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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.
In Soviet Russia, tank.. erm .. you blow up .. er... never mind.
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Spies beware: the facilities which house the inflatable weapons will be guarded around-the-clock by vicious balloon dogs.
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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
Yeah, except they, you know, agreed not to.
Whale
Looks like reasonable radar decoys have been around for 24 years
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/H000308.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5786786.html
Run out of ammo, paint logs black, prop them on a wall pointed at the enemy, retreat, profit!
The proper word is "decoy".
It's a very valid strategy too. If there are 2 or 3 real targets, they may be easy to neutralize. What if those targets became 3000? You'll have an awful lot of your resources spread out to blow up non-targets. After a while, morale can stop dropping when the troops are sent out on yet another mission to blow up a balloon. And that can be dangerous. Thinking that they're "neutralizing" another balloon, and running into a real armed battalion would be a disaster.
The same applies to all kinds of other scenarios.
Decoys are useful for lots more than just defensive purposes. If intelligence says an area is occupied, and you're trying to pull a group out quietly, they may be diverted around such decoys, and right into a bigger trap.
But, if the decoys can be identified, that may not prove anything. 2000 decoy units and 3 real units, you could assume that the real units are protecting the places of value, right? Not necessarily. They only need to be close enough to react. So you have a real unit in front of Bunker A, and decoys in front of Bunkers B and C, you wouldn't necessarily want to attach Bunker A.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
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.
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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.
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!
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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.
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Except Minuteman were never railroad deployed.
They were always road delivered to silos.
And since railhubs were always 2nd and 3rd tier targets right after C3, nuclear bases and air fields, having them hidden in the rolling stock of the US wasn't that much of a decoy.
Russia on the other hand was better suited to hiding things out in the boondocks on rail sidings.
"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."
They are much less expensive than an (accurate) enemy airstrike. A sortie that hits a tanker, perhaps two or three times, delivers ordnance on the dummy target, then returns to base eats up fuel, resources and MANY man-hours that could be used elsewhere.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Your statement is generally true with an exception. I used to drive truck and got one of these loads (probably a decoy load). I wnet through a scale house and got poped for a random inspection and they wanted to open the cargo doors. I called the 800 number to declare the seal was being broken and before I got off the phone about 4 black SUVs entered the parking lot and stopped the inspection. Of course they claimed they were looking from something in another truck and required all the resorces of the DOT officers, but I suspected it was something different as the weight on the Bill of lading didn't seem to match the weight that was in the trailer.
As for the rules of war, Well they only apply once you are in an actual war. We wouldn't technically be in a war until invaded or congress declared war and the battlefield came to the homeland. Once war broke out in the area, then the rules of war would apply.
It's one of those depends on what the meaning of "is" is things.
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If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
"Is that really Johnny? He isn't moving or talking or eating."
"Well, you know the old saying. If it looks like a duck, and it has the same heat and radar signature as a duck, then it's probably a duck."
"You're right. I'm sorry Johnny!"
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A few things to note about the class 7 Radio Active placards. If you are in a large city, often the law requires the truck to take a bypass route unless they are delivering inside the city, then you must take the most direct route to the destination. This is true for all Placarded Trucks and in most cases, even non-placarded Hazmat loads. (yes, there are some loads (or there were 10-15 years ago) that contain hazardous materials but not in a quantity to require being placarded but you had to otherwise follow the hazardous material routes.
The other thing is that certain types of X-ray films will require a 7.1 radioactive placard. I'm pretty sure they got rid of subclass placards for radioactive so it would just be a "7 radio active" placard now. I also had an old bomber sight from an some WWII bomber that was actually radioactive. I found it in a garage where I moved to and found out it was radioactive when attempting to see what it might be worth. I was able to FedEX it to a museum that handled it from there. Strangely, it was going to cost around $2500 to dispose of it, I couldn't legally sell it, and the museum took it for free but I had to pay an additional $10 to ship it to them.
Anyways, I figured I would mention that so you would know that simply staying off the outer belts of most large cities would be enough to avoid the class 7 placarded trucks and even if you get close to one, it's quite possible- actually more likely, that it is because of any number of relatively harmless materials in comparison. But yea, I agree, I wouldn't be following one either just because of what it might actually be.