Ukraine builds decoy weapons out of drainpipes to divert Russian attacks and protect dwindling resources

by TheTelegraph

10 comments

  1. **From The Telegraph:**

    Demand for fake weaponry has shot up as Ukrainian troops on the front line contend with increasing Russian strikes and dwindling supplies.

    Mykhailo Roman, 32, an architect who produces dummy weapons out of plywood, metal and plastic drainpipe, said he has been working overtime in recent months.

    The married father-of-one runs a small architecture firm in Vynohradiv, a village just 10 miles from the Hungarian border in south-west Ukraine that is largely untouched by the ravages of war.

    By day, he mostly designs houses. But in his evenings, he has turned his skills to building a Potemkin army.

    Tinkering away in a secret warehouse, the location of which he cannot disclose, Mr Roman and a group of volunteers build life-size models of missile launchers and artillery guns, designed to dupe Russia into wasting ammunition on destroying fake targets.

    His team strives to make the models as “realistic and cheap as possible”. Everything lying around the workshop is used: foam blocks, used tyres, scrap wood, sheet metal and plastic tubes.

    It comes as Ukraine’s top commander admitted that Russian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine have recently had six times more ammunition to fire than Kyiv’s troops.

    Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said in his first interview since being appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military last month: “The enemy conducts dense artillery and mortar fire. Until a few days ago, the enemy’s advantage in terms of ammunition fired was about six to one.”

    He also said Ukrainian forces were learning to adapt and fight with limited ammunition and soldiers but that plans to recruit another 500,000 soldiers had been downgraded.

    **More here:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/29/ukraine-decoy-weapons-surge-russia-steps-up-attacks/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/29/ukraine-decoy-weapons-surge-russia-steps-up-attacks/)

  2. A secret factory producing decoys, closely guarded secret that can’t be revealed.

    But gives the full name and business of a guy building all of this stuff, as well as pinpointing him to a small geographic area of Ukraine that it must be located in.

    For fuck’s sake.

  3. These are pretty impressive to be honest, compared to those wooden or blow up decoys

  5. few days ago i read about the ghost army in ww2

    the only thing they did was fake attacks by using sound or set up fake vehicles misleading the nazi’s.

  6. Tell them they need to muddy and soot up those decoys to improve the deception. Matte paint. No shiny stuff in a combat zone. Maybe a dent or two in the shield as well. Graffiti on it couldn’t hurt either. While they’re at it, why not knock together a 19th century Russian field artillery piece? Mess with their heads.

  7. So another decoy idea- you take a good visible hole/crater in the ground on a elevated position. You span a thin tarp over it and project a juicy target from below or above on the tarp. Viewed from above with a drone, those “moving” targets can look like a real thing. Heck.. you could track the drone and give the whole show perspective. Not much to transport, just a thin tarp, a beamer, some 3d rendered footage – thats it. Let them bomb and romp on some empty area to there hearts content.
    Con: Works only during the day

  9. Once you throw some dirt and mud on it you would never know.

  10. Cool concept, but rather than spend all that labor and Materiel on a Steel Decoy make it out of wood or plastic or better yet inflatable ones

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