In a dusty workshop, a unique group of Ukrainian weapons experts race to produce artillery guns that will never be fired, radar trucks that cannot detect anything, and missiles without explosives.

The pieces are decoys that aim to draw Russian fire, wasting enemy ammunition, missiles and drones while protecting real equipment and the soldiers manning it.

The team’s skill, honed over more than a year, is shaping plastic, scrap wood, foam and metal into copies of advanced weapon systems, precise enough to convince Russian operators of drone cameras and battle-seasoned troops on the ground that they are real military targets.

They measure success by how quickly their products are destroyed. “When the military come to us and says ‘we are out of these’, it means we were totally successful in our job,” says one.

‘A for Effort’: inside a Ukrainian factory making decoy kit
Emma Graham-Harrison 4 Sep 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/a-psychological-weapon-inside-a-ukrainian-factory-making-decoy-kit

In <839efcc7-9b73-40e0-9c02-2c670fbaff53n@googlegroups.com> chromebook test <chromiumtest56@gmail.com> writes:

>In a dusty workshop, a unique group of Ukrainian weapons experts race to pr=
>oduce artillery guns that will never be fired, radar trucks that cannot det=
>ect anything, and missiles without explosives.

>The pieces are decoys that aim to draw Russian fire, wasting enemy ammuniti=
>on, missiles and drones while protecting real equipment and the soldiers ma=
>nning it.
[snip]
>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/a-psychological-weapon-inside=
>-a-ukrainian-factory-making-decoy-kit

A *great* NOVA/PBS episode from 1990 which did a great
job of covering this stuff

https://archive.org/details/DisguisesofWar

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