A tactic at many riots is burning tires. Currently at the Gaza-Israel border some huge number of tires were prepositioned and lit on fire, and used as cover.
Isn’t IR surveillance screwed from the heat? And visual by the smoke as well, of course. What are the means by which observers can monitor what’a going on? The same question goes for situations where the “cover” is not intentional, but as in a case of near-real-time bomb damage assessment.
IR is a much wider region of the spectrum than visible is. Near IR won’t be any more bothered by the heat than visible will, but will still penetrate the smoke significantly better. The fires will stand out brightly, of course, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t see anything else.
Shortwave infrared laser imaging can see through fire, smoke, clouds, fog, etc. Look into Laser Imaging Through Obscurants (LITO).
In addition to various wavelengths of IR and LIDAR, there is also synthetic aperture radar which creates a high-resolution picture from many low-resolution radar returns by moving the sensor around the target. Millimeter wave radar imaging could also be helpful although it would be low-resolution. Multispectral imaging, as its name suggests, can use several sources and fuse them together. If anyone has that kind of tech besides the US, it’s the Israelis.
A big reason that IR is used is because it can see through obstructions. It’s often used to track (or find) people in dense brush/forests. When scanning a residential area, it can see who has their furnace running or has a grow room in their attic.
For smoke to hide someone from IR imagining, the smoke would have to be at least body temperature, which it isn’t. Heating the surrounding area would work. I’d imagine if a row of tires were set on fire, the heat may block someone standing directly behind it, but that’s from the fire.
OTOH, a night vision camera would probably be defeated by a smoke cover.
Depends on the sort of camera. There are a number of different technologies that get called “night vision”. They can be IR-based, or they can be just amplifying a visible light signal.
Interestingly, the best imaging devices - IR, telescopes and so on - generally available to ground forces are installed in the turrets of tanks. A tank’s targeting system is far more advanced than anything an infantryman will ever see, and tanks are often used for spotting and intelligence gathering purposes.
Makes sense. An extra few pounds is nothing for a fifty-ton tank, but an infantryman who has to schlep it will complain. Plus any individual tank is far better protected than any individual infantryman, and so you have less risk to your investment, and the optics on a tank can directly direct a lot more firepower than on an infantryman.
I imagine that eventually we’ll have a swarm of cheap sensor drones producing a continually-updated 3D map of a battlefield, and relaying the information to Google Glass-like headsets which give the infantry a video-game HUD of all of the relevant information, but we’re not quite there yet.
My Dad told me as a young Lt in an Armoured Division, there was once a major wildfire near his base. They dispatched a Tank troop to look for people cut off. Because of this.
Aside from a large zoom, IR, laser rangefinding and a ballistics calculator, what kind of capabilities does it tend to have?
Does Israel have something like the Coyote reconnaissance vehicle?
Bison and Coyote armoured vehicles - Wikipedia An armored car with radar, TV and IR sensors, either with remotely operated stations or a 10-meter mast.
It wouldn’t be surprising as Israel has experimented with giving ground vehicles special capabilities like the Pereh indirect fire missile carrier or the infantry/mortar-carrying Merkava MBT.
OP here. Chronos, as first respondent (:)), mentioned near-field IR, with respect to what I thought was not do-able under the condition of “total hotness”/IR radiation, of hot black smoke (or whatever visual radiation spectrum as well), certainly well above body temperature (in the riot example).
Bright engine seen through IR: piece of cake. Way cooler parts within it–is “near-field IR” some kind of–analogically–high-pass filter?
ETA: Please don’t send me 1-2-3 to a Wiki cite.
BTW, I grabbed one [page](http://rlassociatesinc.com/project_tabs.html#page=page-1
http://rlassociatesinc.com/project_tabs.html#page=page-1) of a purveyor of such equipment, which notes “responders are entering fire scenes blindly, as thermal imagers currently in use are often “blinded” by the thermal bloom of the fire.”
Obviously they know who they’re talking to, and they and their customers are (obviously) aware of the issues in this thread. I’m not citing that to back up a position for my question, which is just a question; just saying I’m not alone.
That’s due to the heat from the actual fire. In the OP you asked about hiding behind a smoke screen, presumably outdoors, in this case people aren’t being blocked by the smoke as much as all the heat in a small area. There’s a big difference in the amount of heat in from a tire burning in a field vs a tire burning in a hallway.
I would think any capable reconnaissance vehicle, depending on mission, is more than ready to have shitloads of whatever modular electronics are available. I was wondering if the Coyote was some sort Wild-Weasel type deal, which is perhaps what you were thinking of, but by your Wiki cite it’s not; moreover, I don’t see that as being all that critical in any design envelope for manned vehicles to begin with.
Leo, you’re misreading that page. That statement about responders “entering fire scenes blindly” is talking about equipment that is currently being used. It’s talking about thermal imagers, and explaining why their LITO imaging systems are superior. It’s basically an ad that says, “Your current thermal cameras are blinded by fire. What you need is our LITO systems which are not affected by heat.”
Thermal imaging is completely different technology. It’s also older technology, so more fire departments and other agencies are likely to have it, as opposed to the LITO systems. When that page talks about “currently used”, they’re talking about the older thermal systems in use. They’re not referring to their current LITO systems. They’re explaining why their LITO systems are superior to the current thermal systems. So that agencies will buy them. Which is fine, because the laser IR imagers are vastly superior, though more expensive.
Or possibly I’m misreading your post. But it seemed you were saying that the current LITO systems cannot see through fire. They definitely can.
Oh, yeah - the Stalker/Raccoon (which is being replaced by the Granite). Forgot about those.
Raccoons being native to North America causes me to ask if it was designed in Israel or the USA.
Israel, I think.
IIRC, cobras aren’t native to the Americas, yet I remember a U.S.-made helicopter by that name.
Yeah, but cobras are deadly and cool, but raccoons are, well, raccoons.
Thanks. 
