insurgents using new tactic, wrapping up in 'tin foil'??

[jrdean]

Can anyone confirm this,

Insurgents are wrapping themselves in ordinary ''kitchen tin foil'' to become 'almost' invisible to 'thermal imaging' cameras on jets and gunships, although this has no effect of 'night vision'

Sounds wacky but it almost sounds plausible.

Mabey the tin foil does hold body heat in????

[Pandy]

tin foil is a great tool in cooking. :)

[usm2b]

ya know... being seen by thermal imaging doesn't make them confirmed bad guy... but, being spotted in tin foil will almost garauntee a lite-up now.

but good on it, Its good to see that this insurgent war will be comming to a quicker end becuase of their choice of BDUs

[Son_Of_Suvorov]

Can anyone confirm this,

Insurgents are wrapping themselves in ordinary ''kitchen tin foil'' to become 'almost' invisible to 'thermal imaging' cameras on jets and gunships, although this has no effect of 'night vision'

Any insulator will help lower your thermal signature. Some are better than others. In an after-action report about Afghanistan I read about how the talibs would pull their blanket (forget what it's called) over themselves and "disappear" from the view of the thermal imagers on aircraft. No big surprise here - Afghan nomads and shepherds always carry a wool blanket with them that they use as everything from a prayer mat to a kitchen table to a sleeping bag. It's highly insulating, and because they are usually not dyed and are never washed they take in enough of the local dirt to make them the ultimate visual camouflage for Afghanistan as well. I don't know if you've ever done any cooking with tin-foil, but if you did this should tell you this is probably BS or isolated cases of Iraqi "ingenuity" - tinfoil is actually a good heat conductor, creaks and tears easily and gives off glint! So you have to cover it up with lots of clothing, which probably contributes more than the tinfoil to reducing the heat signature. It also wouldn't take long for the tin-foil to heat up to body temperature, but you'd start to feel uncomfortable wrapped in it long before it did (try it at home!).

If you want to reduce your heat signature, the best way is to carry around heavy winter clothing and put it on when you actually need to (otherwise if you wear it all the time it will start to heat up).

One interesting thought that came to mind reading this is that orthodox Jews (you know, the kind that walk around wrapped up in wool coats and those "wheel" fur hats in the middle of July!) would probably have a very low heat signature. Maybe someone from Israel has some experience? :D

[usa320]

why not just paint a bullseye on themselves...

All the more intelligent ones must be dead now, so they are getting dumber and dumber.

[fng]

I have heard of Hezbolla terrorists using scuba dry-suits to defeat the Israeli thermal imagers on the border with Lebanon.

[Fox2]

These are the same folks who put celophane and duct tape on their RPGs. Reason? So they would penetrate the electro-magnetic force field around the tanks, of course.

rofl

[jrdean]

they wear it under their clothes,

and clothes don't not stop heat from escaping to some degree clothes even conduct the heat to the outside air as the clothes themselves start to warm up,

tin foil actually locks it in, or so im told, clothing does'nt have the same effect no matter how many layers you wear,

[Fox2]

Regardless of any sort of "thermal imaging block" side-effect, wouldn't this be just a bit uncomfortable in Iraq's climate? They would basically be cooking themselves. Tin-foil barbecue, anyone? :P

For that reason, I think either this isn't true, or we are truly dealing with the dullest tools in the shed. ;)

[szr]

Tinfoil simply reflects radiant heat in the direction the shiny side is facing (back towards the heat source in the case of food or people wrapped in it) but it doesn't insulate like winter clothing or a neoprene wetsuit.

The tinfoil heats-up correspondingly with whatever it's wraped around and would therefore be visible to thermal imagers.

Heavily insulated clothing traps the heat in parcels of air within the insulation and prevents most of it from reaching the outer layer of the clothing.

[jrdean]

i'll try and find out about this from somewhere authoratitive,

mabey theyre on to something,

with the climate overthere, damn if it is true the insurgents must be cooking!!

[Hugh Jardon]

This is either some fantasy/joke cooked up by some amatuer American propagandist or outright nutcase idiot or maybe some Iraqi kids with limited knowledge are actually trying it.

[PhillyMobster]

USMC wears MARPAT.

The terrorists wear tinfoil.


















rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl **forgive me** rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl

[jrdean]

what's MARPAT ?

[scm77]

http://www.imsplus.com/images/img_5987.jpg
http://www.vtarmynavy.com/images/desert_marpat_digital_cloth.gif
Marpat ;)

[callous]

Marpat=Marine pattern

If the insurgents are wearing tinfoil I hope we start using those microwave guns soon. :lol:

[Uncle Sam]

I have obtained an exclusive picture of their so called stealth vehicle as well...


























http://www.oregonuforeview.com/ufoboat.jpg

[scm77]

rofl rofl

[ronin2172]

Marpat=Marine pattern

If the insurgents are wearing tinfoil I hope we start using those microwave guns soon. :lol:
poor them if a thunder storm pops up

[DarkCypher]

I have obtained an exclusive picture of their so called stealth vehicle as well...
http://www.oregonuforeview.com/ufoboat.jpg

rofl rofl

[Laworkerbee]

Your Prayers have been answered Callous

Active Denial Vehicle



http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/factsheets/images/ActiveDenial.gif



http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/164/documentid/1667/history/3,2360,656,164,1667[/img]

[AFACadet]

Yeah, I was just thinking of that.


/beam on/

snap crackle pop rofl

[fng]

"Emergency space blankets" are basically tinfoil with a durable backing. The instructions say to keep the shiny side facing inward toward the person. This reflects the radiant heat. The whole point is to keep the heat from escaping. If it works for crash survivors, etc., why not a terrorist?

[jrdean]

fng wrote:

"Emergency space blankets" are basically tinfoil with a durable backing. The instructions say to keep the shiny side facing inward toward the person. This reflects the radiant heat. The whole point is to keep the heat from escaping. If it works for crash survivors, etc., why not a terrorist?

True,

but i don't think the insurgents have access to them, so this their crude way if practising the same theory.

And is that 'microwave' gun for real you could see that from miles away, and this is a humvee not an Abrams,
it might be ok for crowd control but Insurgents armed with LMG's and RPG'S ???????

But seriousle, close air support is the critical advantage of US forces over the insurgents, this could seriously affect the advantage of the US forces during night combat, especially if insurgents get access to cheap russian night vision, which i'm surprised they don't already have.

[Uncle Sam]

These idiots have a knack for wrapping things for no real purpose...

1. Black electrical tape around RPG rounds

2. Themselves in tin foil

3. ??

What's next?

[jrdean]

WTF is the point of wrapping electrical tape around an RPG round??

[anti_septic]

"Emergency space blankets" are basically tinfoil with a durable backing. The instructions say to keep the shiny side facing inward toward the person. This reflects the radiant heat. The whole point is to keep the heat from escaping. If it works for crash survivors, etc., why not a terrorist?

Not strictly related to this but I'm sure I've seen a photo somewhere of a sniper kitted out in a 'Mylar'? ghillie suit to reduce thermal signature. I've got no idea how well it works though

[Ratamacue]

WTF is the point of wrapping electrical tape around an RPG round??
Apparently, there was a belief among the ranks of the insurgents that the reason that their RPG's usually have very little effect on our armored vehicles is because they have some sort of electrical field surrounding them that set off RPG's before they impact. Therefore, to counter this defense, they wrapped their RPG rounds with electrical tape. ;)

[dunkin]

Just gives us a better target to "paint" a laser off of.

[Ghostwolf]

http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/164/documentid/1667/history/3,2360,656,164,1667

I still don't get the idea of putting high power laser on gunships and fighter aircrafts, I mean the lasers
are not as powerful as cannon shells and certainly not as powerful as those "Sci-fi movie" laser weapons

[AFACadet]

http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/164/documentid/1667/history/3,2360,656,164,1667

I still don't get the idea of putting high power laser on gunships and fighter aircrafts, I mean the lasers
are not as powerful as cannon shells and certainly not as powerful as those "Sci-fi movie" laser weapons

It clearly states why in the article. Of corse you can't use those for ALL targets, but you also can't use LGB, JDAMs, or Mavericks for ALL targets.


Think for a second. An aircraft has a good solid state laser system. It can destroy any incoming missile (think what that would do for air combat alone), it can destroy air targets from a distance, without using 'ammo' in any direction, regardless of what the target aircraft is doing, the enemy has no chance to maneuver or spoof the laser and it will die.

You can take vehicles out of the fight by destroying their engines.

You could easily take radars or SAM sites out.

If targeting gets good enough, you can even target individual soldiers, terrorists, or insurgents.

Lasers can be used any time you can destroy or take out of the fight somthing that does not react well to high amounts of heat. That is a surprising amount of stuff if you think about it.

Buildings and those types of things are of course out, as well as targeting in poor weather, but you can't use LGBs in bad weather and you can see how effective they still are.

Its going to suck when the bad guys get ground based air defense laser systems. How do you spoof that? In tests, the Army has taken down numerous artillery and morter rounds in flight with in a few seconds of each other.

You can't get a plane close to take it out, the plane would get shot down. You can't use a long range weapon, that would be taken out as well.

Wait until the weather gets bad and drop a JDAM? Take out the power supply some how? Rely on stealth to get you close enough for your own laser shot? Swarm with UCAVs and overwelm the laser? Jam the targeting systems enough so both radar and IR tracking systems can't get a lock?

Interesting times in the future...

[username]

Look at all this commentry, jrdean was asking if it could be confirmed and everyone decided that it was gospel and said it was true.

[khukuri]

I dont know about tinfoil, but th ematerial of "laying matress" is used. I dont know the proper english word for it, so ill post a pic instead.


http://www.kelkoo.se/images/modules/browseboxes/se/sport/ligglagg.gif
However, we use them to isolate against thermal when we have small cammoed 2man observation posts.

[Lazy Lob]

Conduction
Convection
Radiation

Are the three thermal transfer modes on our lovely planet. Tin foil can block some direct radiation but it warms up in the process. It is a highly conductive material which would render it very visible to IR or thermal vision.

Even so the best thing to do is focus radar at them. The insurgents would light the screen up like a Xmas tree. Hopefully they'de be cooked in it as well.
Abdul Thermidor anyone?

[M4ko]

These idiots have a knack for wrapping things for no real purpose...

1. Black electrical tape around RPG rounds

2. Themselves in tin foil

3. ??

What's next?

"3.??" and "Whats next?" is redundant