Stealth technology, having revolutionized air warfare, is set to enter the world of ground combat in a big way.On the battlefield of the future, the widespread ability to kill tanks and call down tank-killing firepower makes a tank’s ability to stay undetected the key to survival—and to victory.
隐身技术已经彻底改变了空战，它将大规模进入地面战。在未来的战场上，摧毁坦克和压制坦克杀伤火力是普遍能力，而使得坦克不被发现的能力将成为生存和制胜的关键。
So future tanks will become more difficult for enemies to detect, playing a cat and mouse game with their opponents by reducing their acoustic, radar, and infrared signatures.
因此，未来的坦克将变得更难被敌人发现，通过减少其声音、雷达和红外特征与对手玩“猫鼠游戏”。
First introduced in the 1970s, the term “stealth” meant reducing a military aircraft’s radar signature, making a bomber-sized aircraft (such as the B-2 Spirit with a 172-foot wingspan) have the same radar signature as a large bird.
“隐形”一词最早出现在上世纪70年代，意即减小军用飞机的雷达识别特征，使轰炸机大小的飞机(例如翼展长172英尺的B-2轰炸机)的雷达识别特征与大鸟差不多。
This vastly decreases the range at which radars can detect stealth aircraft, making enemy air defenses much less effective. Today’s stealth aircraft also try to minimize the ability of infrared sensors to detect them via heat emissions.
这大大缩小了雷达发现隐形飞机的范围，从而大大降低了敌方防空系统的有效性。今天的隐身飞机还试图最大限度地降低红外传感器通过热辐射发现它们的能力。
Meanwhile on the ground, tanks are facing their own detectability crisis. Tanks are offensive weapons that take the fight to the enemy, moving fast and hitting the enemy front line hard.
与此同时，在地面上，坦克也面临着自身的可探测性危机。坦克是进攻型武器，能向敌人发起战斗，行动迅速而且能狠狠地打击敌人前线。
Tanks like the American M1A2 Abrams, however, are steel beasts in excess of 32 feet long, weigh 70 tons, and a propelled by a 1500-horsepower turbine engine that generates so much heat it can set nearby vegetation on fire. A group of tanks operating on the battlefield is hard to miss.
然而，像美国的M1A2“艾布拉姆斯”这样的坦克是钢铁野兽，身长32英尺（1英尺约合0.3米），重达70吨，由1500马力的涡轮发动机驱动，产生的热量非常大，足以点燃附近的植被。一群坦克在战场上作战很难不被发现。
At the same time, the battlefield is getting deadlier for tanks, awash with sensors from human eyes and ears all the way up to millimetric wave radars that can see through fog and infrared sensors that can detect minute temperature changes.
与此同时，对坦克来说，战场变得越来越致命，布满了各种传感器，从人的眼睛和耳朵一直到可以穿透迷雾的毫米波雷达以及可以探测微小的温度变化的红外传感器。
Everyone from ground-pounding infantry to flying drones will be looking for tanks and can unleash handheld anti-tank missiles or GPS-guided artillery. It’s not a question of if tanks become more stealthy, but when.
从地面冲击步兵到飞行无人机的每个人都在寻找坦克，并且可以释放手持式反坦克导弹或GPS制导炮弹。这不是坦克是否要变得更隐蔽的问题，而是什么时候的问题。
According to DefenseOne, tanks must become stealthy to survive on the future battlefield. Tanks must reduce their infrared, acoustic, and radar signatures. In practical terms, that means tanks that are able to blend in with their heat surroundings better, reducing or masking the temperature of their exhausts and the heat from weapon barrels.
根据DefenseOne的说法，坦克必须变得隐身才能在未来的战场上生存。坦克必须减少其红外、声学和雷达特征。在实战中，这意味着坦克要能够更好地融入周围的热量，减少或掩盖它的排气温度和来自武器桶的热量。
Tanks, which are often heard before they are seen, must run more quietly. Finally, tanks may radically change in appearance, reducing their radar cross section.
坦克，在被看到之前经常先被听到，所以必须更安静地跑。最后，坦克的外形可能会发生彻底的变化，从而减少雷达的散射截面积。
Stealth will make tanks bigger at a time when everyone is trying to make them smaller. Making a tank less visible to radar will necessitate angled, flat surfaces with equipment such as machine guns, active protective systems, IR cooling systems, and sensors tucked away under the surface.
当每个人都试图让它们变小时，“隐身”会让坦克更大。使雷达不易看到坦克，它需要有一个倾斜的平坦表面，让机枪、有源保护系统、红外冷却系统以及传感器等隐藏到内部。
The Zumwalt-class destroyers, for example, don’t pack significantly more equipment than their Arleigh Burke-class cousins but are larger and heavier, the result of having a flat, stealthy shape.
例如，Zumwalt级驱逐舰的装备数量远远少于Arleigh Burke级，但是它更大更重，这是因为它具有平坦隐身的外形。
英文来源：POPULAR MECHANICS
