Catching up on Stryker thermal capabilities

[Battlefront.com]

Hi all,

Sometime in the last 6 months someone started a thread wondering if the thermal systems of Strykers was broken. I meant to check into it and then get back to the thread, but who only knows what happened with that This week we had a discussion in Skunkworks (tester's area) about this and that reminded me that I never got back to that thread. Instead of finding it, I'm just going to post anew.

Thermals of the Strykers should be working just fine. However, the Strykers' defensive smoke is specially formulated to retard thermal sensing. So in effect, when the Stryker fires defensive smoke it blocks its own sensors as well as the enemy's. The same thing should be true with the other US vehicles with thermal/smoke combos.

In Iraq the US forces used regular smoke, not thermal retarding. We just had this confirmed by a Stryker commander a few days ago. The reason? The chance of an insurgent having and using a thermal device in such circumstances is extremely low. The same prediction was made of the Iraqi conventional military forces in 2003, apparently, so normal smoke was used then too.

What we have to do is guess what the US would do in a fictional setting in Syria where the opposition forces have a significant amount of thermal capability and the opportunity to use it. Therefore, we have decided to keep things as they are now... which is to have the US forces using thermal retarding smoke.

So when your US vehicles pop smoke, and you can't target through it, now you know why Sorry for it taking me so long to let you know!

Steve

[MarkEzra]

Ya learn something every day!

[wunwinglow]

Phew! For one moment I thought the Stryker had just acquired the capabilities of a sailplane....

Tim