From the Trojan horse to the straw-stuffed burlap paratroopers known as Ruperts dropped on D-Day to confuse the Germans, deception in war is as old as war itself. As weapons technologies evolve, so must plans that try to counter their advantages through cunning. In the Ukraine, drones have made the battlefield highly visible; And that’s where the lures come in.
Right after the invention of the tank in World War I, models made of wooden frames covered in painted burlap were deployed to distract and confuse the enemy. In the Ukraine, the Russians claim to have eliminated several US-supplied HIMARS precision rocket launchers last June; the Ukrainians maintain that none have been lost on the battlefield. Somewhere in the discrepancy is a small fleet of replicas, wooden models mounted on heavy trucks and cruising along muddy tracks behind the front lines.
“You have to understand that this is a war of innovation,†says Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian government. “Drones and satellites are more sophisticated and see in more detail. It is more difficult to deceive the enemy that has cameras and live video images. But high quality lures can work very well.â€
In the past, Ukrainian military decoy efforts have been more of a spur-of-the-moment, amateurish effort to piece together bits of useless material. “Let’s just say they were crafts,†says Andrii Rymaruk, director of military affairs at Come Back Alive, an NGO that has been at the forefront of supplying Ukrainian soldiers with supplies since the start of the war in Donbas in 2014. Since 2018 , Come Back Alive works on the design of inflatable prototypes, such as those usually used by armies in training exercises. Before the invasion, the higher ups were not impressed. “The army told us: ‘We don’t need it,'” Rymaruk says.
Inflatable lures have several advantages. Wooden models are heavy and uncomfortable, they are made of several pieces. A vehicle is needed to transport them and a team to assemble and disassemble the wooden frame. An inflatable is sewn from nylon fabric, is cheaper to make, light enough to fit in a backpack, and “very quick to deploy,†says an engineer at Inflatech, a Czech company specializing in Soviet and Chinese inflatable weaponry. “The compressor is connected, and in ten minutes we have a tank.â€
Tanks, field artillery, mortars, machine guns; almost any piece of military equipment can be reproduced in inflatable form. The Russians, supposed masters of maskirovka, the art of disguise and military deception, have hot-air balloon factories that produce inflatables, including fighter jets that can be parked in rows to simulate a busy airbase. There are some problems recreating the thinnest and most protruding parts, such as the antennae of radar systems. The Inflatech engineer explains that “the barrel of a tank, for example, is too long and the pressure is not high enough, so we have to use aluminum tubes as supportâ€. The demand is increasing; Inflatech has seen its orders increase by 30% since the start of the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, the aftershocks are becoming more real. The detachable wooden tanks are so detailed and realistic, Gerashchenko says, “you can’t tell they’re fake from 15 feet away.” In addition, trucks drive through the fields to create tracks, and a certain volume of communications is broadcast to give the impression of a military position. Inflatech uses flexible reflectors to simulate the heat of a freshly fired weapon and fool drone thermal cameras. Decoys must also be capable of producing a valid radar signal, despite containing only air. “We’re making quite a few technical improvements, but I don’t want to share them right now,†Rymaruk says.
The decoys could be effective in countering the threat of Russian Lancet drones, which are currently decimating Ukrainian artillery. “The Lancet drone is the most dangerous for us,†says Gerashchenko. “It has a range of 40 kilometers and carries 3 kilos of explosive. Very useful for destroying artillery.†A Lancet drone, produced in Russia, probably costs less than $50,000; an American M777 howitzer, used today by the Ukrainians, can cost about $4 million. “If the enemy sees you on the battlefield, you are not only dead,†says Gerashchenko, “it is also very expensive.†If, on the other hand, the Russians can be convinced to waste resources firing at decoys, Rymaruk says, “the enemy is being financially depleted.”
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
