Photo: technabob
As the old saying goes, if you don’t got it, fake it. The British army is severely lacking in fleet and soldiers, so a new tactic could be to try and fool the enemy into thinking it’s better off than it really is.
Following a new study of urban warfare performed in Germany by Lieutenant-General Patrick Sanders, the conclusion is that the British army might have to resort to an old tactic of fooling the enemy by deploying inflatable tanks.
The tactic goes back to WWII but was recently used by the US and Russia, too. The idea would be that the enemy could be easily fooled during air surveillance, The Times notes. Because the British army lacks in mass, it must boost its “deception capability,” the study concludes.
The 2010 defense review cut Britain’s fleet of Challenger 2 tanks from 325 to 227. The country counts with a little over 77,000 regular troops, so the conclusion was that, for the UK to fight and win an urban conflict by 2035, it would need “lots of soldiers.”
Well, that, and giant, fake, inflatable tanks.
“Wendy Eagle, a warrant officer in the Royal Logistic Corps who has twice served in Afghanistan and who took part in the urban study, said last week that deception was ‘absolutely necessary’ to make up for Britain’s small-scale military,” The Times writes.
“The army needed to force its enemies to ‘spend time working out what is real’,” the report adds, and this could be achieved by making them think they have a larger fleet.
Of course, giving out specific numbers and revealing the tactic sort of defeats the purpose of making their enemies think they’re better off then they are. At least the will have the element of surprise in terms of the location of said fleet of more or less real tanks.
The tactic goes back to WWII but was recently used by the US and Russia, too. The idea would be that the enemy could be easily fooled during air surveillance, The Times notes. Because the British army lacks in mass, it must boost its “deception capability,” the study concludes.
The 2010 defense review cut Britain’s fleet of Challenger 2 tanks from 325 to 227. The country counts with a little over 77,000 regular troops, so the conclusion was that, for the UK to fight and win an urban conflict by 2035, it would need “lots of soldiers.”
Well, that, and giant, fake, inflatable tanks.
“Wendy Eagle, a warrant officer in the Royal Logistic Corps who has twice served in Afghanistan and who took part in the urban study, said last week that deception was ‘absolutely necessary’ to make up for Britain’s small-scale military,” The Times writes.
“The army needed to force its enemies to ‘spend time working out what is real’,” the report adds, and this could be achieved by making them think they have a larger fleet.
Of course, giving out specific numbers and revealing the tactic sort of defeats the purpose of making their enemies think they’re better off then they are. At least the will have the element of surprise in terms of the location of said fleet of more or less real tanks.
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