In April of 2013, crazy guys at White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, tried to turn a little ATV into a big bad T-72 battle tank!
White Sands Missile Range photo by John Hamilton.
It was an attempt to create a cheap OpFor (Opposition Forces tank), to try and save taxpayer funding that is used on actual T-72s, or converting M113-based armored vehicles into Russian looking tanks.
WSMR photo by John Hamilton.
Also, this is actually for the U.S. Air Force, to test the ability of new aircraft targeting systems to identify enemy tanks. The crazy guys were ordered to create a Fake-News BTR, BMP and T-72.
WSMR photo by John Hamilton.
The test run was made on the Condron Army Airfield. Whoa, slow down there plastic tank, five miles per hour please!
The crazy-guys took what was once a static (stationary) corrugated plastic target, used for radar acquisition, and adapted it to fit over a small utility all terrain vehicle (ATV). They then altered the ATV to be remote controlled, in other words, they created a giant R/C toy.
Video by John Hamilton of highly paid engineers playing with their giant R/C tank:
It also has tactically placed metal strips and heat generators to simulate the radar and heat signatures of a real tank. The experimental giant R/C tanks went to Edwards Air Force Base, California. I have not been able to find any info on what happened to the corrugated R/C tanks, but I suspect they were used to test the F-35’s ability to identify and attack ground vehicles, that is because the F-35’s ground attack testing (at Edwards AFB) began about the same time that the fake-news tanks were created.
IDAHO’S 1:1 SCALE FAKE NEWS RUSSIAN RADAR TANK