Aircraft preparation - S-300 SAM mock up (3)

F-16 mockups on fake runway Spangdahlem AB 1985

Dummies and

decoy A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''ende kooi'', " duck cage") is usually a person, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to lu ...

s are fake military equipment that are intended to deceive the enemy. Dummies and decoys are only one aspect of military deception.

Examples

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, dummy airfields and even towns were used in England to divert German bombers from the real targets. At the Battle of La Ciotat in 1944, American aircraft dropped hundreds of dummy paratroopers ( paradummies) just north of La Ciotat,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The goal of this operation was to divert German troops away from the main landing zones of Operation Dragoon. Additionally, during World War II, Operation Quicksilver was an attempt to mislead the Germans as to the location of the D-Day invasion using dummy military equipment. A naval example was the British battleship HMS ''Centurion''. Obsolete and disarmed by World War II, she spent two years in the Mediterranean fitted with wooden guns, to make British naval forces in the area seem stronger than they were. Likewise, '' Fleet tender'' was the codename for a number of British merchant ships that fitted with dummy structures to resemble warships. In Russia, a former hot air balloon factory has continued in the 2010s to make dummy tanks, aircraft, missile launch pads, radar stations, and rocket launchers. The inflatable dummies are designed to present a realistic image to enemy radar and thermal imaging. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, AFU successfully used wooden dummies of

HIMARS The M142 HIMARS (M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) is a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s for the United States Army and mounted on a standard United States Army Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) tru ...

in order to divert Russian missile strikes. An intercontinental ballistic missile may release decoys in addition to one or more warheads. Military aircraft on SEAD missions may carry decoy missiles such as the MALD which can create aircraft-like return signals on enemy radars.

References

{{Military deception Decoys Military deception Military use of mimicry

Examples

See also

References