by David Crane
david at defensereview.com
Back in March, DefenseReview
reported on the Stealth Technology System (STS) being developed at
Advanced American Enterprise (AAE) in our article titled
Is Cloaking Technology for U.S. Infantry Warfighters Finally Possible? STS utilizes a form of electro-optical camouflage (referred to also as optical camouflage, adaptive camouflage, active camouflage, chameleonic camouflage, and cloaking technology).
Advanced American Enterprises (AAE) AAE uses the term "invisibility stealth" to describe the effect of their tech, which, according to them renders an object, person, or vehicle 85-100% invisible to the human eye or video camera in the visible spectrum (visible light) as soon as you flip the switch to "on", even while the cloaked item is moving.
STS tech also camouflages/hides whatever it’s covering against NODs/NVDs (Night Observation Devices/Night Vision Devices) and IR detection devices (thermal/IR camouflage), as well. AAE refers to the latter capability as "IR-Stealth", and they assert that their lab experiments to date show that STS’ IR-Stealth capability even surpasses it’s "Visibility-Stealth" (visual stealth in visible light spectrum) capability. AAE claims that STS works in all weather conditions.
The technology does have limitations.
AAE states in their literature that the
Stealth Technology System’s minimum effective distance is 20 ft for both Visibility Stealth and IR Stealth. In other words, the observer or detection device has to be at least 20 feet away from the cloaked object. 20" is still awfully close for someone not to be able to spot an APC or MBT (Main Battle Tank). DefenseReview is therefore skeptical about AAE’s rather extraordinary claims regarding their technology’s capabilities, especially since we haven’t yet seen a live demontration of the technology, ourselves. Having said that, AAE states that it is willing to conduct a live field demonstration of the STS tech "where a person rises and shoots blanks at observers and camcorder at more than 20 feet way without being spotted by the observers or by the camcorder" for prospective customers. Hmh. DefRev would certainly like to be present with our own camcorder at any such demonstration of the technology. That would go a long way at assuaging our natural skepticism. In the meantime, we’d at least like to obtain some high-quality video footage of STS in action.
It should perhaps be noted that the AAE literature also states that STS is viable for EOD operations (Explosive Ordnance Disposal operations), specifically with regard to IED (Improvised Explosive Device) neutralization missions, and can mitigate the threat of death by RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade).
Current tentative pricing for the system with On/Off switch are as follows: $1600 per warfighter (person), $2,800 per dog, $29,000 per HMMWV (Humvee, a.k.a. Hummer), $49,000 per APC (Stryker, M113 Gavin, etc.) or tank (M1A2 Abrams MBT), and $59,000 per speed boat.
Right-Click here and then click on "Save Target As" (Microsoft Internet Explorer) or "Save Link As" (Mozilla Firefox) to read the latest AAE Stealth Technology System (STS) fact sheet titled
Reducing American IED Casualties in Iraq by Visibility-Stealth Concealment of Vehicles (title corrected for syntax). This is the version that disusses both STS’ "Visibility-Stealth" AND "IR-Stealth" capabilities, and contains 14 photos (more photos than have ever been shown before) of the technology at work.
Previous DefRev Articles on STS: