Things that get blown-up

[4scourge7]

This has become a story on the BBC today for some reason as apparently it`s been standard practice in Russia for a few years.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article...nes/416711.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...n-military.html

Reminds me of the `Phantom Army` inflated in southern England that helped trick the German`s into thinking that Calais was still the intended site for D-Day.

Cheers, Ian

[Hornet]

I would like to have the Su-27 for my backyard !!!

Cheers,

Hornet

[Hawkeye's Hobbies]

Good idea for the Mk I Eyeball, but modern sensors have the ability to tell the real deal from the fake. IR signature, radar reflectivity all are methods to see fact from fiction. Cool to have for a party decoration though!

[Kalashnikov-47]

The USAF experimented with those in the 80's. There were some inflatable F-16's at

Ramstein. Decided it wasn't worth the bother and discontinued the program.

[Julien (UK)]

We did this back in the 1940's so why its news now I dont know??

Julien

[dbec]

BEST BOUNCE HOUSE EVAR!

[Sunliner]

Looks better than many of my completed models. ;)

-Mike

[pbcheez]

epic backyard applications

[4scourge7]

Like Julien, I don`t know why this suddenly became news.

As for the usefullness or otherwise, Cold War experiments were suspended as everything would be imolated in a nuclear fireburst, not a lot of point in decoys there.

Modern day; signatures are both masked and mimicked widely, the ability to fool sensors has been repeatedly demonstrated, in Britain `lights` are being used to make vehicles `disappear`, towed decoys are used to mask naval vessels, stealth hides jets from radar.

The Russian story is interesting and a little amusing, but I wouldn`t dismiss it out of hand.

Cheers, Ian

PS- love the bouncy castle idea, how cool would that be after a few beers.

Edited October 12, 2010 by Ian Buick

[spejic]

Good idea for the Mk I Eyeball, but modern sensors have the ability to tell the real deal from the fake. IR signature, radar reflectivity all are methods to see fact from fiction. Cool to have for a party decoration though!

The Serbs used far more primitive decoys than these in Kosovo, and they were embarrassingly effective.

We did this back in the 1940's so why its news now I dont know??

Well, we've had air planes since the 40's and new ones of those are still news. This is the latest generation of fake weapons.

[Jay Chladek]

From a visual standpoint, a blown up decoy does have its uses. In combat, a typical fighter plane normally doesn't have the IR detection gear or somebody on board to tell that what they are shooting at might be a fake. Or the attack being staged might have to be so lightning quick that a pilot can't afford to uplink his imagery to someone else to analyze the sensor data. Somebody mentioned Kosovo and Iraq did similar things during Desert Storm by rolling out fake mobile SCUDs to make the Scud hunting forces more confused.

While a photo analyst back at a base can take the time to interpret what is a fake or not, combat forces don't always have that luxury and a few minutes of confusion can make a difference in combat. It is a form of camouflage like anything else.

[Berkut]

Good idea for the Mk I Eyeball, but modern sensors have the ability to tell the real deal from the fake. IR signature, radar reflectivity all are methods to see fact from fiction. Cool to have for a party decoration though!

They imitate the heat signature of combat units, fooling enemy infra-red detectors.

RCS signature is also preserved.