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Taken from the Slice of Sci Fi website:

According to the British Ministry of Defence they now have a tank that is virtually impossible to see and is completely invisible to observers standing at a certain point. The technology relies on an intricate array of cameras and projectors.

“This technology is incredible,” an unnamed soldier was quoted by the Daily Mail and Sun. “If I hadn’t been present I wouldn’t have believed it. I looked across the fields and just saw grass and trees — but in reality I was staring down the barrel of a tank gun.”

This latest in optical technology has a camera film the background, which is then projected upon a special surface applied to the tank. The technology could also be used to hide nearly anything the camera and projector could be mounted on.

Fox reported that one person was willing to go on the record in all three British newspaper stories — theoretical physicist Sir John Pendry of Imperial College London, one of the world’s leading experts on surface reflectivity and lead author of a widely reported paper last year that said a “cloak of invisibility” would theoretically be possible.

“The drawback at the moment is the dependence upon cameras and projectors,” the Sun quoted Pendry, who did not confirm an implied connection with the defense project. “The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them — which is intricate and complicated, but possible.”

The Japanese have made fabric that can more or less do this. there's a picture somewhere on the web.

Here is a picture of the cloth.

lol... that cloth is so invisible.

I bet it works better than Shrouding

I think the Japanese cloak was a mockup theoretical thing.

Sounds like a Tau disruption pod to me.

The major drawback is that the viewer has to be standing in exactly the right place for the effect to work properly. Kind of like how heavy NMM painting effects can look really pants when viewed from the wrong side.

Likewise, it's fairly stationary.

On the other hand, you could combine this with stealth materials and have and invisible stealth aircraft carrier (which doesn't need to move much) to base operations out of.

I think any evil mastermind would be happy with that.

An semi-invisible vehicle would be most effective against low-tech troops who had to rely mainly on their eyes, because any high-tech troops would have other equipment such as man-portable radar and themal imaging equipment.

Sounds great if they're in defensive positions. OTOH, you don't just see a tank driving your way. You hear it as it approaches and actually feel it as the ground vibrates.

A great step forward though.

Finally, a combat use for paintball guns. I have seen through your cunning disguise! Ha, HA!!

Anyone thought of filling paintball gun-pellets with a form of molecular acid?

That would be reaaaaaly baaaad.

Bang, Bang!

"I'm hit! I'm....wait, what's this white stuff?"

"Hey, that looks a lot like Hydrofluoric acid - yeah, we used that a lot in my Chemistry Labs for my ChemE major..."

CK

Even if it's only actually invisible from one angle, it's going to do a pretty goodjob of breaking up the sillhouette oof the tank from other angles. Your camoflague instantly matches the terrain.

Right up until you have to go barging though a muddy stream. :p

Excellent for defensive positions, air and satellite avoidance, sniper perches, and recon blinds. Not too much use on the offense yet but its one step closed to predator suits for spec ops infantry. I see it as proof of concept for Ghost in the Shell style active camo. Cant wait till the evil government conspiracy can make me dissapear with invisible grav skimmers

Black helicoptors are so 1990's

I remeber an impressive covert op done by the British in the second world war.

They asked for the help of one of the top illusionists of the time to make the Nile disappear. I dont know the optical tricks used for stage magic but it works on larger scales if done correctly. David Blaine has made the statue of liberty disappear, same principle applies.

German and Italian aircraft on bombing missions to Alexandria and cairo would follow the coast they didnt have the sophisticated guidance radio in north africa. Instead they would take a turn at one of the openings to the nile delta, by making that disappear the aircraft would overshoot and take the wrong turn - therefore not being about to find Alexandria until fuel reserves were too low.

I wonder if this is the same technology that they are trying to use on that "predator" uniform for US infantry.

akira5665 wrote:Anyone thought of filling paintball gun-pellets with a form of molecular acid?

That would be reaaaaaly baaaad.

Nope, but I do remember seeing that they had started to fill them with pepper spary for riot control.

dogma wrote:Nope, but I do remember seeing that they had started to fill them with pepper spary for riot control.

Something about that sounds kinda dumb. why not just get a big hose with pepperspray?

Easier to use precision targeting and less negative press?

I have seen you-tube footage of this rather large guy who got hit with MULTIPLE pepper-spray and Mace pellets from our Boys-in Blue. Until he got hit in the CROTCH by 1, he stood there and took it. Either a fully tough guy, or go for the groin............always.

akira5665 wrote:Anyone thought of filling paintball gun-pellets with a form of molecular acid?

That would be reaaaaaly baaaad.

I don't think it would be very practical for a couple of reasons. The first is that the you need to have the pellets both break when they hit the target and not break when the soldier drops / carries / generally fumbles them. Second of all, bullets are just plain more effective at doing damage to a person than acid is. Pure H2SO4 is very painful to get on you, but fairly easy to wash off. It leaves scars but doesn't do causality causing damage easily. Using something like HF will do more damage, but HF has an anesthetic quality to it so you often don't realize its burning you. That may lead to increased damage but HF is difficult to contain (its used to etch silicon and glass).

Regardless, it seem that this new stealth technology has one fatal flaw that has screwed up cool new military gadgets for a long long time. Dirt. Dirt has been the bane of guns since they were created. It clogs barrels, coats firing pins, and jams automatic loading systems. Heck the assault rifle the French designed for WWII was a complete failure because it jammed all the time when it got dirt in it. I don't see this as being significantly different. If the projection screen gets dirty, you'll see a badly cameod dust cloud coming your way. If mud gets on the camera, you're toast. Same thing with "invisible" cloth. Dirt on it is going to screw everything up. 5 min of slogging though the mud of Viet Nam and its worthless.