultrasonic and radar imaging
delivered to the inside of my armor, why would I want to stick my head out and
get shot at? Just because "I'm used to it"? I'd get used to the electronic
version pretty quick, particularly after seeing a couple of my more stubborn
fellows take a 5.56mm in the head or lungs. Think of it as "evolution in
action".
> [quoted text omitted]
Today a tank commander has much of this available sitting in his seat -
yet
Israeli tank doctrine can get a tank commander FIRED from his job if he
buttons up OTHER than under artillery fire - Why because the tank
commander buttoned is the tank commander blinded to the all around situation.
US doctrine also calls for staying "heads uo" in combat. Why?????????? Because
we have the best tank to tank kill ratio (us and the Israeli's) of any nation
around.
In a message dated 2/3/00 4:46:30 PM Central Standard Time, los@cris.com
writes:
<<
Then you go and see a battle or partake in a battle at NTC (BTW I have been to
both places fighting with good guys and bad guys), and now you see two equally
advanced forces. Sure you've got all these same assets but so do they, and
both sides are doing everything they can to keep data from each other. And
everyone is still pretty much in the dark about where they are and what
they're doing. (despite some of the scripted nature of individual battles.)
I don't know what specific countermeasures there will be in 2180s (though we
could probably figure some out fairly easy), though I know active and passive
counter measures as well as operational techniques will continue to figure
prominently in denying the enemy the knowledge he needs. It's a basic tenant
of war. ALl this will keep war in the realm of uncertainty and chaos.
Los >>
And when the shit is hitting the fan - and your sensors are foxed and
you have no idea what is going on around you what do you do? You pop the
hatch, stick your head out and look for yourself.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
We aren't talking radar though, we are talking an optical system. IR coatings
can take out the IR part of the spectrum, but they won't take out the visible
part of the spectrum. Chaff shouldn't
really affect IR/UV/visible light at all, Radar absorbant coatings
won't either.
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
Doesn't fox the IR, it foxes the eyes behind the IR. The eyes would be foxed
weather the tank commander sticks his head out or relys
on the onboard holographic/VR projector.
Binoculars are great, you just use good
> camo.
Again, foxes eyes.
> Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
Dazzler would also dazzle eyes, and solid state "eyes" would come back much
more quickly than human ones. Why would a decoy fox electronic optical systems
that are read by a human any more than they would fox an eye.
Of course, your enhanced tank could tell you there were 30 soldiers in the
woods when they were really dummies, I guess that would be foxing because the
tank commander could stick his head out and see nothing but forest.
> Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:
Of course the same as what he reads by sticking his head out, it's what we are
designed for, nature didn't evolve us to read computer screens.
I'm not arguing loss of options, I'm saying you can get just as good as
sticking your head up and then some. All without risking your head
to the sniper/gas/whatever.
In a message dated 2/3/00 3:52:44 PM Central Standard Time,
> books@mail.state.fl.us writes:
<<
horse drawn cannnons are more efficient killing machines therefore we will
never do away with the horse.
> [quoted text omitted]
Than a tank? and that hardly addresses the subject of the psychology of
killing on the battlefield - I suggest you do some research, as I have.,
<We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Human sensors are
trivially foxable by any number of things, hell, what is the biblical story
about the soldiers with the polished shields? You
aren't going to do this to multi-wavelength solid state sensors.> Within
months of the unveiling of any EW device there will be a perfectly useable CEW
device to fox it.
<Sure, you might take out 15% of them with an artillery barrage. So what? I
have 5K of the things in the side of the tank, which gives me eyes which are
the size of the tank. I can zoom in on that ant if necessary, and the pattern
recognition in the computer will even highlight that tripwire that no human
could pick out or the difference in dirt color and heat radiation pattern that
signals a mine. That guy with the RPG in the ghillie suit will be highlighted
in bright orange. Want to know if you can make it between those buildings? The
optical systems will tell you how far apart they are. Want to know if you can
drive through the wall? A single "ping" from your radar will give you complete
info.
> [quoted text omitted]
How does any of this replace the eyeball and sticking your head out of the
hatch - Hell, your tank commander and the loader who may have time to
stick his head out of the hatch will be wearing a helmet that let's him switch
between normal vision and a VR readout of everything you have just mentioned
- and the normal vision will be available when the sensors are foxed.
<The human will make the decision, but he is going to be much more
"intelligent" in the military sense of the word. Much more information
presented in a manner which is quick and easy to understand (we're learning
from too much info in combat planes.) It's going to make the guy who gets out
of his tank to look at the ground a complete idiot. You don't risk the tank
driver for this, the soldiers on the ground look, that's their job. Because
that is their job they do a far better job of it than the tank driver.> And
the day that an experienced tank commander lets someone else check the ground
he is going to bleed and die for is the day the UNIVERSE ends.
> On 3-Feb-00 at 17:46, Los (los@cris.com) wrote:
> BTW just curious, all this talk of "all knowing" sensors. What have
Did
> they pretty much give up?
Big guys take out the satellites, that is kind of expected so you are dealing
with stored info. As to the rest, if you can stop optical sensors on the tank
then the driver isn't going to see any better. I'm not talking unimaginable
tech on the sensor end. You take a solid
state camera, just like the ones people are using for web-cams, harden'
them and embed them in the tank surface. When your "pupil" is 2 meters long a
little signal processing gets you the resolution I'm talking about. Smoke
would stop the visible spectrum (which also takes out your Mark I eyeball),
but if it doesn't block IR the current cameras are sensative to IR (they put a
filter in the camera to block this so the pictures don't look odd). It doesn't
take much to add UV into it, and by the time you've done all this and add a
little pattern recognition you have something far superior to the Mark I.
All this all knowing capability and not one
> power is doing anything to keep the other side from looking in their
How do you defeat passive sensors that rely on the environment? Anything that
takes out the sensors takes out the electronics in the tank which takes out
the tank.
> Look no farther than the NTC or the JRTC. There is an immense amount
It really sounds like information overload, the same problem they have on
airplanes, too many dials, alarms, etc etc. That's where the computers come
in, they look at all those dials and alarms, simplify them, and highlight
possible problems. We are just learning to deal with the fact that you can
give a human too much information, I would expect that by the 2100s this would
be a dead science and pure engineering. I would also expect that by the 2100s
your computers would be "smart" enough to sort it down into terms we
understand. IE, we are programmed to see movement, certain danger colors,
temperature... If the information is presented in a way we are designed to
deal with it will be much more immediately useful.
> I don't know what specific countermeasures there will be in 2180s
If you can describe a countermeasure that keeps the tank from seeing but
doesn't stop a mark I eyeball I would be interested in hearing it. (And heavy
weapons stop the eyeball also:)
> On 3-Feb-00 at 21:02, Geoffery R (geofferyr@hotmail.com) wrote:
Can you give me any idea what this super sensor-fooler is that doesn't
also fool the Mk I eyeball?
> On 3-Feb-00 at 23:08, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
The image I seem to be getting from you is a guy in the tank looking at a TV
screen. In this situation you definately don't have a feel for the all around
situation.
Change that to the guy wearing a VR helmet and now he IS looking around. He
turns his head he sees what is there. He hears with ears better than anything
we humans have. In this situation you wouldn't feel as disconnected, you would
feel like you were the tank.
> On 3-Feb-00 at 23:13, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
Ah, it's the wave hands technology. The sensors use visible, IR and UV light.
Suddenly, we wave hands and the electronics on the tank
function but the sensors no longer pick up IR-UV light and the eyeball
does.
> On 4-Feb-00 at 00:51, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
Let me paraphrase for you. Just because a way of doing things is done because
it is the best with our current technology doesn't mean it will be best 100
years from now.
> <We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Human sensors
Within
> months of the unveiling of any EW device there will be a perfectly
Horse hockey. Does anyone "fox" night vision goggles? Does anyone
"fox"
binoculars? Remember, if you are going to answer with an affirmative then it
must also NOT block the mark I.
[Sensors]
> Sure, you might take out 15% of them with an artillery barrage.
Somehow I think I'd exceed 15% with a mass barrage of supersticky radar
reflecting paint.
---
> On 4-Feb-00 at 12:41, Steve Gill (Steve@caws.demon.co.uk) wrote:
Then why aren't you using something that can take the tank out instead?
In a message dated 2/4/00 9:02:50 AM Central Standard Time,
> books@mail.state.fl.us writes:
<<
Can you give me any idea what this super sensor-fooler is that doesn't
also fool the Mk I eyeball?
> [quoted text omitted]
If theyare reading in EM spectrum other than light we already fox radars, and
heat seekers just fine.
However we do not have the "all-seeing" sensors yet - so no one ahs
foxed them.
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:
> How do you defeat passive sensors that rely on the environment?
Anything
> that takes out the sensors takes out the electronics in the tank which
Smoke? Chemicals? Something that reacts with optical sensors not coated with
"X" optical coating? Nanites? What have you.
Camo has gotten to the point that most of a soldiers kit is transparent to
radar. The only thing not transparent is the rifle and ammo.
> If you can describe a countermeasure that keeps the tank from seeing
Its a matter of having a number of options open, not relying totally on the
electronics. You propose relying totally on the electronics, or so it seems.
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:
> Can you give me any idea what this super sensor-fooler is that doesn't
Chaff? IR coatings? Radar absorbent coatings?
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:
> Horse hockey. Does anyone "fox" night vision goggles? Does anyone
Near Band IR are easy to fox. Use a certain pattern material and conceal
your position in thick foliage. Binoculars are great, you just use good camo.
Thermal imagers are succeptable to hot smoke and other obscurants.
A tank that has a good cooling system and that has been cold for a day will
show up as ambient on thermals, especially if they have a power plant that
doesn't give off much heat. One could also conceivably build into the tank the
signature of some other vehicle.
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Steve Gill wrote:
> Somehow I think I'd exceed 15% with a mass barrage of supersticky
So now even the trees reflect radar energy....great, make the camo easier to
use...now if the radar emitter were suddenly coated, ouch....that part that
says "do not paint" bad place to get crud on...
In a message dated 2/4/00 4:17:53 PM Central Standard Time,
> monty@arcadia.turner.com writes:
<<
> Can you give me any idea what this super sensor-fooler is that
Chaff? IR coatings? Radar absorbent coatings?
> [quoted text omitted]
Lazer dazzle systems, decoys, noise makers....
> Roger Books wrote:
> > [Sensors]
1) Cost (paint may - note *may* - be cheaper than a normal warhead)
2) Point defence (easier to shoot down a short-range sublet than a
blob/cloud of fire)
3) Non-lethal weaponry (in peace-keeping ops or tense almost-war
situations you don't necessarily *want* to kill the tank since that'd turn the
cold war hot, only disable it so it has to stop doing whatever mischief it is
up to... or maybe you want the tank for yourself <g>)
Don't laugh at 3). It is under quite serious consideration (possibly
development, though I haven't heard anything solid about this yet) already.
Intended mainly for situations like the current Kosovo or
Bosnia situations, not full-blown wars.
Regards,
In a message dated 2/4/00 4:21:44 PM Central Standard Time,
> monty@arcadia.turner.com writes:
<<
Near Band IR are easy to fox. Use a certain pattern material and conceal your
position in thick foliage. Binoculars are great, you just use good
camo. Thermal imagers are succeptable to hot smoke and other obscurants. A
tank that has a good cooling system and that has been cold for a day will show
up as ambient on thermals, especially if they have a power plant that doesn't
give off much heat. One could also conceivably build
into the tank the signature of some other vehicle.
- >>
Or cover it with an insulator blanket that reflects the same temperature as
the ambient air.
In a message dated 2/4/00 4:16:46 PM Central Standard Time,
> monty@arcadia.turner.com writes:
<<
Its a matter of having a number of options open, not relying totally on
the electronics. You propose relying totally on the electronics, or so it
seems.
> [quoted text omitted]
Not only relying entirely on the electronics - but putting it into a
format which the tanker reads with his eyes, just like doing it by sticking
his head out. Options! Options! Options! You usually die shortly after you run
out of options.
> Today a tank commander has much of this available sitting in
Why?????????? Because
> we have the best tank to tank kill ratio (us and the
Doctinre calls for staying unbuttoned because we have the best kill ratio?
Your logic is missing a beat here. And don't the Israeli's also have the
highest loss rate of tank commanders?
In any event, we are NOT talking about TODAY--at least the
Pro-Sensors side is not--we're talking about Two Hundred Years
> From Now. If you have good sensors--Virtual Reality here!--why
An interesting topic. What you are referring to is "Situational Awareness"
(or, SA). the fact is that sensors are not yet as good as being able to pop
your head up and look around. Sensors don't give you the "feel" of your
environment in the same way that human senses do. They are a critical tool for
allowing you to narrow your focus and attack, but by themselves they will get
you killed. The Israelis, US, and WWII German tankers all constantly fought
unbuttoned so that they had less chance of being blindsided.
When you are in a big steel can like an M1 (and I've driven m48s, m60a1s,
Sheridans and M1s) it is VERY different from having a look about with your Mk1
eyeball. Get ya killed quick if you don't have excellent SA
> -----Original Message-----
In a message dated 2/4/00 5:01:46 PM Central Standard Time,
> laserlight@quixnet.net writes:
<<
Doctinre calls for staying unbuttoned because we have the best kill ratio?
Your logic is missing a beat here. And don't the Israeli's also have the
highest loss rate of tank commanders?
> [quoted text omitted]
Sorry - we and they have the highest kill ratios BECAUSE they stay
unbuttoned and YES the Israelis lose more tank commanders that way...
sometimes you
have to take a risk to be an effective soldier - so?
In a message dated 2/4/00 5:01:46 PM Central Standard Time,
> laserlight@quixnet.net writes:
<< In any event, we are NOT talking about TODAY--at least the
Pro-Sensors side is not--we're talking about Two Hundred Years
From Now. If you have good sensors--Virtual Reality here!--why
in heaven's name would you want to put your head out of the tank? There's
nothing mystical about the Mk 1 Eyeball. Sure,
you can blind any other sensor if you put your mind to it--so
what? A quick hit with a laser will blind your tanker just as thoroughly. >>
Whichs is why any soldier on the field will probably be wearing some verion
of your "VR" head gear any way - but his option will still be to look
with
his eyes in a visiual spectrum - and the helmet will protect his eyes or
there will be nothing BUT blind people on a future battlefield.
There is nothing miraculouos about the eyeball - but it is more reliable
than
any electronic component that has been mentioned up to now - and
besides the point of view I and the few who can lay some claim to knowing
something
about tank operations - is that the electronics increase your
information
processing and so does your eye and brain - BOTH are going to be
necessary
and one without the other is BAD - BUT if you can only have one, (again
barring a direct neural interface) then the eyeball (MkI) is the one I would
choose to have.
> I wrote:
> 2) Point defence (easier to shoot down a short-range sublet than a
I'm too tired. Should of course be "a blob/cloud of paint", not "of
fire" :-(
Take fifty years of technology and add it to the equation and you have tanks
with the semi organic Mark-3 eye ball of there own. The tanker still
gets out to guide the tank into camo or cover. A tanker gets out to look and
see what it looks like from a perspective that he can truly feel the scale of
things. Humans must look at things from there own perspective on occasion to
get the feel of whats what. The crew must know hown to fight using all the
high tech goodies or with a tank held togeather with scotch tape and old
hangers.
[quoted original message omitted]
In a message dated 2/4/00 10:39:30 PM Central Standard Time,
> apter@prodigy.net writes:
<< The crew must know hown to fight using all
the high tech goodies or with a tank held togeather with scotch tape and old
hangers.
> [quoted text omitted]
Book of the Tank in Combat Capter 1, Verse 1
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Mike Wikan wrote:
> An interesting topic. What you are referring to is "Situational
a point of reference might be a modern car. the driver isn't sticking out
of the top, but with big windows and strategically-placed mirrors, has
pretty good awareness; there wouldn't be much improvement from being out in
the open (although sales of convertibles indicate that there are benefits of
some sort to it:)).
this is very different from a modern tank, which has a set of vision slits,
periscopes, etc, which afford a very restricted view of the outside; in
particular, it is generally necessary to switch from one thing to another to
look in different directions, whereas in a car or in the open, you just have
to swing your head. i would say that a tank with VR
driven from external sensors, or with a 360 degree wrap-around display
screen, would be much more like the car: the crew could see around just by
swinging their heads. neural interfaces would be the same but more so -
you don't even have to swing your head.
this still leaves the question of getting out and walking around when planning
a position; if the tank isn't in combat, or near it, i can't see a problem
with this, but if it is, it should be possible to scout about without having
to send out the loader, and this is where one of Tom B's
little flying gadgets, or some sort of remote-controlled car type setup,
comes in. of course, if you have sensors above the battlefield and good
mapping data, then you can synthesise the scouting walk for VR too, but it's
substantially harder.
tom
In a message dated 2/5/00 12:41:22 PM Central Standard Time,
> thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk writes:
<< but if it is, it should be possible to scout about without having to send
out the loader, and this is where one of Tom B's
little flying gadgets, or some sort of remote-controlled car type
setup, comes in. of course, if you have sensors above the battlefield and good
mapping data, then you can synthesise the scouting walk for VR too, but it's
substantially harder.
> [quoted text omitted]
The VR would have to be programmed pretty tightly to be of much use for
scouting terrain you are going to maneuver over - especially since it
may NOT
be the same terrain you were expected to maneuver over - that's the way
a battle works, plan as you might, it's gonna work out differently tahn anyone
thought. How about when you are bivouaced or laagered? someone needs to set
guards and outposts and those guards and outposts will need living breathing
humans to monitor them - give away too many breathing humans and the
platoon will find itself strapped to provide enough warm bodies to do all the
neccesary work taht has to be done OUTSIDE the AFV.
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:
This is why tankers do things like attach foliage and branches and scrim
and netting to tanks. It breaks up the outline and makes them harder to see.
Already there is camo netting that breaks up radar energy. How long
do you think it will be before scrim breaks up the near IR or far IR signature
of a vehicle.
You have seen pictures of the WWII era German Assault guns/mobile trees
right?
Ryan asked:
> How long do you think it will be before scrim breaks up the near IR or
It's available now from some manufacturers, and, I believe, is used now in the
British Army. They go to some lengths to prevent IR detection, including
covering vehicle trails with IR absorbing foam.
> RE: Tank vision systemsOwen wrote:
To cover this with foam would require an enormous volume?! Even with 23C tech
I think this would be an unlikely scenario to seriously contemplate for full
movement. maybe it could be used for a couple of kms movement but in armoured
warfare knowing that a troop of tanks is within a 10km square is
good enough to despatch your hunter/killer teams!
> Ah, another justification for GEV/hover; lower IR signature from
I haven't got a camera or scanner, I could scan it and send the picture, once
I find it again. In the picture, the foam is about a meter or so deep. The
text mentions that it can only cover tracks for a while.
IR absorbing foam?
The IR 'footprint' would be left by the tracks overturning the earth, leaving
exposed soil a slightly different signature to the normal top soil. To cover
this with foam would require an enormous volume?! Even with 23C tech I think
this would be an unlikely scenario to seriously contemplate for full movement.
maybe it could be used for a couple of kms movement but in armoured warfare
knowing that a troop of tanks is within a 10km square is
good enough to despatch your hunter/killer teams!
Ah, another justification for GEV/hover; lower IR signature from
airborne/aerospace surveillance platforms?
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
BTW in the army we have a new smoke which is graphite based and totally blocks
IR. Was reading up he specs yesterday at the unit. (It's even mre effective
than HC.)
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:
[quoted original message omitted]