Reported by Defence News this week
The Cilas SLD 500 will be used instead of a cancelled rifle mounted acoustic system (I think this was from Ultra but not 100% sure)
The SLD500 had been purchased by the US Marine Corps in 2009 for evaluation but not adopted.
Read more here
Sven has written a good response over at Defense and Freedom, arguing that technology such as this is easily countered by a smart enemy
Click the image to read
reply: http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.de/2013/01/counter-sniper-systems-and-proucurement.html
Yes, it’ll be a real pity if the enemy snipers didn’t use glass sights.
That being said, I do see an advantage to this over other detection systems. Most other systems like the Boomerang acoustic and any flash detection system requires the enemy to have fired first. In an acoustic system, against supersonic rounds, it would mean that someone has been shot at and maybe hit before the system starts working.
I’m not as sanguine as SO in regards to tape working, that is an anti-glint measure, not anti-LIDAR, which is what this system basically is, but he is right in that just removing scopes would make this system expensive junk.
@SO
All military technology has limitations. Tanks and planes cant swim, ships and tanks cant fly, planes and ships cant drive. Doenst tell anything about their usefullnes.
In effect what anti-sniper systems do is shortening the live span of oposing snipers by attrition. A kind of strategic consideration esp in an asymetric context as sniper impact tends to increas vastly with experience. In case of SLD even protecting friendly troops by giving preemptive warning.
How does it work with other systems? With boomerang keeping shooters out of the close range, forcing them to use optics?
I guess there is more to this than technophile vs. technophobes ranting.
Welcome to TD Quarter
These laser retro-reflective systems depend on being within the field of view of the sight. The tape might be effective at extreme off-angles (relatively speaking) but it isn’t going to help if you are aiming at a target that is within the same field of view of the CSS. These things generally work on any optic with a focal plane, so it will pick up returns of things like night vision. That give the potential to really curtail what the enemy could previously do with impunity.
While decoys could be deployed, these systems are set up in stationary locations and could be programmed to detect only things that change. As a result, contacts that remain stationary for extended periods could be ignored and human input could be used to isolate other false readings.
If all it does is force hostile forces to forego telescopic sights then that is a serious reduction in their sniping capacity – shooting in low light conditions is no longer possible, the ability to check fall of shot and distinguish targets, even at relatively close range, goes away too.
Slightly off post, but whats this about the Army retiring its Browning Hipowers for Glock 17s? What happens to the Sigs?
Mr.fred,
a filtering of known reflection sources only provokes a countermeasure that uses this false alarm to desensitize the counter-sniper effort.
You simply put a harmless reflector – a can, a car headlamp, a lantern, glass decoration into the field of view, wait a day or two till it’s in the exclusion list.
Now you’re ready to strike from that location without having a trouble with the sensor.
There is a problem with smart opponents. They adapt, adapt, adapt.
This laser-based tech cannot even be counted on to be a technological surprise. The tech has been mentioned on the internet back when there were thousands of rotating GIFs on geocities sites, and this particular sensor was even published.
Referring to Luttwak, I got to emphasize the value of individually unspectacular or (organisation-)cultural innovations. They get rarely countered and keep being valuable for decades if not centuries.
Such laser gadgets are easy challenges for red teamers.
For example, the Leclerq tank has a feature for a super-quick self protection reaction. When lased with a range finder, it may have only seconds left to conceal itself with quick-reaction smoke. Great thing, technically speaking.
In practice (during exercises) entire Leclerq battalions were brutally owned by adversaries because said adversaries lased just about anything they spotted. Treelines, bushes – and easily found the Leclerqs with this ‘recon by fire’. Reportedly, it was a most amusing sight to see treelines pop smoke.
No Leclerq company was able to succeed with an ambush as long as it had this automatic set to “on”.
This might be a daft question, but;
What’s wrong with simple thermal imaging?
You cannot really identify a 8×3 cm object as a sniper on a panorama of 90° at hundreds of metres.
Yet such a small slit in a wall, plate or tree stump suffices for a sniper.
Even more troublesome are periscopic sniper rifles which use mirrors and don’t expose any body-warm parts.
Thermal imaging can turn the least capable riflemen into easy targets, but simple tactical countermeasures are terminally effective against observation by thermal sensors.
S O
Credit the west with some nous, would you?
Does an improvised reflector have the precise same reflective characteristic as a telescopic sight? I don’t know, but I do know that these laser-based systems are picking up the focal plane of the magnifying optic and not just looking at the reflection from the objective lens. Chucking a bunch of AOL CDs about the place isn’t going to bother it in the slightest.
These sensors are in a fixed location, so it isn’t beyond the wit of man to design it to make a note of where it picks up a reflection and what the signature of that reflection is. If it sweeps by and the signature has changed or the location has moved then it triggers an alarm for a human operator to have a look at the location either using the on-board cameras or another system. If it moves while the sensor is looking at it then that will trigger an alarm too.
You don’t filter the location out and ignore it, because that would require you to be an idiot. You note the location and characteristic but you don’t flash up an alarm unless it changes. If you have so little control of your AO that the enemy could comprehensively spoof all of your systems, then you could always have a reminder set up on each sweep that would allow the operator to quickly check suspicious reflectors.
They adapt, you adapt. If you suspect that someone is setting up reflectors to prepare a sniper’s position, then you can determine the most likely ones and use it to locate some kind of ambush. Maybe it isn’t cost-effective, but the same could be said about £5,000 electro-optic sights and £60,000 Javelin missiles.
Regarding the Leclerc problem the same technology could easily be modified to avoid the recce by laser. By simply introducing an on/off switch in the circuit you avoid giving yourself away from ambush. With a slightly more complex sensor arrangement you could implement a slew-to-cue, for either the turret or the commander’s panoramic sight, at the commander’s discretion. Once there you can allow the commander to initiate smoke or not as he so desires. Now if the red team try to recce by laser then all they do is draw attention to themselves. In fact, when thinking about it, the system obviously already has an on/off switch because otherwise you cannot disarm your smoke launchers and any time you have them loaded you are in danger of showering everyone in your immediate vicinity with red phosphorous (which, I am led to understand, can sting a little). So a simple change to SOPs nullifies red team’s new tactic and a minor modification to your system gives you an advantage.
No, No,
technophobes rule 1:
“only the enemy adapts”
technophobes rule 34:
“we should still be throwing sticks because there is a superior organisational-cultural solution to shooting arrows”
These lasers do indeed exploit the basic fact that curved glass surfaces reflect reliably (and weakly) to a wide range of angles, which makes a return signal very probable from the angle of the laser.
There’s no great ability in this laser tech to discern the nature of the reflector; that needs to be done with another sensor (TV, LLTV or IIR).
“If it sweeps by and the signature has changed or the location has moved then it triggers an alarm…”
Impractical, as many innocent reflectors (such as headlamps) will move very often, and with many such false alarm reflectors troops will very quickly grow tired of reacting well to every false alarm. They get desensitized after a few hundred or few thousand false alarms. This means after a few days or weeks.
“If it moves while the sensor is looking at it then that will trigger an alarm too.”
I don’t see this happening technically. It’s no LIDAR/LADAR.
“You don’t filter the location out and ignore it, because that would require you to be an idiot. You note the location and characteristic but you don’t flash up an alarm unless it changes.”
Actually, black lists are a typical reaction of a military to such problems. Again, lots of non-problematic changes will happen and even your scheme would trigger hundreds of false alarms per day or week.
” If you suspect that someone is setting up reflectors to prepare a sniper’s position, then you can determine the most likely ones and use it to locate some kind of ambush.”
Now if you could do that and it would be worthwhile, you wouldn’t need such a system. You could simply use the coupled imaging sensors on autopilot and let them check the locations. It happens to be typical of qualified snipers that they avoid typical locations, though.
“By simply introducing an on/off switch in the circuit you avoid giving yourself away…”
..which essentially means to acknowledge that the function is tactically wrong.
“With a slightly more complex sensor arrangement you could implement a slew-to-cue, for either the turret or the commander’s panoramic sight, at the commander’s discretion.”
Turning the turret would usually be preferred because the front is best-protected and the treat would be an AT threat (Shtora has this function), but such a function can be exploited by lasing the tanks from one side and hit them from another one. Automation is easily exploited once you figure out what it does.
Automatic turning of the CITV is very troublesome in a fight and otherwise a great method to expose it (and it’s not small) to a damaging sniper shot. Thermal sensors require special glass, and spares are a problem.
“red phosphorous (which, I am led to understand, can sting a little)”
AFAIK it’s not being used in GALIX’s smoke dischargers.
“So a simple change to SOPs nullifies red team’s new tactic and a minor modification to your system gives you an advantage.”
Actually, it would merely acknowledge that the red team’s tactics mean the criticised automated function is a bad idea. You’re where you were without it if you shut it off.
“needs to be done with another sensor (TV, LLTV or IIR)”
which the system contains. Therefore: signature spotted – one-click zoom in – nothing? – next… Done by a dedicated operator while comfortably sitting on his ass observing a lap-top screen. Now imagine some suspicios locking people decorating a treeline with reflectors …
In the current setting, those suspicious people would more likely be children playing with glass balls or playing football while wearing some reflective items. Or maybe someone released a bunch of rodents which have a collar with reflectors to saturate the sensor at a critical moment.
Seriously, some technologies did not prove successful in the past and others won’t in the future – because opponents adapt too easily to certain innovations (and this laser thing isn’t even an innovation).
The British thought in 1939 that equipping Defiant fighters with a four machinegun turret is a good idea. On first contact, German fighters ran into these fighters and were surprised to come under defensive fires, took losses.
Next time, a Defiant squadron was almost annihilated because the German fighter pilots had already adapted.
No general smear of supposed technophobes would have helped those Defiant crews to survive.
It’s generally a very, very bad indication when it takes only minutes to devise a countermeasure. Successful warfare innovations are more difficult to counter.
I think I have to agree with SO here. I’ve marked it on the calendar!
Leclerc Galix fires infra-red screening smoke. This is usually RP. It certainly looks like RP in the online videos. If it isn’t then whatever it is will still have a negative health impact on whoever it hits.
Regarding the automated system, it’s clearly a bad idea when in ambush. What about when advancing into enemy held terrain? (the bit that many people seem to forget happens) That way the enemy spoil their own ambush by lasing you. That’s where the automated system makes sense. So you only turn it on when it is tactically advisable. It’s like a radar on a stealth fighter. It’s worth having, but it’s not advisable to have on all the time.
For the slew-to-cue aspect of laser warners, you will notice that I used the term DISCRETIONARY. The commander gets a warning and he can CHOOSE if he wants to take action, and what action he wants to take. Full automation with simplistic and predictable responses is silly and you won’t find me espousing it. In fact for most systems on an AFV that have a safety implication (firing anything or moving anything) there is usually a human decision step. The exception being where reaction time wouldn’t cut it like ADS or where movement is already commanded anyway like stabilisation and fire control.
Going back to the CSS:
Prepared sniper positions: The enemy wouldn’t be flagging them with reflectors if you didn’t have this system, so you need it to force their hand.
Reflection methodology: I believe that these systems reflect off the focal plane of optical systems and as such are not so easy to spoof. If it were picking up reflections of glass surfaces then it would be unable to discriminate item commonly found in any environment and you would never get it to work at all. Oh, look: http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-YYGX201005041.htm
http://nguansoon.com/admin/js/0011176.pdf
Reflector discrimination: If it is reflecting then it is some kind of optic. In any case the system has electro-optics cued by the laser sensor.
Movement and location: If it is capable of cueing a sensor to a location then it can tell if it is moving, has moved
Alarms: hundreds or even thousands of alarms per day would be a vast improvement over looking out across the landscape as per most military sentry duty. Additionally an ‘alarm’ does not have to be blaring sirens and flashing lights, it would just be a highlighted section of a video screen.
“hundreds or even thousands of alarms per day would be a vast improvement over looking out across the landscape as per most military sentry duty.”
Wouldn’t. Trust me. Thousands of alarms, even tens of alarms a day and the alarm gets chinned off.
The most effective way to make an alert sentry is to shoot at him now and then.
Sounds glib but I think its true.
Yes, because an alarm is blaring sirens and flashing lights.
Oh, no, wait, I already explained that it wasn’t.
Would ‘alert’ be a better way of describing it?
Or target indicator?
Or highlight?
Or signal?
Or notification?
Or flag?
Any alert that doesn’t signify something is about to happen which goes off a lot, is going to switch people off. It’s human nature. In which case its worthless.
Snipers are a massive problem there is no doubt about that.
It does signify something, i.e. there is an object whith a certain signature in a predefined area of interest, please identify. Let the operator do a short indentification report in writing if you doubt his motivation.
technophobes rule 2:
“always argue based on the most idiotic way of using a tool”
Technology needs to work in the real world. And any system that throws up constant alerts that turn out to be false is going to get ignored. It is human nature. And I can tell you now that the average Tom will switch it off. No point having kit that works wonderfully in the lab if it doesn’t work in the field under real conditions. That’s not a technophobe’s perspective, that is a laymans input which is entirely relevant as it will be used by the layman.
quarter,
It does seem like that, doesn’t it?
Rule one is clearly “Technology = bad”
Rule three could be “Any way of defeating said technology, no matter how time-consuming, costly or limited means that said technology is useless”
Persistant alerts (non-moving reflectors) could be noted by the system. As you sweep the integrated camera across the scene little boxes indicate known reflectors. Colour coding could be assigned automatically depending on time since last investigated, or manually based on probability that it is a potential sniper position. Compared to looking out at the scenery, you have cues that show potential areas of interest. Similar, I suppose, to key areas that your sentries pay greater attention to.
I’m not arguing technology is bad. Snipers are a massive problem and any effective system that contributes even marginally to their defeat is one worth coveting. But it’s no use developing kit that won’t be used in the field properly. Even if it is all singing and all dancing it will largely get ignored.
Now you could do something like slave a camera onto it, Toms love camera’s and like to play with things like the Clamshell camera. Know your audience! These are blokes who won’t take HMNVGs on stag at night or who wank into the eye pieces of VIPR sights. I’m not disparaging the blokes, but you’ve got to know them.
It HAS a camera slaved to it. This isn’t something like the HVM ADAD. While the technology may have been around for some time, I would hazard that the reason it is coming out now is because it has been integrated with a camera and is therefore a practical tool.
Well good-oh!
Of course, they’ll just take the sights off and use iron sights. I suppose that will degrade them which is a good thing.
As long as its useful in the hands of the intended audience as it were.
SO, I do agree that this is a system that has a lower level of usefulness than its supporters would claim, but I also have to point out that you’re mistaking the properties of coherent light to non-coherent reflective light.
You’ll probably need a flat reflective surface pointing directly at the sensor before it can go off, glass balls won’t do it, the super straight line path of the laser would reflect off at some random angle. Car headlights won’t cut it too.
I guess we started having a rational conversation. So lets talk about limitations. First of all – being stationary (yet), laser emitting, etc. – it is a small wars tool (allthough the SLD-Scout – http://www.cilas.com/defense-securite/cilas-sld-scout.pdf – propably isnt). Second it is a point defense no area surveilance tool, that needs to be in some proximity to the object it is supposed to secure. A big deal of its usefullness will be determined by software, with physics indicating it to be possible to discriminate against a rather small set of promising signatures.
An option not yet discussed seems to be the identification of binoculars, that could provide warning and countermeasures against enemy reconaissance.
@fred:
I made a suggestion for rule 1 above, but as the Technophobicon is not jet bestowed upon my soul, Im only guessing on this subject. Maybe ask SO for a primer. But he might not be an enlightened one too and only dislikes the system because it is to f…ing-awesome-periscopes what rock is to scissors.
quarter,
You are quite right, my apologies. In any case, I think my rule 1 was somewhat redundant.
@Observer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JqFdkjGkEI
Watch its glow.
SO, you mistake the decoherent light from the neon laser as the main beam itself. The coherent part of the neon laser that you saw was the part that went almost straight through, diffraction aside. The backscatter was from the parts of the beam that were not aligned with the main beam in pathing, though it was probably of similar frequency.
That is why I say you’re confusing coherent light behaviour with non-coherent behaviour.
SO,
Read the papers I linked to.
Or google up some more, either is good.
The laser retroreflection system is not so easily spoofed.
The reflection at the back side (sometimes called scattering, albeit I think this is inaccurate) of the glass ball is predictable with basic optical theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_refraction#Reflectivity
The most scattering from the video happens in part because nothing real is perfect. There’s always something (an impurity, crack, atmospheric distortion etc) which scatters light a bit, and the shape of the glass ball ensured you can see this scattered light from most if not all directions because it reflects much light which would otherwise escape – kind of like an imperfect optical cable (fibreglass for communication purposes is an extreme case, but the principle is the same). The light bounces inside a lot until it escapes, and these bounces magnify any scattering effect of impurities and imperfect surfaces.
Also keep in mind commonly available glass balls such as marbles often have intentional impurities which would substitute for the retina in the cat’s eye effect nicely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_%28toy%29
Car headlight have those chrome-finish reflectors inside (save for the new LED lights), which will help a lot with laser reflection as well.
I’m sure those laser developers wouldn’t bet against me being able to fool their gadget.
I have learned the different ways of many different professional groups, and all the papers I’ve seen about such optics detection lasers (more than the linked ones) are utterly predictable in their one-way thinking. Some even displayed the typical publicly-sponsored researcher’s behaviour pattern of allocating much of the last text page to promoting further studies.
There is a saying that goes along the lines of “you cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into”
And with that, good day sir.
Yeah, even when the other person against him spent a year in uni level physics doing exactly this kind of laser light show crap.
Wiki is cheap. Practical experience is priceless.
Come on. I held my university physics classes back since it’s no real argument, but now that you mention; yes, I did this stuff at a university of applied sciences (two semesters = one year, passed the tests). We learned every chapter in this 1600+ pages physics book http://tinyurl.com/bdtclwt during those courses – up to the point of memorising ~80 formulas for each test.
My background extends far beyond mere Luftwaffe service and economic science.
Now feel free to explain why a glass ball with an object inside (such as the glass marbles) would act any different than described by the cat’s eye effect which is being exploited by these laser sensors.
Especially after looking at figure 1 in this:
http://144.206.159.178/ft/CONF/16414611/16414619.pdf
… you’re a physics graduate and you cannot even tell that random impurities do not provide a focal plane back towards the origin except by the most extreme of luck? Not even including the bending caused by, as you mentioned, the refractive index? On a curved surface no less? There is only ONE incident angle where RI does not bend a light beam. Remember what that angle was? Does a sphere fit that description?
Interesting
http://www.strategicdefenceintelligence.com/article/BVs0Zy5FwEE/2013/01/14/comment_uk_sniper_detection_furore_proves_even_uor_need_a_lo/
@Observer
I wrote I passed university physics tests including this stuff, not that I’m a physics graduate.
Furthermore I mentioned that impurities are responsible for the scattering seen in the video.
My other reference to impurities was about marbles, and a laser beam of millimetres width (and it’s reasonable to assume it may be quite widened because widening the beam with a lens makes it much more effective for the scanning purpose) will impact on the glass ball on an area, creating beams in many directions inside which in the marbles example will hit on a curved reflective part inside which will on some points hit the curved glass surface just right to be reflected to the emitter.
I suppose the problem is you guys think too much in terms of the clean schematic drawings with one super-thin beam in one direction while the reality is much messier and the scanner beam is likely wider than many reflectors.
Military lasers with intentionally widened beams are not uncommon. Some laser rangefinders for surface-to-air application and lasers for laser beam riding guidance have one as well.
Finally, much simpler reflectors will work anyway. You cannot detain or shoot all civilians who disperse reflectors.