Smoke dischargers are nothing new - the first ones were seen in 1940 AFAIK - but they keep evolving in regard to rapidity of the smoke screening and the effectiveness against IR sensors (and rumoured; radars).
They're nowhere near optimum, though; most smoke discharger models are soft (vulnerable to mere bullets), installations such as ROSY-L on a roof compete for scarce roof area and obstruct the field of view of the commander or of sensors (which then need to be raised). The quantity of ready for discharge smoke ammunition is rather disappointing as well; often times only two full smoke screens per vehicle. MBTs which manoeuvre in platoons or companies may make use of smoke screens created by others, but at the very least reconnaissance vehicles should have much more ready for discharge smoke ammunition.* I consider this to be a typical peacetime negligence.
S O
*: BTW, some Western tanks have no VESS (vehicle exhaust smoke system - a simple injection of diesel into the hot exhaust, creating a visible spectrum smoke cloud). This is still not irrelevant.
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