Britain’s military is developing new ways to deceive the enemy on the battlefield, including using dummy tanks, inflatable air defence systems and other decoys to trick drones into hitting fake targets, The Times understands.
Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used inflatable tanks, wooden rocket launchers and fake aircraft to fool each other’s militaries, with one Ukrainian military source saying there had been a “decoy arms race” in the country.
General Sir Jim Hockenhull, one of the UK’s most senior military chiefs, said the war in Ukraine had shown the UK’s armed forces that it needed to change the way it fights so it can better hide to avoid drones given their effectiveness on the front line.
He said that although the army would typically deploy 14 tanks together in an armoured squadron, in the future these would have to be dispersed, so they would be harder to locate. The troops would then come together from different locations for a major offensive.
“It is a fair assumption now that if you are seen or if you emit a signature you can be targeted, and un-crewed systems play a critical role in that,” he said at an event at Malloy Aeronautics in Maidenhead to mark the launch of the UK’s new drone strategy. “That’s shaping how we are thinking about how we operate, and the concentration of headquarters and dispersion on the battlefield.”
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Hockenhull is the head of strategic command, which oversees space, special forces and military intelligence in the armed forces.
It is understood that as well as spreading soldiers and armoured vehicles out across the battlefield so they are more easily hidden, military experts are devoting more time to looking at new ways of tricking the enemy.
Both Russia and Ukraine have employed decoys to deceive their enemy into wasting expensive missiles and drones in attacks.
Ukraine, for example, is believed to have used decoys such as wooden rocket launchers, howitzers made out of pipes and radar systems constructed from oil barrels. In one case Russia was said to have wasted a munition on what appeared to be a fake Sukhoi Su-25 ground-attack aircraft. Russia has also used decoys, with Ukraine’s 116th Mechanized Brigade publishing a video of an inflatable Russian T-72 decoy last year, according to reports. It is now believed to be using fake weapons in significant numbers in Crimea. It is understood Ukraine has developed specialist technology, with the aid of the UK, that can help tell the difference between decoys and real weapons systems.
The army is already believed to have designed inflatable Challenger tanks, a version of an inflatable air-defence system and is now trying to create more sophisticated decoys, either using metal or plastics.
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Explaining the use of dummy tanks, an army source said: “If you bunch your tanks together you are going to come up against drone swarms which we have seen in the Ukraine conflict particularly. If an enemy knows we are using decoys it will make them doubt what they are looking at. Would they want to waste a $20,000 drone on something that might be decoy? If you have three tanks, of which one … is a decoy, it makes the force look bigger.”
The source added that if the enemy fired upon a decoy armoured vehicles then this could unmask an artillery position.
The UK military is also looking at new camouflage methods and how technology could reduce a heat signature so troops cannot be picked up by drones.
Similar deception methods were used during the First and Second World War, though they were less common during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In preparation for D-Day, real tanks were replaced by inflatable ones to make the Germans think the allies had more tanks than they did. They also helped hide the fact that final preparations were being made for the invasion.
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Military chiefs believe there needs to be a renewed emphasis on what is known as the “art of deception”.
Britain is pouring billions of pounds into new drone research and development, with thousands of drones having already been sent to the front line in Ukraine.
James Cartlidge, the procurement minister, who spoke at the drone strategy launch, said: “The conflict in Ukraine has been an incubator for new ways of war and we need to learn and implement those hard-fought lessons. Rapidly being able to develop and upgrade un-crewed systems will be key to gaining battlefield advantage and we must seize this opportunity to grow and sustain such skills and capabilities in the UK.”
