back to article Hurlable 360° cam-grenades used by IDF in Gaza

Israeli war-tech boffins appear to have stolen a march on those of Blighty in the matter of the long-sought 360° wireless camera grenade, which can be hurled or shot through a door, window etc and so give combat troops a picture of what lies beyond. To mild media fanfare, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced last …

COMMENTS

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  1. dervheid

    Just how much useable info...

    will it be able to gather before its operational limits are exceeded by the butt of an AK-47 impacting it?

    Or does it have a Mission: Impossible-esque audio warning " This ball will self destruct in..."

  2. Adrian Jones

    A couple of points

    1. Didn't we see this on CSI:New York a while ago?

    2. I-Ball? Surely someone has told them it should be iBall. (Or have Apple sewn that one up as well?)

  3. JimC
    Flame

    > more about Industrial Subsidy...

    > Why, it's almost as though the MoD procurement budget was more about

    > industrial subsidy than about equipping troops and saving lives

    As you well know Lewis, if it comes to a serious shooting war ramping up supplies in a great hurry is key, especially of "dispoasble" items, so it may not be a good idea to have to get them from a third party, especially should that third party not approve of your war... Get enough suppliers from enough different countries and it will be impossible to fight at all without some bit of kit or another being embargoed for spares or supplies...

    If the US hadn't let us have their new type Sidewinder missiles we'd probably have lost the Falklands war, and if the French had let the Argentinians have a generous supply of air launched Exocets they'd probably have won it...

  4. Frank Bough
    Thumb Down

    Not Again...

    industrial subsidy DOES save lives, and we shouldn't be trading with Israel anyway until they clean up their act.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    White phosphorous

    Israel also an expert in white phosphorous devices:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7904929.stm

    War crimes charges+The Hague+all the top leaders of Israel =Middle eastern peace.

  6. Mr Lodestone

    Give it to the freshest-faced troops and...

    "Can we have our ball back please, mister? Yes, it is in your house. Yes it is - and you've got horrible wallpaper and you don't hoover under the soafa either. You'll put a knife in it will you? Just wait until me and the lads move down the street then. We don't want to get hit by shrapnel and bits of you flying everywhere."

    Oh, it doesn't have any explosives it it? oh.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CAM Grenade

    I've been reading the Register for too long/ too much, I read that headline as CUM Grenade. Might work tho due to the gag factor, Can I have the patent please?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Shock Horror!

    Lewis Page advocates the Military buying from other countries!

    Although I'm surprised it's not America this time.

    Surely the point of buying in-country is that we keep the expertise in-country rather than relying on other countrys? Especially if we're relying on a state like Israel- which is under near-constant attack and which is near-constantly attacking. Hardly a great marker of a stably, reliable supplier is it? Though I accept they'll keep having a decent sized military budget for a few years to come!

    This ESPECIALLY works with relatively cheap tech like 360-degree cameras; limited R&D costs (I mean it's surely just some fancy optics, a camera & a wireless link?) and a low per-unit cost make this a fantastic item to build in-country.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A load of old bull

    The IDF also used White Phosporus and a variety of ant-personnel weapons top "prevent casualties". I rahre suspect the latter had more effect that the "Bull" device....

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    I wonder if...

    ...there are some racists working within the MoD. Nah, impossible.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    wake up and hear the helicopters

    "Why, it's almost as though the MoD procurement budget was more about industrial subsidy than about equipping troops and saving lives."

    Yes,

    The international tax pot is the biggest pot of money in the world, and yet nobody has ever tried to rob it.

    Well, nobody has ever been caught robbing it which is almost the same thing.

    Now if I developed an Armageddon device then they would throw me in the clink, but if BAE or Lockhead or some other rich bastard organisation developed an Armageddon device they would receive a knighthood and a big fat wad of cash. Oh and these rich bastard organisations also give highly paid consultancy jobs to world leaders that start wars.

    Just an observation that's all, no need to send out the helicopters.....

  12. Dave Bell

    But does it work

    I certainly hope we do buy some.

    Because the engineers need to know what they need to do better.

  13. Jolyon Ralph
    Thumb Down

    Doesn't sound like something they'd use

    They prefer to just fire tank rounds at anything that moves from a safe distance. Why look inside a room when you can just blow it up? :(

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Funny....

    ..thought they just flattened the neighbourhood to make sure it was safe.....

  15. Stu
    Pirate

    The sophisticated countermeasure...

    ...to such a ballcam -

    *drumroll*

    Spraypaint on the lenses.

    I'll market and sell small spray cans to be issued to servicemen for a knockdown MoD special price of £500 a pop.

    Hows that sound?

  16. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: CAM Grenade

    Dirty boy. (I think 'boy' is a reasonable assumption here.)

  17. Tom Paine

    Not a great advert

    If IOF were using these devices to find which buildings were booby-trapped or filled with AK-clutching terrorists, they were wasting their money. Any fool can see that the strategy was "fire indiscriminately into heavily occupied built-up areas", presumably on the basis that the only good Palestinian is one blown to shreds at the age of five.

  18. Oliver Mayes
    Joke

    Better idea

    Sell a public model with wifi, then you just lob it into some changing rooms and it automatically uploads the footage to youtube.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    At least they actualy buy stuff

    We built a similar clever gadget for our own troops. It let them do something while safely hidden behind a wall instead of standing up waving their arms around in the air for 30secs as they do now.

    Soldiers loved the prototype - then we tried to make it:

    It has to be compatible with the Bowman radio - but it doesn't need a radio - ok we'll get back to you (they never did)

    All electronic equipment has to interface with the "infantry soldier 2000 platform", they hope to have the specs for this available sometime around 20xx

    Then it will have to be redesigned to mil-spec - but the point is that it uses cheap off the shelf commodity parts, that's why it's light/cheap/easy to use. And your manufacturing process will have to be redesigned to our specs, and we will tell you which approved parts you can use (ever tried to buy Nato made memory chips!)

    Then they will only buy from approved suppliers = Thales/BAe/whatever the global arms co is called this month.

    In the end we sold them to the Isrealis instead.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No mention of Andy Murray

    surely he such be signed up to the Army to show our troops how to do a drop shot/lob etc into buildings from afar.

    Also, doesn't the image make troops sick if a spinning camera bounces around in a room ?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Sarah Bee

    If you're actually reading this thread, where was your brain when you approved those two fuckknob troll posts up there? I'm -seriously- unimpressed.

  22. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    @Oliver Mayes

    The seecam'n'cum?

    I think I'm off to join an Israeli student union!

  23. dave

    got nades

    This seems like a good (but not entirely new) idea. For the price of a wireless camera setup I don't think it matters whether the UK buys them or makes them - this is not rocket science.

    That said, the Israelis have a penchant for this kind of thing, and I would expect them to get it right.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Q7MLR89p8

    As for disabling the grenade with hammer / paint - surely the camera would have served it's purpose? While Terry vandalises the surveillance, a less civilised version can be on its way into the room.

    ... or out, if the tech-savvy terrorist can think under pressure.

  24. william henderson

    cheap countermeasure

    bat.

    any one for cricket?

  25. MnM

    @ David W

    seconded.

  26. Steve

    @ JimC

    "Get enough suppliers from enough different countries and it will be impossible to fight at all without some bit of kit or another being embargoed for spares or supplies..."

    Sounds like the most practical way to bring about world peace that I've heard.

    And we'll still get all the science and engineering advances that come along with weapons development and military spending.

  27. Adrian Esdaile
    Coat

    Wait for version 2

    Like all hardware, I'd wait for version 2.

    I wouldn't want to fire my Mk1 i-ball through a window or round a corner!

    Yep, mine's the one with the eyepatch.

  28. James
    Unhappy

    The penny drops

    OOOOOH, I-ball = "eyeball".

    that took me way too long to get, damn apple :(

  29. al
    Paris Hilton

    IDF stole from Wachoski (spell) brothers ?

    Wasn't the 360-degree trick used first in .. THE MATRIX ? ;-)

    Paris, coz next time she might invest in an i-ball (instead on green lighting).

  30. Remy Redert

    Hammers and I-balls

    Consider for a moment that this thing is designed to be fired THROUGH doors from what will most likely be a 40mm grenade launcher.

    You'll need a sledgehammer and some good overhead swings to break it because your run of the mill hammer isn't going to cut it against something hard enough to survive that.

  31. william henderson
    Thumb Up

    its dark in there

    what if, after blasting through the door, it gets lodged in the guts of one of the occupants?

    will it have lights so that remote surgeons will be able to diagnose the wound severity from the bits of plumbing that are visible?

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