Russia is investing in an arsenal of inflatable decoy military equipment as part of an effort to confuse its enemies.
“If you study the major battles of history, you see that trickery wins every time,” the engineer leading Aleksei A. Komarov told the New York Times in an article published Wednesday. The U.S. military famously produced a “ghost army” of inflatable tanks and vehicles during World War II to successfully confuse the Nazis about where Allied forces intended to land in France on D-Day.
“Nobody ever wins honestly,” said Komarov. He oversees military sales at Rusbal, a hot air balloon company that also produces bounce houses.
The New York Times tweeted a photo of a fake life-size MIG-31 fighter jet as it slowly inflated in a field outside Moscow.
“Nobody ever wins honestly.” On Russia’s inflatable tanks, jets and missile launchers: https://t.co/Aovfj7JxFH pic.twitter.com/Is1VJIJ1k5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 12, 2016
“There was a lot of skepticism at first,” Maria Oparina, the director of Rusbal, told the New York Times. However, the demonstrations appear to have impressed generals in the Russian military.
The balloon battalion is very much in line with Russia’s long-standing “maskirovka” strategy of using deception to keep enemies on their toes during peace and at war. The company is contracted with the Russian government as part of a decade-long $660 billion arms development program.
One of the company’s signature products, a T-80 tank that inflates in about five minutes, is a little over 150 pounds and its listed price is about $16,000. The number of inflatable tanks Rusbal has produced remains classified, but the company is employing nearly 100 full-time workers.
Rusbal previously tried to sell $3 million worth of fake S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran, only for the Middle Eastern country to decide it has no interest in using them. At least some of the tanks and missile launchers they produce are designed to not just be inflated, but exploded.
