Army tests James Bond style tank that is 'invisible'

[CGowen]

New technology that can make tanks invisible has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.

In secret trials last week, the Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear and predicted that an invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012.

The new technology uses cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank.

The result is that anyone looking in the direction of the vehicle only sees what is beyond it and not the tank itself.

A soldier, who was at the trials, said: "This technology is incredible. 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."

...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=490669&in_page_id=1770

[mmonk]

1. The Daily Mail?

[CGowen]

3. There are other papers "Telegraph" or Murdochs rags

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/31/ntank131.xml

When James Bond appeared in Die Another Day with an invisible Aston Martin, many cinema-goers thought the producers had gone a little too far.


But the Ministry of Defence has just revealed it is testing prototype technology that can make tanks and troops disappear.


It is developing special cameras that film the surrounding scenery and project it on to the men or their vehicles clad in reflective materials.

As a result enemies look straight "through" them.

....

[CT_Progressive]

2. The Weekly World news reports that aliens make tank teleport!

etc.

[hobbit709]

4. But will it fool IR sensors?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. In a word:

Unlikely.

[Historic NY]

5. Another example of the smoke & mirror Republican thinking...

we can have a whole fleet of something thats not even there.........:wtf:

If the cable goes out these guys are screwed.

[soothsayer]

6. predator

[wtmusic]

8. OK, who wants to volunteer to go out front and work the projector?

Any junior-high A/V vets here?

:rofl:

[Benhurst]

9. Sounds plausable. The Bush Crime Family, after all, was able to make the Constitution disappear.

[TlalocW]

10. Why don't they just paint it pink

And then erect a Somebody Else's Problem field around it?

TlalocW

[unpossibles]

11. not surprising

this is a technology which has been in process for a long time - unlikely to be in production any time in the near future, but definitely not impossible as some seem to suggest. I think I first heard of this idea for use on warplanes about 10-15 years ago, and a few years ago, someone in Japan made a fabric that used similar ideas for personal use.

[Me.]

12. Ah...

If it's so good is the army confident they will be able to locate our tanks?

[CGowen]

14. They lost 32 visible ones

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL

Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

[Me.]

15. Maybe We Can Have Invisible Wars

too

[noamnety]

13. Here's the wikipedia entry

from the FSCS/TRACER program, which I used to be involved with in a previous life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_research_and_development