Effectiveness of TI (thermal imaging)

[PPoS]

Originally Posted by gingertanker

IRL manny(most) tanks with TI dont have an independent TI viewer for commander...But this impossible to model in SPMBT. As for its effectiveness...In my prettey well educated opinion, TI gives you an amazing advantage. In my tank it ran all the time, day and night, even though it made an annoying sound. The biggest surprise to me when I first used TI was how helpful it is in broad day light. Targets that are hardly visible due to their colour or shape still have a heat signature. and with targets looking pretty damned small at ranges above 2000m, they are easier to spot in TI than by normal optics.

I just thought about something. I don't know if you know this but; how does hot terrain interact with TI ? E.g. hot desert sand or heated asphalt. And I also don't know what generation of TI you have experience with, but how easy would you say it would've been to ID what type of tank you're looking at, etc ?