Makes me think of active camflague like a cloaking device, probably not practical for military, but give 360 camera, processing and miniaturization technology advancement how hard would it be to make a see through car for instance
U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
111–120 of 309 posts
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked (as a civilian contractor) for the military it's equally plausible that the decision was screwed up for other reasons. High up decision makers that "trust their gut" over what the data tells them or who arbitrarily decide that a certain pattern looks silly to them. It's absolutely not intuitive that the digital looking blocky camouflage patterns [1] are going to perform better than the blob style camo p…
Commanders have wide discretion and it's part of the decentralized command mindset. They can sometimes make such decisions on no more than "I think this pattern looks cooler than that pattern"
Yep. But it depends on the relationship the commander has with his or her superior officer. Some commanders are burdened with having to justify every single decision they make. Others have basically free reign to lead how they see fit (for better or worse) as long as they stay within the regulations.
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Very very few things in nature actually are made of large blobs of a single color (unless you're very shortsighted). Honestly, it baffles me why militaries didn't realize this earlier.
Source: former military member. In combat, camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible, and a fairly weak one at that. If the difference between staying alive and being dead is the pattern of your clothing, a lot of things have already gone seriously wrong and your chances of survival are not great. In the grand scheme of things, camo relatively high-hanging fruit. Money and time have mostly been spen…
In the first phase of Ukrainian war soldiers were firing a lot of line of sight, it does matter. And especially the IR / night vision opportunities are real.
It's very 'low hanging fruit'. It's ridiculous that that a 20 Trillion dollar Army has 'camouflage' that is very clearly crap next to better camo.
These tests could have literally been run in a day, even back in the 1950s.
Some soldiers, some screens, a few cameras, some changes in lighting and it would have been evident.
Moreover, it's reasonable to be suspect in whether an organization that can't handle such a basic R&D task is going to be able to handle the more complicated things.
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#114Somewhat related, urban sniper camouflage:
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do understand that most new airframes take a decade or more of R&D before they are put in service, right?
This thing is in service, so conventional wisdom about how long it takes to do stuff before that is irrelevant. From the introduction of my original link: Despite more than 20 years and approximately $62.5 billion spent so far on research and development alone, program officials still haven’t been able to deliver an aircraft that can fly as often as needed or to demonstrate its ability to perform in combat, which pla…
Your first comment was about suspended development, implying you think the system should be part of a continuous R&D cycle. Yet this comment implies you think the system should be outside of development. It's hard to tell what you're criticizing when your points are inconsistent.
I question some of the critiques in your link. For example, they claim the JSFs 61% availability rates are far below the standard of 75-80%. But if you look at published numbers, none of the legacy aircraft F15/F16/F18 variants (which have had decades to work out reliability issues) are above a 60% availability.[1]
What, specifically, are you critical of in terms of the JSF capability? Is that criticism due to what you perceived as mismanaged development or mismanaged priorities (e.g., the tradeoffs of a single platform)? And what is the base rate for comparison?
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, my first comment on the thread, consisting entirely of a quote from expert analysts, and already I'm a "luddite Reformer". (Idiosyncratic capitalization also doesn't help you seem balanced and rational.) This turkey was designed in the 1990s. The contract was awarded in 2001. The first f35 flew in 2006. When will this "technology" no longer be "new"? Presumably it will be some time, since the entire fleet was gr…
I think the reason why you're getting some pushback is because we've heard all these before with another aircraft that had similar teething and development problems: the F-15. The F-15 project was supposed to be a small and light fighter but feature creep" blew the project up into a massively expensive boondoggle. Some of this was due to the fear of the MIG-25; an aircraft we later learned wasn't so scary. Yet today,…
I believe the list is long of airframes where you could initially find this complaint. I think the F18 had similar concerns after it originally lost its experimental competition to the F16. But the F18 found itself as a capable workhorse for the Navy for decades. Same with the Space Shuttle, etc.
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the reason why you're getting some pushback is because we've heard all these before with another aircraft that had similar teething and development problems: the F-15. The F-15 project was supposed to be a small and light fighter but feature creep" blew the project up into a massively expensive boondoggle. Some of this was due to the fear of the MIG-25; an aircraft we later learned wasn't so scary. Yet today,…
I believe the list is long of airframes where you could initially find this complaint. I think the F18 had similar concerns after it originally lost its experimental competition to the F16. But the F18 found itself as a capable workhorse for the Navy for decades. Same with the Space Shuttle, etc.
The F-16, incidentally, got loaded to the gills with expensive gizmos after the fact because the Airforce (and other F-16 customers) quickly realized it made the aircraft a far more effective platform.
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#118I was hoping to learn why the pixelated designs started appearing. Author says they work; but what led anyone to think that those designs might work? Why did they try them in the first place? And actually, why do they work? I find it bizarre that this is all done by private companies, competing in public competitions, with royalties to be paid for the chosen design. And I'm quite surprised that some designs were foun…
Pattern is only one small factor. It's usually taken to be "Surface"
in the list:
- Shape
- Shine
- Shadow
- Speed
- Surface
- Silhouette
- Spacing
- Smell
- Sound
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#119Makes me think of active camflague like a cloaking device, probably not practical for military, but give 360 camera, processing and miniaturization technology advancement how hard would it be to make a see through car for instance
There's a system named ADAPTIV [1] which is essentially a bunch of tiles that can alter their temperature to make a tank look like a civilian car on the infrared band.
[1]: https://www.baesystems.com/en/feature/adativ-cloak-of-invisi...
Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)
#120Now I want to show up at our Zoom meetings in full camo. Doctors and soldiers get such cool uniforms, but us programmers are just business casual. Plus then you could convince a few of your coworkers to show up in camo with you and make your manager nervous you’re about to do a hostile takeover of the company.
> Doctors and soldiers get such cool uniforms, but us programmers are just business casual. Programmers' uniforms are excessively-expensive hiking clothes, or selvedge jeans with flannel and full-grain leather boots, ideally in a work- or jump-boot style.
Related: the engineer's uniform of blue oxford button down shirt, khakis, and Clark Desert Boots.