Interesting Technology...

[alamo5000]

I am nowhere near qualified to make any kind of educated commentary on this type of thing, but just on the surface it seems to be pretty cool stuff. Interested to know what the rest of you think about it.

[Jerry R]

Curious. Available to civilians? In the comments, body heat transfers to the material reducing thermal effectiveness after a time. Might be useful to folks too old to hump ruck, they could lay in the weeds (speaking for myself). Following ...

[alamo5000]

Curious. Available to civilians? In the comments, body heat transfers to the material reducing thermal effectiveness after a time. Might be useful to folks too old to hump ruck, they could lay in the weeds (speaking for myself). Following ...

Not sure if available. On the body heat transfer thing, I had a few thoughts as I was reading the comments.

I remember watching a video from Lone Star Boars a long time ago (looking for it now as they are not on YT anymore). He demonstrated how both NV and thermal act with a number of barriers in place. Everything from fog to glass and so on including small bushes and so forth.

I would think if you had some kind of 'stand off' from the actual material it would mitigate (somewhat) the heat transfer. IE if you had a lean-two vs wearing it directly on your body, or even if you just hung it up over a bush or something and got behind it, it would prevent at least some of the problem.

I found that video I was referencing above on Rumble. That video was made probably 10 yrs ago so this isn't 'new', at least not in concept. The moral of the story is that with the correct understanding of how both NV and/or thermal work (as long as you are aware of the situation) both of those technologies can be mitigated in a combat type of environment.

https://rumble.com/v3jw37d-3rd-gen-n...s-thermal.html

[gatordev]

For mid- and far- IR to not transfer, you need some sort of insulator. That can be air, glass, or in this case, some sort of material. Unfortunately the demo videos don't spend much time on the material after someone covers up in it to see if the temperature changes. No doubt the PEOs would be looking at that before contracting the gear. I also wonder how noisy the material is and how well it breaths. A space blanket is insanely noisy, but a good insulator. If you're using something that reflects heat back into the source, it seems like that wouldn't breath well, either, but maybe they cracked that nut.

The near-IR on NVGs has always perplexed me. I'm never really clear how much I'm truly seeing unless I'm looking at a light or engine exhaust (or fire). I was never sure why, but the brown boots that everyone wears in the Navy would stand out and "glow" under NVGs. I don't think it was actual heat, as that would mean someone's foot was on fire, but it was still a thing. My best guess was it was the reflection of light on that specific leather material coupled with all of the various goop attached to the surface.

[FortTom]

I'd love to see the $$ tags on these. Anyone have a clue?