Strange military paint question....I promise.

[BillIdaho]

Ok, here is a good one.
I have heard and read somewhere that true military paint is "radar absorbent". If that is true, does anyone know to what extent, and how exactly they make it so? Is there some additive?
I have zapped military rigs driving down the road with my radar (yeah right, I figured they could be speeding?!) and they seem to show as easily as anything else. Maybe a radar such as the ones we use for police use are a different frequency than ones used to actually "find" things?
I promised a strange question, didn't I?

 

[Jake0147]

I thought the whole stealth bomber program was based on the fact that radar couldn't effectively be absorbed, only stratigically redirected?

opcorn:

 

[amanco]

The reflectors on a MV would easily send back a signal to a radar gun. Not the paint. That is why license plates reflect, right?

 

[Jake0147]

I dunno. I work with enough leo's in the course of any given week to know that the ones around here all laugh at people for putting radar/lazer proof plastic shields over their license plates. I know just enough about radar to be really, really confused for the parts that I don't know...

 

[m16ty]

The paint is made to resist cemical agents but it won't stop a radar. If you are speeding in a MV (I know it's a long shot) you will get a ticket if a cop shoots you with his radar. I saw a episode of Myth Busters where they tried everything (including different types of paints) to foil the radar. Nothing worked that they tried.

 

[BillIdaho]

I'm gonna have to dig up where exactly I read the part where it says it is "radar absorbent".

 

[Kwai]

Somebody is confusing CARC (Chemical Agent Resistant Coating) with radar absorbency. Military paints don't absorb radar any more than any other paint. But the CARC paint is specially formulated to make it easier to decontaminate after a chemical attack.

 

[Rocco]

I think CARC paint does not reflect inferred from night vision .

 

[Jones]

Radar scattering is pretty sophisticated technology and a paint that does it would have to have "chaff" as one of the pigment additives.
CARC, along with other recent camouflage paints, is "non-photoreactive". Vehicles photographed with a flash tend to look washed out and indistinct because it absorbs a certain amount of both visible light and infrared.
Stealth anti-radar programs use a lot of small planes (surfaces) like facets so that no one surface shows up as a large object; as well as Kevlar instead of metal for skin surfaces.

 

[ida34]

We had to use camo netting over our equipment to hide the stuff from radar. The netting had metal fragments in the nettings plastic material. I have never heard that the paint would do anything for radar reflectivity. I can tell you that a license plate is not needed to get a speed radar or laser reading and it will reflect off almost any metal surface. The plate coverings do not work and can get you a ticket for an obscured plate even if it is clear. The clear ones also make the plate hard to see when dirty or old. Mythbusters did a radar special a while back checking all the common myths about avoiding radar.

 

[ptg530C]

You probably mean that it is infra-red insulative. Thats what is on the comm shelters so they have a dimished infra-red signature. As far as radar absorbing paint goes, it exists. They use it on cruise missles.

 

[tjcouch]

Here is an interesting read: http://www.milspray.com/services/thermal-management-coatings-and-films.html