Thermal question

[from darkness lite]

Am putting together various "threat" items to have ready to brief next week. Came across this on Militaryphotos.net.  Since I am not a SME on thermal I pose this question to you, does this sound legit??

Any insulator will help lower your thermal signature. Some are better than others. In an after-action report about Afghanistan I read about how the talibs would pull their blanket (forget what it's called) over themselves and "disappear" from the view of the thermal imagers on aircraft. No big surprise here - Afghan nomads and shepherds always carry a wool blanket with them that they use as everything from a prayer mat to a kitchen table to a sleeping bag. It's highly insulating, and because they are usually not dyed and are never washed they take in enough of the local dirt to make them the ultimate visual camouflage for Afghanistan as well.

Cheers FDL 

 

[George Wallace]

I would think that what you discribe may have an affect initially, but after a few moments would not be too effective, once they had been 'exposed' to a heat source.  It would also depend on the sensitivity that the Thermal Sensors are set at.

 

[from darkness lite]

This quote came off of Militaryphotos and is attributed to a US Lesson's Learned.  Of course I am alway sceptical of what I read,however if it really made a Lessons Learned paper, there may be something to it.

Should have put the 2nd para in quotation marks, sorry.

FDL 

 

[TCBF]

Thermal and II both have limitations. In the Coyote turret, I would keep my right eye in the CC II eyepiece, and my left eye watched the thermal.  If we lost the locals on thermal, often their position would be given away by poor light discipline (shoddy training), and we could slew the thermal back onto them.  

Jumping into your sleeping bag and pulling it over your head also works, for an a/c flyover.  If you are trying to hide from a stationary AFV, your odds of collecting your pension will diminish with time spent in the bag.

The real variables are size of the observer's arcs, and operator fatigue/boredom/availability of porn.

Tom

 

[Britney Spears]

I've seen those space blankets, the ones you carry in your survival kit, being marketed as "thermal cloaks".

As the others say, I'd imagine that they would hide you for a short period of time, long enough to fool an overflying aircraft probably, but as the cloak itself absorbs heat it would start to glow in the sights.

 

[TCBF]

If the "Space Blanket" is the one that we buy to put in our cars in winter - nice bright shiny foil - I would stick to a groundsheet, poncho liner, or one of the new individual cam screens.  The foil is going to stand out like a turd in a punch bowl unless it is VERY dark out, and maybe even then.

I found thermal conditions can vary from hour to hour quite regularly through the day and night. At 0200 you may get little, and at 0230 you may have a beautiful picture of a Coyote in both black hot and white hot well past maximum laser range.  It all depends.

You can watch mice at night.  We had great sport watching wild dogs trying to trail rabbits around the airfield.  I have seen a Coyote surv video of a man urinating 100 meters away, and on white hot, you can see the steam from the urine stream.  Same gear, watching a Coy live fire attack, at 800 meters, when a soldier leans his C7 into an enemy trench and bursts it, you can see the dirt splash from the bottom of the trench, on black hot.  It can be VERY good kit.

Tom

 

[Britney Spears]

IIRC, the foil was only shiny on one side, to reflect heat back , while the other side was not. I'd try to dig up a picture or ad, but  you get what I mean.
I should add that while I thought the cloak would be effective at hiding a heat signature, I can't comment on its overall effectiveness wrt cam/concealment, since I've never actually inspected the item in person.

 

[TCBF]

Is it issue? If so, I will do a mini trial of it on SAT 2 this summer.

My Civie one is shiny both sides.  I will give it a go as well. As for just shiny on one side, on a windy night...

Tom

 

[Britney Spears]

Unlikely, a google search deems to indicate that the biggest users of this technology are druggies who use thermal blankets to mask the heat signature of their grow lamps from police thermal imagers.

Although in light of  recent events, maybe the RCMP will invite you and your boat to their next raid and you can give us a firsthand account.

 

[TCBF]

"Although in light of   recent events, maybe the RCMP will invite you and your boat to their next raid and you can give us a firsthand account."

Alas, I am an Armoured Observer Controller at CMTC and presently boatless.   Not counting the Milverado.

I cannot see the foil being all that effective in a household context.   The heat has to go somewhere, and with being the only house with no snow on the roof..

Such thermal scans are best left to the helicopter types.  

Amazingly, most of our Army has little idea of how this stuff operates.   "Tell us when you see a green truck"

"OK, here they come."

"What?'

"All trucks are green. The screen is in green, because the human eye sees more shades of green than any other colour. You can have dark green with black hot, or light green with white hot, but all trucks are green."

"Well. OK, tell us how many people are in the cabs."

"Sure, can you get the border guards to tell the truck drivers roll down the windows?   Cause, thermal can't see through GLASS."


And so it goes.

Tom

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

TCBF,

I would like to offer "executive surveillance operator" courses so that more people can learn the capabilities and limitations of the system.  It is always a bit frustrating to be tasked to look for a particular coloured car!

Darkness,

You may find the paper called "Afghanistan and the Future of Wafare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy" by Stephen Biddle quite useful.  It was published in Nov 02 and is available online at the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute.  While it does not refer to the specific thermal defeating properties of any particular Afghan garment, it does allude to the adaptations taken by al Qaeda and the Taliban after their early hammering.  Two interesting quotes are as follows:

  "At Op ANACONDA an intensive pre-battle reconnaissance effort focused every available surveillance and target acquisiton system on a tiny, ten by ten kilometer battlefield.  Yet fewer than 50 percent of all the Al Queda positions ultimately identified in the course of the fighting were discovered prior to ground contact.  In fact, most fire received by US forces came from unseen, unanticipated al Qaeda fighting positions."

  "The answer is that the earth's surface remains an extremely complex environment with an abundance of natural and manmade cover and concealment available for those militaries capable of exploiting it."

One real problem of having opponents wearing local robes and garments is that it becomes very hard to tell them from non-combatants except at close range.  This is an age old problem and not restricted to TI.

Cheers,

2B

 

[TCBF]

2B,

Remember the "Night Noises Demo" we gave all new soldiers on their first ex with an armoured sqn?
This is an SMG cocking, this is a drivers hatch locking, this is a Lynx CC seat being sat on, (this is a Hieneken can snapping open ;D) etc?

Eventually, we included the "How the turret lights make the Leopard stand out like a turd in a punch bowl at night through the NVGs" demo.

We need to expand on that, and do a night vision demo.  Form two lines 1000 m (or whatever) apart.  Each line consists of one example (or more) of anything that can see at night, and we cycle everyone in the bde through it, ESPECIALLY CSS. Include bare veh, veg cam veh, net cam veh, tarp cam veh, and tarp/net cam veh in each line.  Not asking for too bloody much am I?

I once walked out from an OP to do the "Can the en see me at night?" check, and through NVGs saw a flashing light in the trees.  WTF?  It was the drivers main warning light flashing from his hatch to the tree branches above, undetectable with the naked eye, magnified 30,000 times.  Who knew?

On the Regt Ex in Wx last spring, I was litening to Recce Sqn engage the Mo Tp En For through the trees.  The Mo Tp thought they were hidden, they weren't.  Not their fault.  How would they know?  We never taught them, did we?  I was on duty in RHQ, and gave them about 15 seconds of advice on hiding from thermal.  They caught on quick after that.

Back in the bad old days, the only people who REALLY understood thermal were the Infantry Bn Armd Def Pl, because they were the only ones who had it! 

Say hello to RSM L. for me.  I exited the Chinook behind him the day he almost got his head cut off by a static line.

Tom

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Tom,

Good idea!  I'm about to leave the unit and go to an HQ but I'll pass that one on.

Cheers,

2B

 

[Dogboy]

Unlikely, a google search deems to indicate that the biggest users of this technology are druggies who use thermal blankets to mask the heat signature of their grow lamps from police thermal imagers.

just have to point out that most of that foil that you see in a grow op. is so all the light is used by the plants and not around into the walls, not so much a heat stopping thing.
also their is a big debate starting up because its really simple to find a grow op. by using a infrared eye in a helicopter over head.and the debate wether its constitutional to fly around looking at homes and raiding everyone who has a "Hot" roof.