Holograms

[gusindor]

Holograms. Do they exist? How effective/accessible/etc. are they? Is active camouflage a viable defense system?

[Foghammer]

I don't know what type of active camo you're talking about (like Halo?), but there are a lot of practical use camouflage systems that have been in development for a long time and could theoretically be in widespread use. I would suspect the best applications for them would be in hot desert settings for these reasons (of my own devising): 1) being electronic, they probably have a heat signature, so in order to be most effective, they need to be somewhere where thermal imaging isn't as useful, 2) the sheets that make up the camouflage system could theoretically be reinforced and serve as shelter from desert weather, 3) imperfections in the system can be further masked by heat distortion.

But I can't speak for Mr. Newman and co.

[Soren]

'Holographic camo' (active camouflage without some sort of projection surface) has always struck me as a kind of silly technomagic - you might as well say it's an invisibility spell. It's got wide-ranging implications and few of them are nice (technology that enables perfect surprise also enables perfect thievery, for example).

That said, firms like BAE are working on active camouflage using e-ink systems, which seem promising. You're never going to achieve complete surprise against all types of sensor, but you could get very close. If you can figure out how to represent it as a system without breaking the bank, be my guest.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Perfect camo also means that it's the dominant military technology. Which means we don't get to fight robots.

[foe_hawk]

[Foghammer]