I could do that, or I could simply ignore your pleas for evidence considering you’ve never showed any when trying to claim “US is ahead of Europe”. That is something you seem to love to do honestly based on the few interactions I had the displeasure of having with you.
Nothing you have to say is worthy of attention here, last time we’ve engaged in a conversation on discord you had defaulted to “I serve on the Abrams”, but at least you’ve learned from my teachings that M1s do not use DU composites in their hulls…
Also you really think you can compare videos of thermal imagers when those could have been taken with a literal potato of a camera?
Please get serious, I’ve already provided an explanation as to why US is clearly not ahead of Europe when it comes to development of thermal imagers, be it for tanks or other vehicles, but you’ve ignored all that text and went for… “uh, source?” while employing the double-standards of the century.
Yeah they did, the AN/AAA-4 and AN/AAS-15 were equipt on the majority of interceptor aircraft (F-101B, F-102, F-106, F-110A, F-8D/E/H/J, F-4B/C), and a number of others had them as auxiliary targeting aids (F-104).
There additionally were plans / designs for the entire Teen series to fit them, where the majority never made it to production, or were canned due to needing to reduce unit cost.
Not saying that it should be discounted, only that it isn’t relevant when comparing dedicated Airborne systems in an A2A role, as tanks don’t fly (for the most part, anyway).
I’d prefer if we moved to DM’s and you took a less hostile and off-topic approach to the argument but I’ll entertain it a little further.
If you had asked I could have provided something, instead you formulated an argument focusing on element size and hardware. Russia is known to be using the Catherine-FC thermal imager device and later what appears to be domestic copies. They are sometimes referred to as third generation thermal imagers. We know this to be incorrect, based on multiple countries definitions of what makes something “1st, 2nd, 3rd generation”. Of course that isn’t necessary at all because one glance at the product will tell us how awful it is. Can’t trust the papers on this one, not at all.
Spoiler
The generations of thermal imaging devices
To understand the second generation I’ll refer to information stated during an anti-trust lawsuit that took place in 1997. US vs Raytheon and General Motors.
"Second generation scanning FPAs consist of detectors arranged in two dimensions, and the array may range in size from 240 x 2 to 480 x 4. The detector is scanned mechanically with mirrors across a field of view. Second generation scanning FPAs differ from 1st. Gen. scanning FPAs in that the readout circuit is mounted directly to the detector material. Second generation FPAs are photovoltaic, while 1st. Gen. FPAs are photo conductive. Scanning FPAs are used on ground vehicles because of their ability to cover a wide field of view.
It states further that the primary improvement in 2nd generation thermals are sensitivity and resolution. It states clearly that the FCS of the Abrams could fire further than the FLIR could see in Desert Storm. In 1990-1991 the M1A1 would have had an effective range of approximately 5km. This suggests gen1 FLIR has <5km of range in a desert environment, and lower resolution displays. The Abrams displays this picture into the gunner’s primary sight, not a display.
Current T-90M “gen 3 thermals” can hit targets at around the same range, but are also limited to <5km for the most part. There are a number of videos you can view even on social media such as instagram that demonstrate the poor quality of their thermals, claiming it’s all just bad footage from a potato camera is ridiculous at this point.
Articles for Catherine-FC on Russian armored vehicles declare detection range for tanks as 3km and recognition (identify type and for IFF) at 2km.
And regarding quality, the Abrams takes the cake imo for tank thermals despite being “gen2”. At least, until the “real” Gen3 FLIR shows up on the SEPV4. Take notice of a closer Abrams with it’s exhaust in view, while also being able to see clearly the mountains >8km in the background with pretty good resolution.
Meanwhile the Russians (using latest French stuff) are stuck with this…
And the thermals on the Leclerc SXXI for comparison… where is the background?
I have no idea who you are on discord if we’ve conversed before. Nothing I have to say is worthy of attention at all, that’s correct. This seems very personal to you so unless you have something relevant to show the Typhoons’ IRST is comparable to something on US aircraft I don’t think this conversation will really be useful to the thread. I’ll advance that you can DM me or discuss on discord as you apparently already know my ID.
That’s correct, M1’s do not use DU in the hull because DU armor on the Abrams was not yet used until the later iterations of the M1A1. I’ve never pushed the opinion that an original M1 used DU let alone in the hull.
I guess we differ in the opinion of what “focused heavily” means. However, interestingly unit cost in the US regarding thermal imagers thanks to common modular units was significantly cheaper than anywhere else at the time. Average cost was down from $250,000 to just $50,000 in regards to tank thermals at least. These types were licensed for production in Germany through the 2010s.
That’s all cool and dandy, small little problem. Catherine-FC has never been referred to as a “third generation device”, not even by Russians, not by the French and not by Thales either - you’re confusing it with Catherine-MP and XP. Whether some non-primary internet site does is of no importance at all and basing your perception on that is foolish.
To fully understand why US is not “ahead” in terms of thermal technology (and Russia is a weird point of comparison, or France’s Leclerc which still use Catherine-FC from 1990s) we need to look at more things, mainly speaking wavelenghts used in the camera’s, FLIR mostly make use of MWIR or LWIR technology, with the latter having incredible traget detection ranges exceeding even 10km’s, and MWIR has greater atmospheric transmission allowing it for better pictures of the background, for example the MWIR PERI of the Puma IFV:
But that doesn’t actually mean anything as modern imagers also have different modes that can turn up contrast, therefore comparing image by image is idiotic, here’s two different modes for Catherine-FC(!):
Another thing is refresh rate and why taking “simple” videos or pictures for comparison falsifies the results, as posted by you yourself, on some of the footage we could see the thermal imager actively refresh which were those vertical lines traversing through the screen, that doesn’t really happen UNLESS the camera’s capture rate is identical to the imager’s refresh rate, for example this is 3rd generation KLW-1 Asteria, image taken via imager itself, refresh rate not visible therefore its much clearer:
Your understand of the phrase “not less” is also interesting… especially when they’re saying the recognition range is not less i.e more than the stated value, you can in fact look at the right side of the image where they recognition of target in km’s, weird how it suddenly jumps from ~3.000 meters to 11/4.5km’s…
The icing goes to this T-64BV:
Quite a clear image, huh?
And here’s ATTICA in all of its glory when the picture is taken directly from the imager:
To add to that some “statistics”:
Identification range for a 2.3 x 2.3m target being around ~8km’s
Recognition range of ~14km’s
Detection range of ~24km’s
Overall, the idea that European thermal imagers are in terms of performance behind US systems is still laughable and not supported by any actual evidence, all those imagers are based on the same technology and come in different sizes and different performance settings, which may or may not be adjustable.
I don’t believe there is really any need to continue this discussion (at least I’m leaving it at this, I’ve said my 2 cents and am not interested in any further discourse), you’ve showed that you don’t know even the basics, and your attempts at arguing your points the way you have proved to me, that your entire argument relies on pure pride for US solutions, even though they don’t offer anything over their European counterparts in terms of performance.
Another small issue, nothing you’ve posted was made in the 90s and seems to only match the performances of the American stuff that I shared from that period. Whatever generation they wanna call it, it’s not performing on par. Still confused about the uranium comment.
As I also mentioned, the US licensed production for certain thermal technologies to Europe and especially Germany in the 2010s. It’s expected they’d have decent stuff around that time period finally.
You’re right, I looked at the wrong side. Here is the ranges for Catherine-FC directly from Thales.
~2.25km for identification of tank in NFOV (zoomed in), with 1.5x teleconverter such as SOSNA-U type sight extends to ~3.5km.
With it likely being one of the “last” (one right at the bottom of the tree) jets added to the game for those nations. I cant see any harm it giving it loads
