Ho, ho , ahhahahahahaha. I can't believe this thread is getting so many hits, It's wonderful.
BUSA00021, I didn't say it wasn't possible to get speed-readings from passive systems, just difficult. To get an accurate speed calculation from a target using this technique, you have to know the frequency of the noise made by the target in the first place. If it's a ship, it's engine revs, screw noise etc will have been studied and measured over time by the system, then it can give an approximation. Not the sort of thing you can do on the road, as you say.
Jack! I couldn't agree more. The UK government is very good at fixing design problems by throwing vast sums of cash at it too. I also agree that may of these big-spend military projects where started 10, even 20 years ago. But they had bubbly plastic in the eighties too you know. I used to work for the company that designed and built the electronics warfare packages as carried by the Tornado fighter-bomber (I was an Electronic Systems buyer) which is not anywhere near the same league as the likes of the true stealth technology. The big difference with this stuff (it's designed to go an aeroplane right, it's as light and compact as they can get it!) is that compared with a laptop, it's bloody HEAVY! Makes your PARE valve look like a grain of sand. It's also rather expensive, a tad more then the 10K cost of the Bus.
I've got a good idea for a laser proof skin though. Low power lasers, as used in the hand-held speed guns and the like are red, towards the infrared range. Now, to absorb light, the best way to do it is to have the target painted exactly the same colour as the laser. Now all we need is a chromatomorphic skin on our machines that will instantly change to the exact colour of the light falling on it. The radar traps are easy; we need chaff launchers on the beast, one sniff of a K Band wave and POW! Big cloud of aluminium chips all around you.
