LONDON: Defense designers are working on high-tech television surveillance systems for the next generation tanks to remove the need for tank crew to look through “direct vision” periscopes, risking the effects of laser guns, according to British defense experts.
The TV surveillance systems, being developed’ to counter the laser system which could cause permanent blindness are not expected to be deployed until the turn of the century, experts believe.
A laser gun designed to blind the crew of an enemy tank, and which could be fitted to army battle tanks in wartime, has already been developed and has undergone extensive trials in the British army, British official sources are reported to have confirmed.
The laser the experts said has also been developed keeping in view the increasing difficulties faced in penetrating the frontal armor of battle tanks.
British defense experts have quoted British army sources having seen an unusual gun like system alongside the main gun or army challenger tanks at Bovington camp, Dorset, last year.
Bovington is home of the British army’s armored trials and development unit and this system is thought to have been a laser gun undergoing trials, the experts said.
“When elephants fight it is the grass that.”
African saying
Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990
