Slashdot Mirror
Russian Army Upgrades Its Inflatable Weapons
jamax writes "According to the BBC: 'The Russian military has come up with an inventive way to deceive the enemy and save money at the same time: inflatable weapons. They look just like real ones: they are easy to transport and quick to deploy. You name it, the Russian army is blowing it up: from pretend tanks to entire radar stations.' But the interesting thing is these decoys are not dumb - actually they appear to be highly advanced for what I thought was a WWII-grade aerial photography countermeasures. Apparently they have heat signatures comparable with the military tech they represent, as well as the same radar signature."
This is kinda like when I used to create decals of myself and spray them all around the Counter Strike maps.
I want something like this I can send in my stead to my mother-in law's for Thanksgiving.
Normally, yes, but YOU don't.
Inflate them with poison gas. Then, it really is a weapon. Without, isnt really just an inflatable replica and not a weapon?
As long as they have the same heat signature, what could go wrong?
In Soviet Russia, tank.. erm .. you blow up .. er... never mind.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
Spies beware: the facilities which house the inflatable weapons will be guarded around-the-clock by vicious balloon dogs.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The Confederates did something like this in the early days of the US Civil War--they painted logs to look like cannons, and they often succeeded in fooling Union surveillance. Why "Quaker" guns? Because the Quakers were (and are) avowed pacifists (except for the one who was elected President of the US). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_Gun
:wq
In other words: They've improved the realism of decoy tech that has been in use for decades.
With the addition of aluminised foil and a couple of appropriately applied electric blankets.
Given the nature of modern surveillance techniques, I would have thought a thicket of missile launchers "popping up" in a new location, without any movement provenance would raise suspicions, even given US military ham-handedness.
I hope the units tasked with deploying these assets have plenty of puncture kits.....
But the interesting thing is these decoys are not dumb
Correction: They are dumb.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Welcome to Six Decades Ago...
The Allied forces used this "Technology" to deceive the Nazis prior to the Normandy landing. How this is news, I have no idea.
if they cost 1% of the price of the real thing, they are in the same price range as the weapons aimed at them, plus they still need soldiers and support. So not ideal in a war of attition. When do they roll out the inflatable MIRV?
So one bullet to one of these 'death balloons' and all those scary Russians would die from their own Super EVIL WEAPON. Sounds brilliant!
Decoys have been used through martial history. Inflatable decoys (with heaters to fake infrared signatures) have been around for a long time as well. Fooling radar is more difficult.
I wonder if this was part of the inspiration for Ruse? Or maybe vice versa?
Russia breaks new ground in the inflatable doll industry.
Run out of ammo, paint logs black, prop them on a wall pointed at the enemy, retreat, profit!
I see this more like something China, North Korea, or Iran would use to inflate(no pun intended for once) force estimations. Park them alongside a couple real tanks or launchers, and all of a sudden a tank company turns into a battalion.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Blonds with huge missile silos, known to be the favorites of Slashdotters, who blog at them incessantly.
Urahara Kisuke is working for the Russian millitary now? what happened to the candy store?
$ unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep
This is not new. Back when I was in ROTC (the 1980's), I recall an article where photorecon people found out that they were duped. They assumed that a set of nuclear subs were berthed for a long period of time for repairs. A storm came through and bent one of the "submarines". So the presumption was that the Soviets knew when our sats went overhead and between the times they set sail on one sub and inflated another in its place. So the Soviets had a sub patroling somewhere unknown because we thought it was in for repairs.
Better yet, inflate them with explosive gases. Something shoots at them, they blow 'up real good.
Probably the response to that would be to drop flachettes everywhere. Anything that doesn't pop when is real.
They are already inflated with deadly corbomite.
In World War II there was an entire army of inflatable weapons in England right across from Calais, France. Its purpose was to convince the Germans that the invasion would come at that point. It really came at Normandy.
During the invasion they even dropped chaff over the Channel near the fake army to make the Germans think the invasion was happening there. Both sides had radar, but the secret was that the Allies had microwave radar and not just VHF radar. The chaff looked like an invasion fleet to the radar.
As part of the ruse, they had General Patton running around inspecting the "troops" and getting them ready for the invasion.
I bet there'd be a huge market for these! What boy wouldn't want an inflatable rocket launcher? I know I do!
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
I can think of situations when something realistic down to heat signature would come handy.
Gosh, the Russian army better give up. Some slashdot geek has thought of the ultimate hole in their camouflage. Tracks! Who would have thought!
Except that they already knows this, and use weedwhackers and torches to create the various effects of a tank on the landscape. Very clever those military people. Almost like they know what they are doing.
That is why they also forbid the local kids from using them as bouncy castles. Would ruin the effect.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Inflatable ... Weapons.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
cuz that's the closest you'll come to getting in her pants anyway.
The Serbian military did it more recently. The success rate differs depending on who reports it (reference):
* DoD estimated 120 Serb tanks, 220 APCs destroyed; Clark stated that reports about NATO warplanes striking decoys and failing to destroy tanks and personnel carriers was a concerted disinformation campaign
* Reporters on the ground estimated 13 Serb tanks and < 100 armored personnel carriers destroyed, but noted the ruins of many different types of decoys hit by NATO forces (e.g., rusted tanks with broken parts, wood or canvas mock-ups). Other reports talk about microwave ovens being used inside decoys to generate cheap electronic signatures.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap : Realizing that mere belief in the gap was an extremely effective funding source, a series of similarly nonexistent Soviet military advances were constructed in a tactic now known as "policy by press release." These included claims of a nuclear-powered bomber, supersonic VTOL flying saucers, and only a few years later, the "missile gap."
I thought the current estimates of Russian military spending were inflated.
Gentlemen, we must not allow a balloon gap!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The Confederates did something like this in the early days of the US Civil War--they painted logs to look like cannons, and they often succeeded in fooling Union surveillance. Why "Quaker" guns? Because the Quakers were (and are) avowed pacifists (except for the one who was elected President of the US).
The first emperor of china had a whole damn army of realistic clay figures (each with different facial features and painted to look alive). Put a couple units of real people alternating between atanding at attention and moving around in the mix, and any invader looking over the wall would shit his pants at the sight of the vast number of armed soldiers ready to fight.
You can't take the sky from me...
isn't a balloon with a heat source called a hot air balloon?
do fake russian balloon tanks still fool the enemy when they float idyllically by at 1000 feet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One problem with this new Russian secret weapon: They parade it in front of the world's cameras? It isn't too secret is it? Why would anybody in their right mind brag about the capabilities of a weapon that wholly depends on the enemy not being able to judge your capabilities?
If nobody knows that inflatable weapons can imitate heat signatures, the guy in the bomber doesn't even know he needs to be careful and might not notice signs that point to it being a decoy formation. That is the weapon I want, one that they aren't even prepared to deal with. Inflatable weapons are about deception and yet they come along with a list of things their new decoys can do.
Somebody is having fun playing with public opinion. It might not do the things they say, but they want the enemy to second guess itself before every move. OTOH maybe the weapon is already obsolete and they're trying to milk it for the last thing it's good for: publicity.
You might think It will make you look like a big shot, but wouldn't recommend blowing up any inflatable WMDs.
Can anyone say Gundam? They totally used inflatable decoys in the original & follow on Gundam series way back starting in '79.
And they worked so hard on it too.
Too bad that are not for sale on ebay... just the Tony Montana gun.
No post about the "ballooning" military budget?
-Styopa
This sounds like a plotline from Sluggy Freelance!
There isn't a professor Irving Schlock involved is there...?
This reminds of a cartoon I think I saw in Air Force magazine years ago.
As I recall, one panel shows some grunt putting the finishing touches on a wooden aircraft decoy.
Next panel shows people scrambling out of the way of an incoming enemy aircraft.
Last panel shows the result of the attack - with a wooden decoy bomb sitting in the remains of the decoy aircraft.
So, obviously that all we need is some good, inflatable bombs.
In Soviet Russia you blow up tank!
Well, except for the famous fighting Quakers of Philadephia, who have fought in all of the USA's wars, including the revolution.
And of course, General Smedley Butler, the most decorated marine evar.
And Nixon, as you mentioned.
sounds pretty expensive for a big balloon. I kinda expect less than 1/1000 cost.
Pictures from ww2 of inflatable decoy tanks:
http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=inflatable+tanks+ww2&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=wU2zTOqDCIn6sAO2lYyyDA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQsAQwAw&biw=1178&bih=718
Making sophisticated decoys (down to the radar signature) must be kind of expensive in terms of material and production... is it really that much more economical than the real thing?
They will create inflatable dolls of hot Russian nurses and schoolgirls
No sign of an inflatable DFA on the horizon :(
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'm always eager to learn. So... Does she, by any chance, happen to be a redhead?
I like the story from WWII before D-Day. The Allies had wooden and canvas tanks setup to confuse the German reconnaissance flights. The Germans showed that they'd seen through it by dropping a bomb in the center of the formation. There was no explosion. Curious soldiers investigated and saw that it was made out of wood, too!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
There is this thing called "snow". It doesn't even take that much snow to hide pretty deep tracks from aerial photos so there are many days in any given winter when tracks disappear overnight (and a lot more times when they do in two or three days).
As for aerial tracking... I don't have any expertise to comment on that. But then again, remember that this is russia we are talking about, not afghanistan. Perhaps they can hamper aerial intelligence enough that this kind of tricks succeed.
Old news, really. You can even buy your own Inflatable Army on the interweb:
http://www.military-decoy.com/military.php
I never thought I would read a story where an army blows up it's own weapons. Poor guy must get so light headed from blowing up those Russian Weapons of Mass Exhaustion... I know, that was bad (hides behind a penguin)
Aren't military vehicles generally measured in tens of millions of dollars each? If so, 100x cheaper still sounds like a six-digit number...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
In the Balkan war, the Serbian Army did not loose any of its armor to NATO air strikes. Inflatable decoys gave the pilots something to shoot at, keeping them from finding the real tanks hidden beneath haystacks etc. So this stuff works very well indeed.
I'm not sure why the BBC is calling this "new", or where the "upgrades" are. :\
The closest thing I could come up with is something to add a heat signature so they appear more realistic on thermal imagery--but again, that's not new at all. Way back in WWII, the Russians would just take an inflatable tank and just stick a little coal stove in it to give off heat.
"Kirov reporting"
I have heard of slow news days, but slow news decades?
09-f9-11-02-9* (G^GCA_++{>. RV>>>>+++ NO CARRIER
Honestly mum, she is a prototype of a blow up soldier and I am doing military research....... on her heat signature. It has to be perfect.
The British came up with this back in WW1 and the US Army used inflatable decoys in WW2 to deceive the Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army
Move over China, Your reign as King of the copiers has ended
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
During NATO attack on Serbia a lot of decoys were used with surprising efficiency. Some of those were disused tanks with an oven inside them, some were fake air strips (surprising how they couldn't destroy an airport in Batajnica... but they did plow the land around it though), and some were fake radio dishes (they used to mount ordinary radios on top of poles... once the bombs hit it, they just mounted another one)... Also invisible planes are not invisible (proven by the pictures of F-117 which was shot down)... And also those 'smart' bombs managed to hit an entire street in Batajnica (no soldiers there), cover half of Nis with casette bombs, hit a convoy of refugees etc... This just goes to say that reliance on 'smart' weapons is not a good idea... If a blowup tank can fool it (or the operator) why use them?