Thermal imaging

[Dimitry]

pdoktar said:
Okay. Anybody here in this forum ever used a laser range-finder or target aquisition system in training and through / with smoke? Some first-hand experience anyone?

IMHO the answer will be about modern lasers, not about those in 80s-90s

Above you will find my link to a document for VISUAL SYSTEM FOR THE CLOSE COMBAT TACTICAL TRAINER (CCTT)
I think this is the answer for your question.

[DRG]

Dimitry said:
IMHO the answer will be about modern lasers, not about those in 80s-90s

Why ? Do you think everyone on this list is under 25 ?

Don

[Marcello]

"IMHO the answer will be about modern lasers, not about those in 80s-90s"

Well it is not like everybody in the US Army got a
M1A2 SEP with the latest LRF by 31 december 1999.

"Some smoke grenades are designed to make a very dense cloud capable of blocking the laser beams of enemy target designators or range finders and of course obscuring vision, reducing probability of a hit from"

There is smoke and smoke. Bispectral smoke or burning oil will block even the thermals sights. Standard visual smoke or sandstorms can be penetrated by thermals to some extent.
It is unclear what is being talked about in the above passage "Some" might mean not all but only certain types. In the CCTT document the talk is about reducing/degrading, not blocking.
The issue is that this would be probably a rather onerous feature to implement, if possible at all, so the case for it would have to be rather strong.

[Dimitry]

Why ? Do you think everyone on this list is under 25 ?

No. Not at all.
I think so just because everybody is talking about modern LRF, though the question is about 80s-90s.

Bispectral smoke or burning oil will block even the thermals sights. Standard visual smoke or sandstorms can be penetrated by thermals to some extent.

My link on this subject is about laser , not about TI. I'm shore that "visual smoke or sandstorms can be penetrated by thermals to some extent", but not by lasers.

It is unclear what is being talked about in the above passage "Some" might mean not all but only certain types. In the CCTT document the talk is about reducing/degrading, not blocking.

The talk is about appropriate degrading - at some moment smoke can be able to block the laser.

The issue is that this would be probably a rather onerous feature to implement, if possible at all, so the case for it would have to be rather strong.

60% accuracy reducing for tank, having smoke hex on it's LOS is "a rather onerous feature to implement, if possible at all"? Taking into consideration the changes, made in 3.0 patch, I wouldn't say so.

[Marcello]

"My link on this subject is about laser , not about TI. I'm shore that "visual smoke or sandstorms can be penetrated by thermals to some extent", but not by lasers."

I apologize, I should have explained my self better. My point was, there are some special types of smoke that will block both the lasers AND the thermals (that is what I meant when I said "will block EVEN the thermals sights"), like the smoke grenades employed by the Shtora system for example. But these are non standard smoke. It was not very clear what was being discussed in that passage, if bispectral (which will block both) or visual.

"60% accuracy reducing for tank, having smoke hex on it's LOS is "a rather onerous feature to implement, if possible at all"? Taking into consideration the changes, made in 3.0 patch, I wouldn't say so."

It would require code changes, which are a pretty tricky things as the people working on it will tell you. We had to wait for years for basic things like barbed wire, vehicles being able to go in reverse and opfire control. Personally I have been waiting for HEAT in antipersonnel mode and guided artillery shells since...well 2002 if I recall correctly. So as I said it has to be an issue.

[Marek_Tucan]

Dimitry said:
No. Not at all.
I think so just because everybody is talking about modern LRF, though the question is about 80s-90s.

If I'm not mistaken the LRF on Abrams tanks in 1991 was the same as on first batch in the beginning of 1980's No problems with smoke encountered.
OTOH more crude LRF's like those North Korean giant boxes maybe may have problems even in clean air

[Marcello]

It might be worthwhile posting this issue on tanknet and see what the people here have to say. There should be some GW1 veterans and people who used early models of the Abrams who might recall if they did experiece LRF blocking due to dust.

[DRG]

Dimitry said:
The talk is about appropriate degrading - at some moment smoke can be able to block the laser.

You have no idea if that is applicable either currently, 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago. It's just a guess based on a couple of sources, one being an old game, that this might be an issue but nothing as to how this affects combat because as there appears to be no documentation about this being an issue in real battle conditions.


What you are asking for is a degradation of laser range finding performance based on vague data without any real idea when to draw the line between "older" and "newer" laser targeting systems OR if this effects one nations lasers more or less than any other nations lasers or how this actually affects units in combat conditions and *if* it does how much smoke is required to affect the lasers performance. You are asking for up to a 60% degradation based on your guess of what you suspect it should be based on assumptions and scanty information.

Currently we block the RF when the smoke becomes too dense for the TI system to see through it to the target and that is all based on randoms as to how "thick" the game reads each "smoke cloud" to be and that changes from turn to turn. If a target can be seen with TI then it can be lased and shot at and until some REAL data pops up detailing how smoke affects laser RF's any further discussion is pointless as it is all conjecture. Even IF hard data can be found on this and can be applied it would have to be applied equally for all nations and that is a very serious amount of coding for something that is only hinted at being an issue in written evidence.



Don

[Dimitry]

2 Don

You have no idea if that is applicable either currently, 10 years ago, 20 years ago or 30 years ago. It's just a guess based on a couple of sources, one being an old game,

So maybe you have? No you don't.
Because I don't just explaining my point of view, I'm veryfying it by links and examples. And you don't. You just make a statement about LRF "a priori".

You are asking for up to a 60% degradation based on your guess of what you suspect it should be based on assumptions and scanty information.

Again, my guesses are supported by links to appropriate documents. The level of degradation is discussion-free.
And what are your statements supported with?

Even IF hard data can be found on this and can be applied it would have to be applied equally for all nations and that is a very serious amount of coding for something that is only hinted at being an issue in written evidence.

I have nothing against the idea that this should be be "applied equally for all nations". At least this is fair.
If TI's and LRF's in game are so hard to be modified, so why are they put in game (as far as I know there are no TI's and LRF's in, for example, Steel Panthers Modern Combat) ?

IMHO the "all-seeing" TI's and unblockable LRF's are seriously unbalancing the game. It's just like to make ONE tank gun for all tank types and then say "it is too hard to modify it for EACH tank".

2 Marcello

Thanks for the advice. I'll try this out.

2 Marec_Tucan

If I'm not mistaken the LRF on Abrams tanks in 1991 was the same as on first batch in the beginning of 1980's No problems with smoke encountered.

Some links as a proof would be great

[DRG]

OK Dimitry, how about this. The upgrade to winSPMBTv3 is all the major coding to MBT we are doing this year. The V3.5 patch that will be released next month has a few code changes for issues we discovered and dealt with while working on WinSPww2v2 but that is all and we will not be adding anything further. Most of what makes up V3.5 is OOB corrections and Icon upgrades and originally neither Andy nor I were even going to start THINKING about that until the fall but you and everyone else are getting it early and then we are both taking time off

Andy and I are the ones you have to convince and I'm telling you that even if you did convince us ( you haven't BTW ) we STILL wouldn't be changing the game code any more than we already have. However your "proof"... "veryfying it by links and examples" consists of one link that provides an example of how specialized Bispectral smoke blocks lasers RF and another that ONLY says... "the laser range finder shall be appropriately degraded due to smoke" but nowhere is there ANYTHING to suggest just what "appropriately" is supposed to represent. The only percentages that have been discussed are the ones YOU presented based on assumptions. No hard evidence at all. Just what *you* think might be appropriate. Right now, *WE* think that the thick smoke that blocks LOS with TI and therefore any range finding is "appropriate" for a game of this scale and we don't have to "prove" anything. YOU are the one with the issues with the way it works now. "We" are quite happy with the way it works now

(QUOTE) "I just think that 50%-60% accuracy reduce will be enough."

But then... you also thought at the start that...

(QUOTE) " in the game - vehicles with thermal imagers are indifferent to smoke.

and that was dead wrong. They are not "indifferent" to smoke if you put down enough smoke and if you cannot see it you cannot lase it and that's the way the game works

Don