nelson_p@apollo.com (03/06/91)
From: nelson_p@apollo.com
I was watching one of those military technology shows
on the Discovery Channel recently and they were talking
about how the Marine hovercraft amphibious assault vessels
and the yet-to-be-deployed M1A2 MBT resemble aircraft in
the way they are "piloted", navigated, and controlled.
Supposedly, the inside looks a lot like a cockpit, having
electronic systems similar to aircraft avionics and the M1A2
may even have a HUD.
In light of this I had a question: During the Iraq war there
was a tragic incident in which a British armored vehicle was
destroyed by U.S. fire, killing 9 British soldiers, and an earlier
one in which a U.S. vehicle was hit with the loss of several
U.S. soldiers. Taking their inspiration from aircraft, has
anyone looked at the possibility of equipping tanks and APC's
with some sort of IFF system? I imagine it could be triggered
by radar or even IR or LASER IR. My understanding is that the
LASER illumination used for target aquisition is not continuous,
but patterned in some way, anyway. So a receiver on the vehicle
could detect when it is being illuminated and transmit a coded
ID. How hard would this be, what are the pitfalls?
---Peter