Invisible Tank Appears at London Arms Fair

[Wolf Hagen]

Sweet... even on Tank 1:1 Combat this thing would be only usefull at Night.. one hit on this thing and you will have quite some costs at repairing, and once you start the engine all Camo effect is gone, since it is just irritating head and infrared vision optics.

Dear Gods, digging a tank into the ground is more effetive then this. And less expensive.

 

[Toeys]

now this is a good idea for next patch planned for world of tanks

 

[A.A.K]

Also they could save actual lives, which is cooler than impersonating sci-fi.

I find this statement to be very naive. Weapons don't save lives.

Just sayin'.

Indirectly...yea, they do.
In many cases quite directly as well.

Though I have personally never experienced this and I'm pretty sure that we shouldn't fight on the escapist

More 'directly' on topic - aaah the paradox of technology. It's gotten so advanced it's even invisible to other technology! ... except our own eyes?

 

[Infernai]

Ok, we've got the tanks that can now turn invisible...and hexagonal plates that can be hardened into armor. And if we can get Rail-guns up and operational then we're one step closer to making one of these:

Spoiler

 

[Infernai]

Whoops double post.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Now if only any potentially hostile nations could afford infrared scanning...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As interesting as that technology is, I can't stop thinking about something. It's a tank. We are in awe as humans once again managed to create yet another way to kill people. Something about that just doesn't sit right with me.

 

[elilupe]

But... wait, we never really take on anyone with any large amount of high-tech equipment? Since this is invisible only to such things like heat sensors and other such devices that any of our enemies could never hope to afford, doesn't this make this particular gadget rather redundant? Who the hell are we meant to employ it against?

I say we start a war with China, and then when people speculate on all the political and economic reasons for attacking them, we can say, "Nope! We just wanted to use our high-tech invisible tanks!"

 

[Slayer_2]

Was anyone else reminded of the Crysis Nanosuit's design with the hexagonal pattern? Also they're black and can go "invisible"...

 

[elilupe]

But... wait, we never really take on anyone with any large amount of high-tech equipment? Since this is invisible only to such things like heat sensors and other such devices that any of our enemies could never hope to afford, doesn't this make this particular gadget rather redundant? Who the hell are we meant to employ it against?

I say we start a war with China, and then when people speculate on all the political and economic reasons for attacking them, we can say, "Nope! We just wanted to use our high-tech invisible tanks!"

 

[Atomic Skull]

But... wait, we never really take on anyone with any large amount of high-tech equipment? Since this is invisible only to such things like heat sensors and other such devices that any of our enemies could never hope to afford, doesn't this make this particular gadget rather redundant? Who the hell are we meant to employ it against?

China, when they preemptively attack in about 25 years give or take.

 

[DaJoW]

The project is currently being developed in Sweden under the supervision of the Swedish Defense Material Administration (FMV).

So, a stealth corvette, a stealth sub and now a stealth tank. Seems the FMV know what it wants.

Edit: To the people saying "We never fight anyone with good tech anyway" - it's being constructed by a Swedish subdivision of a British company on behalf of the Swedish defence. It's a version of a tank produced in Sweden for almost 20 years. The last time we were at war, it was just after the Napoleonic wars.

 

[Atomic Skull]

But... wait, we never really take on anyone with any large amount of high-tech equipment? Since this is invisible only to such things like heat sensors and other such devices that any of our enemies could never hope to afford, doesn't this make this particular gadget rather redundant? Who the hell are we meant to employ it against?

I say we start a war with China, and then when people speculate on all the political and economic reasons for attacking them, we can say, "Nope! We just wanted to use our high-tech invisible tanks!"

Conflict with China is pretty much inevitable. Hopefully technology + nuclear deterrence will make open war impossible at least.

 

[Distorted Stu]

My reaction after watching that video:

 

[Danny Ocean]

[HEADING=3]You know what else that tank has?[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]A Kettle, mate![/HEADING]

Conflict with China is pretty much inevitable, they are the next big superpower and they want the position in world politics that the US currently occupies. Wouldn't be surprised if WW3 ends up being US+EU+Russia vs China and a conquered Taiwain with Korea and Japan taking the place of France and Poland in WW2.

Except for all those Nuclear bombs that everyone has.

 

[rangerman351]

to the invisible boat mobile!!!

 

[martyrdrebel27]

so, we switch our missiles from heat seeking to sound seeking. seriously, these tanks have to generate a certain level of sound, and seeing as how tank construction is standardized, would it be so hard to determine the decibles and frequency of sound put out by each and calibrate attacks based on that?

 

[Calbeck]

Wouldn't it be in trouble if anybody saw it though? People's eyes don't have thermal imaging, so 1 guy could see it, and call in an airstrike or something.

If we're talking about militaries that actually have airstrike capability, we're almost certainly talking about engagements that happen at ranges of miles. The Mark One Eyeball is irreplaceable, but it's also notoriously susceptible to various types of spoofing such as everyday forms of camouflage. Not to mention its limited utility under low-light conditions such as, say, night.

That's why infrared and other forms of detection were developed in the first place.

The upshot being that this tech could set an opposing force back to the WWII era of battlefield reconnaissance.

 

[Redout9122]

Nobody in the 'but you can still see it' comments considered that a lot of anti-armour weaponry is heatseeking? Or that the 'primitive' enemy is stocking up on nightvision equipment? http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-05-14-nightinside_N.htm
That article coincidently also mentions that the 'advanced' armies like to fight when they got the advantage, such as at night, when they can use their night vision and thermal goggles?

I dont think they got laser guided missles, so my guess is most of their missles are heatseeking. If it works on helicopters and airplanes too then it's a potential godmode. Who gives a hoot that they can see the tank if they dont have anything that has a decent chance of hitting it without them having to get expose themselves? It's a big hunk of metal riding around at a topspeed nearly 50 km/hour offroad. It's not exactly stealthy. It has all sorts of fancy stuff so forget about getting up close to it. And with this stuff, hitting it from a safe distance becomes more difficult. It's a nice invention untill someone comes up with a sort of magnetic metal seeking missile. Or they get their hands on laserguided stuff.

At night, many laser-guided weapons also rely on IR, so even that's not perfect.

But yeah, I knew about this a couple of weeks ago. Having connections in the defense industry is handy sometimes It has incredible applications in a number of military uses. The hope is to soon boil this down to a troop level where soldiers would be concealed from IR detection as well.