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'''Stealth ablative coatings''' are materials found on [[UNSC]] stealth ships. | |||
==Description== | ==Description== | ||
Black in color, the stealth ablative coating serves to refract both UNSC [[radar]] and [[Covenant]] sensors, making the ship invisible to radar, similar to the way [[active camouflage]] cloaks something from eyesight. However, the coating also doubles as a visual cloak, enabled by the ship's [[texture buffer]]s. | Black in color, the stealth ablative coating serves to refract both UNSC [[radar]] and [[Covenant Empire|Covenant]] sensors, making the ship invisible to radar, similar to the way [[active camouflage]] cloaks something from eyesight. However, the coating also doubles as a visual cloak, enabled by the ship's [[texture buffer]]s.<ref name="goo">'''Halo: Ghosts of Onyx''', ''page 291''</ref> | ||
The coating must be maintained perfectly or it will return radar signals. This necessitates constant maintenance on the entire coating. Therefore, virtually all [[UNSC Prowler]]s have relatively small surface areas, so that less has to be maintained. An exception to this is the {{UNSCShip|Point of No Return}}, which is a Prowler the size of a [[UNSC destroyer]].<ref>'''Halo: Ghosts of Onyx''', ''page 43''</ref> Stealth ablative coating can also be found on [[Long Range Stealth Orbital Insertion Pods]]. | |||
==Trivia== | ==Trivia== | ||
*In reality, there are stealth bombers that use | *In reality, there are stealth bombers that use this exact same technology. They achieve radar invisibility due to refractive paint, which also must be repainted every time it becomes damaged. | ||
*Strictly speaking, [[Wikipedia:Ablative armor|ablative armor]] is designed to prevent damage to a ship it covers by being damaged itself through the process of [[Wikipedia:Ablation|ablation]]. A stealth ablative coating would therefore mean that once damage has been taken, its stealth features would be useless. | *Strictly speaking, [[Wikipedia:Ablative armor|ablative armor]] is designed to prevent damage to a ship it covers by being damaged itself through the process of [[Wikipedia:Ablation|ablation]]. A stealth ablative coating would therefore mean that once damage has been taken, its stealth features would be useless. However, if the vessel's hull was also painted beneath the armor panels, this may help to reduce if not stop it from appearing on enemy sensors. | ||
==Sources== | ==Sources== | ||
<references/> | |||
[[Category:Stealth technology]] | [[Category:Stealth technology]] |