Instead...

... just look for the vast cloud of dust the machine has kicked up

hmmm Counter nuke

the yanks will develop new tech to counter it and then use it to obliterate anything that moves with 100 square mile radius (civilians included)

don't need to be blind to miss it

i think some commentards are missing the point. the modern tanks biggest enemy in "traditional" warfare is the attack helicopter. this system is designed so that an apache flying at night by thermal/ir will class it as a truck which can be multipurpose could even be civilian, maybe rules of engagement state no firing on anything but T-72's. its not some magic camo but it would have its uses.

As for being blind try spotting a black/olive drab thing at night somewhere with no lighting i.e desert, steepes etc its hard to do in the uk because of all the light pollution but you'd be suprised how crap human vision can be. sure you'd here it but i have a feeling this thing is for spoofing aircraft that hunt on IR and not people on the ground.

of course this assumes a type of warfare that's pretty much unlikely to happen anyone with an attack helicopter/tank fleet big enough to warrant this has too much to loose (economically etc, china's not going to attack you America ffs) by going into a big tank vs helicopter war and 3rd world nations using surplus soviet tanks wont be able to afford it and don't have the air capability anyway

so if if is covered in adjustable temperature panels...

they would be called hexels?

Or...

Heat Emission Repressive/Productive Evasion System.

Pah thermoptics

Been done years ago, Just ask Major Kusenagi, had her napper torn off by a cloaked spider tank.

Sadly the cavalry arrived just to late with the standard issue big gun.

halo 'cos Well she is erm, a nice bit of anime.....

How do you store heat?

Assuming your tank is hotter than its surroundings, how do you store heat to conceal its presence? Assuming that you can't (I don't think so) then what's the best way to get rid of the excess heat to conceal its true shape? Perhaps you could lazer* it away.

*the solution to everything!

I can't see anyone actually using this crazy system

So it must be working.

Even for a tank..

..getting this thing off the ground will take a lot of effort

To quote Douglas Adams;

"..making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it..."

Impressive price

From the nyteknik article (http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article3246446.ece):

"Projektet har hittills kostat runt 13 miljoner kronor," which translates to "The project has so far cost around 13 million SEK" (or £1.25 million/$2 million).

If this was made in the US by one of the large defence contractors, it would probably had cost 10 or 100 times more.

Thats not a Sweedish Tank thats a US one.

I know cos I've seen it before:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/10/invisibilty_will_soon_be_within_our_grasp/

Figured out how it works

Either an array of Peltier modules (cheap, not so low powered) or vacuum thermoelectrics.

The latter are very recent but much like OLED hex panels are obtainable if you happen to have the appropriate deep pockets and a hotline to the manufacturers who are happy to sell the prototype run of units for "extended field testing"...

Rumour has it that these can be printed by the thousand using broadcast power to recharge the wafer thin batteries inside, so that they don't need wiring.

Maybe now we know why the UFOs are always the same shape.. Disks make an excellent flat surface to mount visual stealth panels on.

AC/DC

interesting

Lets flip this over, it can make a tank appear like another object (slashdot were suggesting cows etc) on ir signatures which most devices trying to kill them in low light situations use.

And its small and hardly consumes any power, double coolness.

What if you made a autonomous version that made a cow look like a tank? you could *really* freak the enemy out with a herd of these for very little cost. Or be the tank in the middle of the cows reliant on them having to eliminate the cows before even finding you.

Cow based tank decoys. I feel sorry for the cows if any mil types read this...

Wash Often

Yes, you'll need to wash it very often... this is such a waste of money as it stands. One bullet and the system is down. One splash of mud, and there'll be plenty, and the system is down.

This is for the lab, not the field.

SMIDSY!

Driving round a battlefield in a tank invisible to the Yanks?

Make a tank invisible to an IED - now that would be worth having.

Physical limits

Presumably a tank is normally somewhat warmer than its surroundings since it has a dirty great engine in there to power it. Hence the use of thermal imaging to spot it. So to cool its exterior you need to pump heat into the interior or, equivalently, prevent the interior heat from escaping against the natural thermal gradient. That includes all the heat that'd normally come from the engine cooling system and exhaust which I imagine must run to quite a large number of kilowatts.

Seems to me that's going to make it pretty hot inside - and with no heat escaping, the temperature will just go on rising indefinitely. Well, until something melts anyway.

Tanks...pah think bigger....

anyone seen the Royal Navy's latest steath aircraft carriers and stealth Harriers?

Playmobil?

Could you show how an invisible Playmobil tank might look?

If this does work....

Then it must be pretty damn clever.

I worked on thermal imagers in the early 80's and you could tell by looking at the tracks on the ground which ones had been made by a tank going past several hours before, as opposed to days, and which direction it went. The temperature differential that could be seen was tiny.

I suspect they have got better since then.

I refuse to enoble a simple forum post!

All Hail Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod!!

That is so cool...

letters... there you go now it contains it.

reminds me

somewhat of the Mirage tank from Red Alert 2 / 3

Romulan technology?

This clearly wouldn't work. How did romulans do it?

Misunderstanding

I'm amazed at the level of misunderstanding in the comments. In a tank to tank conflict seeing the tank accurately is key because sight is still used for targeting. To counter that most tanks have smoke generators. And to counter that most tanks have IR sights so you can still see (albeit degraded slightly) when in a big smoke cloud. If you can throw smoke and then IR cloak, it could reduce the range that the enemy can engage to less than the range at which you can engage. Queue up a duck shoot. You aren't trying to sneak a tank up on someone, you are just trying to make targeting it very hard. It is the same thing with stealth planes. You don't mind if someone sees you, or even to a certain extent if they hear you (although stealth planes are designed to be quieter than non-stealth versions). What matters is whether the missile shot at you can get a lock. Which crucially means it sees you on either radar or infra-red.

For those who point out that these days more tank kills are done from aircraft, please explain how the aircraft get their kills. It is actually through the same means, either visual sightings or IR sighting primarily. Again, if the tank blows smoke and cloaks in IR it could significantly reduce the accuracy of aircraft. You will still lose tanks, but a lot less than before when targeting was accurate.

Oh look...

...it's an old police call box.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to....

over a few invading raccoons!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/24/raccoon_menace/

Old hat

In the 90's New Labour made over half the UK forces and equipment invisible, that's why we're still fighting in Afghanistan

Oh sorry, that was DISSAPEAR completely, not invisible