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British Army Testing Invisible Tank, Not As Hokey As Invisible Car From That Crappy Bond Movie
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 10:40 AM on November 3, 2007
Patton would've killed for a battalion of these babies. The British Army's testing an "invisible" tank that works like the invisibility jacket Susumu Tachi put out a couple of years ago. Basically a camera/projector setup throws images of the surroundings onto the tank, letting you see through it, so it's not quite the kind of future-y awesomeness DARPA's working on. Yet, anyway, according to the project head: "The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them - which is intricate and complicated, but possible." Add a couple of legs and a rail gun, and we'll see Metal Gears walking around in no time. [Daily Mail via Geekologie]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
cky80
Posted 10:38 PM 2/11/07
i see friendly fire death rate increased by 10000%
cky80
ceilingFANBOY
Posted 10:31 PM 2/11/07
Actually, we wouldn*t be able to see the Metal Gears walking around. Maybe they are already here.
Dun..Dun...Duuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.....
ceilingFANBOY
sfokevin
Posted 12:25 AM 3/11/07
Have they been testing this recently in Southern California???
sfokevin
Rob C
Posted 12:04 AM 3/11/07
wait...is that a flamethrower tank??
Rob C
mstolfe
Posted 1:53 AM 3/11/07
whoa whoa whoa crappy bond movie? wat are you smoking?
mstolfe
logruszed
Posted 1:46 AM 3/11/07
This has to be the first time I've ever seen FARK beat Gizmodo to a story.
logruszed
Husher
Posted 2:36 AM 3/11/07
lol is it going to be like the stealth bomber were people thought it was going to be invisible but came to known only to radars.
but not invisible to jim's eagle eyes
Husher
djtooshay
Posted 5:40 AM 3/11/07
@Rob C: That's what a tank looks like for a split second before the bullet comes out.
This is cool, but slightly impractical: Tanks are fitted with thermal night-vision devices that are sometimes used during the day when visibility is low - either extreme fog or very bright sunshine. So unless this cloak can fake a cooler thermal fingerprint, this is essentially useless.
(Oh - and I used to be a tank commander. Just saying)
djtooshay
Brian Sexton
Posted 6:53 AM 3/11/07
As a real-life thing, I do not like the idea of cloaked killing machines at all. As a video game thing, though, I think it is a great idea: I once made a tank with cloaking functionality in Flash and it reminded me of the outlined invisibility effect used for Wonder Woman's invisible jet in old cartoons.
Brian Sexton
Monty
Posted 10:44 AM 3/11/07
Dear British Government,
My name is General Monty, and I have a squadron of two million tanks parked on your shores ready to take over your island. Do not bother searching for them, as they are invisible, so you will just have to take my word for it. Surrender at once or face certain follow-up emails on this subject.
Monty
Iggstah345
Posted 12:41 PM 3/11/07
Awesome! Everyday the world becomes more and more like Ghost in the Shell. Soon the invisible tanks will be replaced with advanced AI Tachikoma's! Or maybe it's just me...
Iggstah345
kayne001
Posted 5:02 PM 3/11/07
ROBC I think the tank is in the middle of firing
kayne001
coach
Posted 9:44 AM 5/11/07
I don't want to think about invisible cop cars watching your every move. Such inventions seem really cool - and this one certainly is - but the government will find a way to abuse you with these new findings.
coach
TrevorJ
Posted 1:44 PM 5/11/07
Hum. I can just see the poor IT guys running around the battlefield changing projector lamps and swapping out bad HDMI cables now.
TrevorJ