Tank Forcefield

[Avicenna]

I doubt everyone of those 12,000 warheads would fail. Besides, why would China attack its largest trading partner?

^^ What he said. Unless it's got economic benefits, I doubt any country would attack another. Especially without any kind of valid reason. If there was a reason, you wouldn't be taken by surprise, would you.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

What'll be cool is the thing on helicopters.

As the video noted, working copies would've been hella good in Somalia.

Sigh.

[Watchman]

The short interviews in the video alone gave off a very strong impression of the device being an active interception system. Since that didn't keep the Fox folks from calling it "force field" I can kind of see where they get their rep...

I actually first assumed it to be some sort of close-in field to distrupt the "plasma jet" shaped-charge warheads give off, a kind of high-tech version of the spaced armour trick.

Anyway, this toy seems kind of interesting in that it appears to be an early step in moving some aspects of tank warfare towards thoseund in modern naval warfare, with "SAMs" and other point-defense systems used to shoot down incoming missiles. Since ground vehicles and helos (nevermind infantrymen) cannot carry nearly as many missiles as decent-sized ships they'd logically have a way harder time achieving enough saturation to get something past the active defense layers, which would presumably have some troublesome effects on the ability of lighter vehicles and helos to kill MBTs since they lack the big cannons.

Unless they come up with new tricks for the missiles, natch.

I wonder if they'll ever try that approach some "near-future" sci-fi stories use where they just slap an autocannon or two in a mini-turret atop the main one and use that to shoot up incoming ordinance - doubles nicely as a secondary weapon against softer targets too...

Something I kinda wonder about is that this Trophy and similar systems use active radar (since they can catch even unguided RPGs), right ? Doesn't that make any vehicle using one kind of *really* obvious for assorted sensor systems ? Wonder if they can start using HARM bombs against tanks equipped with these things...

[Husar]

I´m wondering more about the effects on humans from all those radar waves a tank platoon will send out, the whole world is more and more filled with radar waves, radio waves, there´s WLAN, cellphones, radios, radars and they introduce more and more, soon we´ll all be fried.

[Avicenna]

Umm, radio waves frying you? There are already plenty of radio waves from the cellphones, they don't kill you. Waves are just a few vibrating particles.. no big deal. It's all an urban myth. Think of radio waves as very large sound waves. Sound waves never killed anybody. It's the ultraviolet, gamma and X-rays that kill.

[Ironside]

. Sound waves never killed anybody.

Actually extremly powerful sound waves are lethal.

But yeah, radio waves cannot be powerful, as if they're transmitting a lot of energy they stop being radio waves. To put it simple.

radio waves= very weak light waves
The light we see= medium strong light waves
gamma rays = very strong light waves

[Husar]

So you think I can turn my radio on again without dieing?
Last I heard the effects of WLAN on the human body have not been fully explored so far and people working near radars get cancer more often, the radar might not kill them directly, but indirectly.
If a whole tank platoon is in hospital because of cancer and noone of the guys is able to reproduce anymore, I wouldn´t say this system is going to win a battle for you...
On the other hand, people inside a tank should be rather save. I´m just talking about the increase of waves everywhere in general.
Since my heaters were equipped with new radio transfer counters to count how much I heat in my appartement, my radio thermometer sometimes shows no temperature from the outside, some interferences I guess.
That´s where the problem starts...