How widespread is the use of decoy weaponry in modern warfare? | DW News

How widespread is the use of decoy weaponry in modern warfare? | DW News

Ingenuity and diversionary tactics are part and parcel of Ukraine’s effort to win the war against Russia this includes producing fake tanks and artillery pieces to trick the Russians into using their valuable real weapons to destroy Ukrainian decoys but just who is behind making The Fakes that are saving the real items from destruction an M7 Howitzer destroyed by Russian fire except that it’s not a real howitz but rather a model these fake Western artillery pieces are made by volunteers their decoys meant to fool Russian soldiers into wasting expensive Munitions to destroy them the Russians see the fake artillery from drones and cannot distinguish the model from real weapons proper camouflage also plays a role the military showed me how The Fakes look on the Russian screens we used to create more detailed models but the military told me they don’t need all this the main thing is to have the basic elements and there’s more than enough detail here for how they see this stuff russlan used to make furniture a year ago he received a request from the military to make models of weapons he made his own drawings based on photos from the internet we’ve already made more than a hundred models one real Howitzer costs at least $3 million so we’ve already saved about $300 million for our army a fake Howitzer costs about ,000 while the Russian projectile that destroys it costs $35,000 this is what fascinates us that we can do something here in civilian life that really helps the Army helps to save the guys here Craftsmen are working on a model of a Soviet era artillery piece it’s made of plywood tin sheets and scrap metals this is the finished product a cannon almost 10 m long the model has enough detail to be indistinguishable from a real Cannon when seen from a drone michelo is a second generation Carpenter what he wants most is for the products he has worked on to be destroyed as soon as possible if the Russians watch from drones and it looks like a real one there will be air strikes more strikes on our fake weapons mean more lives saved for our military so that they don’t have to take risks the more air strikes the better these Craftsmen can make models of Western Radars and even the German Iris tea air defense system system Ukrainian veteran and Military analyst Alexi hetman emphasizes that it is necessary to keep a balance between the resources spent and their effectiveness if they start creating special units and allocating a large number of people and forces to do this it won’t be worth it the molders work but they don’t protect 100% against enemy attacks they can confuse the enemy sometimes and that’s okay that is if even one missile hits the dummy that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars it’s already a success these Ukrainian engineering units don’t disclose Which models they use and where but they want to generate as much support as possible to continue their work springing Frank lewi here he’s a senior lecturer in strategic studies at Portsmouth University and a former UK military intelligence officer Frank how widespread is the use of decoy Weaponry in Modern Warfare good afternoon there’s a long and Noble history of this kind of deception going way back way beyond the second world war but notably in the Second World War the British and Americans managed to create an entire Army of inflatable and wooden tanks which deceived the Germans into misplacing the D-Day uh invasion in my time uh we in NATO were seriously discomforted by the Serbian efforts at Deception very much along the lines of what you saw there in your report to the effect that when we went to do battle damage assessment in Kosovo expecting 400 Soviet uh wrong Serbian tanks to be destroyed we found four so in terms of the cost benefit as the analyst said there indeed ran through the whole report this is absolutely uh it’s it’s well it’s not fundamental it’s a really important element of modern warfare and quite a covert one and as was said there it’s not just artillery pieces it’s across the board you can create uh wooden headquarters or anti-aircraft systems radar sets there’s a limit to it though and uh I think now we’re getting to the point where High defin TV footage can challenge the the kind of efforts being made there but certainly they’re very important what’s your assessment Frank of the itical advantages provided by these decoys well they can be used in many ways so let me let me give you an example there’s all kinds of nuances in this so let’s say you you know you you create your inflatable tank well a good analyst a good photo analyst will be able to tell the tell the the fake from the real one not just by the way it looks and that’s quite difficult actually but also by the detrus around it the tracks because of course any tank or artillery system has to get there so what tends to be done done is the clever deployment clever deployments of these items will include will probably put them where previously there have been a tank or a gun so it’s surrounded by the detritus of an artillery team or or indeed a tank crew the fuel cans or the artillery shells which will of course look very real and of and you can add to that by having dummies or mannequins as well if you want to be really nuanced about it you have a tank and you you’ll place an infrared Source in it to mimic the engine perhaps an old diesel generator or something like that so all this has been done in the past so there’s a lot of nuance behind this what the Russians have been doing apparently is because they do this as well needless to say on both sides is uh they will uh deploy a fake unit or asset in a certain place for for a number of days and it’ll be determined as a fake they’ll put a real one there then and use it to Ambush any Ukrainian attack on that so there’s all sorts of nuances and ways you can use this very effective and the ukrainians have been really good at this throughout the war now duping the enemy confusing them deceiving them as you put it uh these tactics have been around for a long time uh can you give us some examples that go beyond decoys of artillery or just things in the field yes so let’s take an example himar systems you you saw you saw a similar looking truck there being made it was an IR uh but the ukrainians and indeed companies in Czech Republic and elsewhere make these things by the Dozen and one particular uh manufacturer turn turns out a couple of dozen uh highas fake high Mar units a month and the Russians declared halfway through I think last year that they had taken down they killed they destroyed 22 highas launchers the fact is they’ve maybe done one or two okay and we know that because at that time at that time they the Ukraine only had 16 okay Frank thank you very much our military analyst Frank ledridge there thank you well I’m joined Now by military analyst Marina morone from the war studies department at King’s College in London Marina it’s good to see you again how common is the use of decoy Weaponry in Modern Warfare good evening Brent well what was have to understand about decoys as sunu said some more than 2,000 years ago that all Warfare is about deception so I would argue that decoys or as the Russians refer to it masarova is an essential part of warfare for especially for both um Ukrainian and Russian forces who come from this tradition of using decoys in different fields in electromagnetic spectrum also physical decoys as we have seen in the report so it is very important and Mar do we know of any cases where decoys have been decisive in diverting enemy attention away from genuine targets well there are a couple of cases in Ukraine so one from the Russian side was placing decoy trenches in zoria and then luring the Ukrainian forces essentially to the trenches and for the Ukrainian side they have been using decoys throughout um for instance decoys on an Airfield depicting a s25 um jet bombed by Russians uh wasting a lot of money so both sides have used quite a lot of different techniques from capes that um Russian reconnaissance uses in order not to be detected because these capes protect their bodies and and um basically uh prevent them from emitting heat so they cannot be seen at night and so we we have seen quite a lot going on in this war and both sides have used quite similar tactics when it comes to decoy because it’s all about information superiority confusing your enemy um giving them the false impression smoking mirrors yeah the smoking mirrors these tactics as you say they’ve been around a very long time can you give us some examples that go beyond artillery decoys well of course we can we we should be thinking about this broadly for instance GPS spoofing is also a way of of creating a decoy because you manipulate essentially the information and another example which one might not associate with a military operation for instance is a fake video of zansky deep fake video saying to his troops they should lay down arms so that’s a decoy it’s basically about manipulating the information that’s available to your adversary military analyst Marina Maron as always we appreciate your time and your insights Marina thank you thank you for having me

Ingenuity and diversionary tactics are part and parcel of Ukraine’s effort to win the war against Russia. This includes producing fake tanks and artillery pieces to trick the Russians into using their valuable real weapons to destroy Ukrainian decoys.

Chapters
00:00 Who is behind making the fake items?
03:53 Frank Ledwidge, Military analyst
08:11 Marina Miron, Military Analyst

#russiaukrainewar #decoyweaponry #wartactics

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