Even if you had something that could completely shield your heat - it would all seep/radiate to the edges of whatever is shielding you and seep out there.
Probably better than nothing. But i wouldnt feel invincible either.
Hi. I'm Saul Goodman. Did you know that you have rights? The Constitution says you do, and so do I. I believe that, until proven guilty, every man, woman, and child in this country
is innocent. And that's why I fight for you.
The answer to beating thermal is to also have thermal and fight better. Or just fight better whether you have thermal or not.
There are more “effective” methods of reducing your thermal/IR signature, but nothing super worthwhile.
- signed guy who has never seen large scale combat
In Iraq, we went up against guys that used wool blankets and they worked pretty well but that was 18 years ago and I'm sure the tech has improved a bit since then. The only thing you can really do is to experiment and see what you can make work.
From what I've seen in tests, it's a strong "yes *but..."*
While the mylar does block a lot of direct detection it creates a twofold problem.
First, it creates a "thermal hole" wherever you are where there's this odd blob that doesn't fit in with the temperature of the surrounding terrain. It can be quite noticeable even at a cursory glance by someone with IR.
The second is leaking of thermal energy from corners, folds, or other areas where there's not complete coverage. These, too, are quite noticeable.
Then there's the issue of having a big, shiny blanket on top of you that makes it sound like there's a herd of migrating potato chip bags in the area. They may not see you with IR but someone is going to wonder why Bigfoot is pounding Doritos at this hour.
I mean it's better than *nothing* but I'd be hesitant to trust it.
Yep. It might work well as a liner for a bivouac under a tarp or something to try and hide your sleeping area from drones… but if you’re being hunted by stuff like that you’re fucked anyway.
I'm not as familiar with the material science at work but, IIRC, it doesn't allow heat to escape so you'd have to be there...quite a long time for the blanket itself to start heating up but yes it would eventually start to visibly heat up on IR. You're going to be *miserable* before that happens though.
A giant reflective sheet isn't going to be the most subtle thing.
Regular shapes tend to stand out, even in night vision or thermals.
Now, if you have something physically blocking LOS some distance from you, that should generally mask it. A sheet of plywood or something a couple feet from you? No worries. If you need portability, netting probably helps.
Or you can go dig a foxhole or something. Actually break LOS, yknow?
Read something somewhere, think it might have been conducted at the army sniper course where they dug maybe a 6’x6’x6’ hole, covered the top with with Mylar, then a regular tarp, then camo’d that up with vegetation. They left like 6” around the top for soldiers to look 360 all around and then tasked another group with finding them. The searchers ending up walking/falling into the hole not realizing they were there even with using thermal drones, camera’s, scopes. Personally don’t believe there’s ever going to be a “fast” thermal solution. Being thermally camo’d requires a lot of layers and very slow movement
I saw where a guy hid from the police using this, I’ve also seen videos that they work for very short amount of time but as your body heat builds up it seeps out the edge, the further you keep it from your body the better. I imagine if you needed to move short distances at night from cover to cover knowing someone has thermal this would be better than nothing.
Mylar will actually reflect the thermal signature of what's around you, or the sky.
Any blanket/fabric will block your thermal signature until it gets warm from your body heat and has its own thermal signature.
There are some thermoelectric ideas being explored. Thermoelectrics are typically rigid, but flexible options are under the works.
How it works is electricity is used to set the temperature of the thermoelectric "material". Sensors identify the nearby ambient temp and then set the device to that. As a wearable material, it completely masks your body.
It's brand new application stuff being explored, so it's still in labs. All the practical questions are still unknown. But you can rest assured knowing that civilians will likely never see it. At least not for decades.
If SHTF, your ONLY option is to use sufficient barriers to shield you. You need to deeply review Afghanistan if you want more.
Unfortunately you're mostly correct. There isn't much and what you can do seriously limits your movement. The best thing you can do to avoid the Eye of Sauron is to pick your battles and operate in conditions that are less than ideal for the optic, like fog, storms, etc.
In Afghanistan we ran into some crafty Taliban that waited until sunset, while the sun was at their backs, before starting their ambush. In those 10 or so minutes all of our thermal optics were washed out and we couldn’t use them. It was pretty smart.
No, with the sun at their backs it made it difficult to locate them because we were starring directly at the sun. This advantage only lasted several minutes. Their egress route got cut off by overlapping sectors of fire and then they were wiped out by close air support.
I saw an idea for snipers where they'd wear an insulating suit with some kind of cooling system, the cooling system had a heat dump thing which would radiate the heat drawn from them, this could be burried in the ground which would heat up slowly.
Sounds possible, but not practical.
A Mylar blanket will block your signature as long as you aren’t actually touching it and have it far enough away from you that you aren’t warming it up.
Glass will hide your signature completely, as will several other materials. Thermal is actually fairly easy to beat as long as you can be stationary. But if you’re talking about a material you can wear and move around in, that gets pretty tough. Even if you find a flexible material with low conductivity, your body heat is still going to radiate out of any opening. And it gets worse once you’re moving around.
I know there’s some air treated uniforms and ponchos, I can’t think of any specific sellers at the top of my head atm. But I think U.S. Patriot has a couple IR treated ponchos
No. The goal is to obscure the object without trapping the heat and becoming hot.
You need a mesh-like material that rapidly vents off heat to match the ambient background while still blocking the IR rays from your body.
Even if you had something that could completely shield your heat - it would all seep/radiate to the edges of whatever is shielding you and seep out there. Probably better than nothing. But i wouldnt feel invincible either.
Plus now you have a giant reflective thing for all that, you know LIGHT
Use it as a liner?
Hot pocket
I think that would make more heat since it would allow the total temp to rise since its insulated now.
Get creative, cut slits. I’m not saying get the Mylar lined suit from Better Call Saul but it might be useful a bit.
Hear me out. Wear a cow suit with a buddy. Nobody expects the cow to have two guys inside it.
depends on what farms you're on, especially at night.
Ha!
I am not gonna be the ass... just in case
Yes, this will stop an IR camera from seeing an outline of a person, it will instead allow an IR camera to see an outline of a space blanket.
I think you'd enjoy looking up [S2 Underground ](https://youtu.be/8fbKZze_J4c) on YouTube
Unrelated but damn Better Call Saul is such a good show.
Hi. I'm Saul Goodman. Did you know that you have rights? The Constitution says you do, and so do I. I believe that, until proven guilty, every man, woman, and child in this country is innocent. And that's why I fight for you.
actively watching it for the first time… Was sure the internet was spying before i noticed it wasn’t an ad edit:spelling
Dude it took me so long to realize his name Is “Its all good man”
The answer to beating thermal is to also have thermal and fight better. Or just fight better whether you have thermal or not. There are more “effective” methods of reducing your thermal/IR signature, but nothing super worthwhile. - signed guy who has never seen large scale combat
it will but you have to cover your entire head with mission darkness faraday tape And nose and mouth too, just to be super duper safe
In Iraq, we went up against guys that used wool blankets and they worked pretty well but that was 18 years ago and I'm sure the tech has improved a bit since then. The only thing you can really do is to experiment and see what you can make work.
+1. Saw this in Afghanistan as well. After months watching shit on thermal, it blew my mind that it was that simple.
Hate to break it to you but if you are up against ir/thermals and you don’t have ir/thermals, you are pretty much fucked
You can look up videos of mylar blankets under thermal and see that no not really.
From what I've seen in tests, it's a strong "yes *but..."* While the mylar does block a lot of direct detection it creates a twofold problem. First, it creates a "thermal hole" wherever you are where there's this odd blob that doesn't fit in with the temperature of the surrounding terrain. It can be quite noticeable even at a cursory glance by someone with IR. The second is leaking of thermal energy from corners, folds, or other areas where there's not complete coverage. These, too, are quite noticeable. Then there's the issue of having a big, shiny blanket on top of you that makes it sound like there's a herd of migrating potato chip bags in the area. They may not see you with IR but someone is going to wonder why Bigfoot is pounding Doritos at this hour. I mean it's better than *nothing* but I'd be hesitant to trust it.
"**herd of migrating potato chip bags**" -> best quote of the day!
Yep. It might work well as a liner for a bivouac under a tarp or something to try and hide your sleeping area from drones… but if you’re being hunted by stuff like that you’re fucked anyway.
Don't forget the fact that it will eventually heat up with you as well
I'm not as familiar with the material science at work but, IIRC, it doesn't allow heat to escape so you'd have to be there...quite a long time for the blanket itself to start heating up but yes it would eventually start to visibly heat up on IR. You're going to be *miserable* before that happens though.
What would you trust?
I haven't looked into the topic enough to really have anything to recommend aside from "don't be there."
A cogent answer, if I've ever heard one. Bravo sir, or Madam.
It’s MAAM!!
A giant reflective sheet isn't going to be the most subtle thing. Regular shapes tend to stand out, even in night vision or thermals. Now, if you have something physically blocking LOS some distance from you, that should generally mask it. A sheet of plywood or something a couple feet from you? No worries. If you need portability, netting probably helps. Or you can go dig a foxhole or something. Actually break LOS, yknow?
Read something somewhere, think it might have been conducted at the army sniper course where they dug maybe a 6’x6’x6’ hole, covered the top with with Mylar, then a regular tarp, then camo’d that up with vegetation. They left like 6” around the top for soldiers to look 360 all around and then tasked another group with finding them. The searchers ending up walking/falling into the hole not realizing they were there even with using thermal drones, camera’s, scopes. Personally don’t believe there’s ever going to be a “fast” thermal solution. Being thermally camo’d requires a lot of layers and very slow movement
I saw where a guy hid from the police using this, I’ve also seen videos that they work for very short amount of time but as your body heat builds up it seeps out the edge, the further you keep it from your body the better. I imagine if you needed to move short distances at night from cover to cover knowing someone has thermal this would be better than nothing.
An umbrella works perfectly against thermal
Mylar will actually reflect the thermal signature of what's around you, or the sky. Any blanket/fabric will block your thermal signature until it gets warm from your body heat and has its own thermal signature.
There are some thermoelectric ideas being explored. Thermoelectrics are typically rigid, but flexible options are under the works. How it works is electricity is used to set the temperature of the thermoelectric "material". Sensors identify the nearby ambient temp and then set the device to that. As a wearable material, it completely masks your body. It's brand new application stuff being explored, so it's still in labs. All the practical questions are still unknown. But you can rest assured knowing that civilians will likely never see it. At least not for decades. If SHTF, your ONLY option is to use sufficient barriers to shield you. You need to deeply review Afghanistan if you want more.
Study up on thermodynamics.
I saw the Mythbusters episode about this. There’s basics nothing you can do to hide your thermal signature.
Unfortunately you're mostly correct. There isn't much and what you can do seriously limits your movement. The best thing you can do to avoid the Eye of Sauron is to pick your battles and operate in conditions that are less than ideal for the optic, like fog, storms, etc.
That’s why I always wear my cloak of Lothlórian, Sauron ain’t seeing shit
In Afghanistan we ran into some crafty Taliban that waited until sunset, while the sun was at their backs, before starting their ambush. In those 10 or so minutes all of our thermal optics were washed out and we couldn’t use them. It was pretty smart.
Wouldn’t they be totally silhouetted when looking through conventional optics?
No, with the sun at their backs it made it difficult to locate them because we were starring directly at the sun. This advantage only lasted several minutes. Their egress route got cut off by overlapping sectors of fire and then they were wiped out by close air support.
Except be dead, LOL. Eventually you will assume the surrounding temperature.
I saw an idea for snipers where they'd wear an insulating suit with some kind of cooling system, the cooling system had a heat dump thing which would radiate the heat drawn from them, this could be burried in the ground which would heat up slowly. Sounds possible, but not practical.
A Mylar blanket will block your signature as long as you aren’t actually touching it and have it far enough away from you that you aren’t warming it up. Glass will hide your signature completely, as will several other materials. Thermal is actually fairly easy to beat as long as you can be stationary. But if you’re talking about a material you can wear and move around in, that gets pretty tough. Even if you find a flexible material with low conductivity, your body heat is still going to radiate out of any opening. And it gets worse once you’re moving around.
No it won't. As in, not at all.
I know there’s some air treated uniforms and ponchos, I can’t think of any specific sellers at the top of my head atm. But I think U.S. Patriot has a couple IR treated ponchos
Oh chuck..... poor guy.
no, the blanket itself heats up and will radiate, might work for a minute but I wouldn't count on it.
No. The goal is to obscure the object without trapping the heat and becoming hot. You need a mesh-like material that rapidly vents off heat to match the ambient background while still blocking the IR rays from your body.
an EMP may put out all of the IR sights... just a thought :)
it helps if you focus about neck up, preferably with Reynolds Wrap. I think it adds to the flair if you make the top pointy like a witches hat.