This was happening in the 2002 timeframe:
"......The US Army ERDEC is developing
advanced aerosol systems to combat threat surveillance, fire control, and
seeker systems operating in the visible, infrared, and millimeter wave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
There is no known counter for this technology by seeker heads today. A DF-21D seeker attempting to use its millimeter radar to find the CVN would be defeated. This represents another high hurdle for the Chinese planners to overcome.
Patent number 6666143: Obscurant Device, describes how development of a simple device to counter many of today's weapons systems that use surveillance and target acquisition (STA) devices which can exploit the
infrared and millimeter wavebands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Designing obscurant devices which can provide screening against such systems often results in complicated or costly solutions. A device capable of mitigating these problems is described wherein an obscurant device (10), and more particularly a device capable of providing screening against the visual, infrared and millimeter wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, comprises an obscurant payload, a burster charge capable, when detonated by a detonator, of disseminating said payload and a payload casing wherein some or all of the payload casing is configured to disintegrate upon actuation of the burster charge and to act thereafter as an obscurant.
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The DF-21D is based upon the Pershing 2 IRBM. Hence it uses a guidance and homing system like the Pershing 2
Anti Radar obscurants can defeat these types of homing systems
Here is a description of the Pershing 2 terminal homing system
Radar area correlator
The highly accurate terminal guidance technique used by the Pershing II RV was
radar area correlation, using a Goodyear Aerospace active radar guidance system. This technique compared live radar video return to prestored reference scenes of the target area and determined RV position errors with respect to its trajectory and target location. These position errors were used to update the inertial guidance system, which in turn sent commands to the vane control system to guide the RV to the target.
At a predetermined altitude, the radar unit was activated to provide altitude update data and begin scanning the target area. The analog radar video return was digitized into 2-bit pixels by the correlator unit and was formatted into a 128 by 128 array. The target reference scene data, loaded prior to launch via the ground and missile data links, were also encoded as 2-bit pixels and placed in reference memory formatted in a 256 by 256 array. The reference scene resolution necessary to correspond to the decreasing altitude of the RV was effected by placing four reference data arrays in memory, each representing a given altitude band. This correlation process was performed several times during each of four altitude bands and continued to update the inertial guidance system until just prior to impact.
If for some reason the correlator system failed to operate or if the correlation data quality was determined to be faulty, the inertial guidance system continued to operate and guided the RV to the target area with inertial accuracy only.
Goodyear also developed the Reference Scene Generation Facility— a truck mounted shelter containing the equipment required to program the missile targeting.[21] Radar maps of target areas were stored on disk, then specific targeting data was transferred to a tape cartridge. During countdown operations, the cartridge was plugged into the launcher control panel.
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Ha! Does this patent sound like "vapor ware"? Try again.
Obscurant Device - Patent 6666143
