The Indian Army has invited responses from domestic state-owned and private companies by June 6, to its request for information for ‘mock-up’ or fake Russian-origin T-90S/SK ‘Bhishma’ main battle tank platforms, to hoodwink killer enemy drones on the battlefield.Taking its cue from the Ukrainian military, which has extensively deployed mock-ups and decoys on its frontlines over the past three years to deceive Russian forces, the Army’s ‘request for information’ stated that ‘advancements in technology in the field of surveillance, detection and acquisition had made the battlefield transparent”.Hence, the need for these mock-ups or copies, to ‘preserve’ real main battle tanks from drone attacks in varied terrain. The Army operates 1100-1200 T-90 variants, the majority of which have been licence-built locally via a transfer of technology. A large number of T90s were operationally deployed to Ladakh after the Chinese army infringed the disputed Line of Actual Control between the neighbours in May 2020.The April 7 request for information detailed the army’s requirement for the proposed modular mock-ups to be an ‘exact MBT replica’ in height, width, ground clearance, its slope of armour and other external fitments like explosive reactive armour, radio antennae, wind sensors, external fuel tanks and anti-aircraft machine guns, amongst other features.The dummy platform would also be required to duplicate the T-90’s acoustic features and generate its thermal signatures, both of which the incoming drone’s sensors would be able to detect and be fooled into attacking. However, by striking the dummy the enemy drone swarms would not only expend their ammunition, thereby neutralising their offensive capability, but also enable ground formations to field their real tanks elsewhere in more advantageous positions.A request for proposal or bid for the replica main battle tanks will follow, but the request for information did not indicate when this would be.Germany’s Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – the Desert Fox – was one of the early masters of deception involving main battle tanks, when he famously and successfully employed their inflatable or wooden mock-ups mounted on trucks or other platforms in his North African campaign to create the illusion of larger forces. German trucks and even Beetle Volkswagen cars, disguised to look like tanks by adding canvas structures shaped like turrets and gun barrels collectively misled the Allies over both the location and size of Rommel’s Panzer units in the cat-and-mouse game the rivals engaged in during this critical campaign.The brilliant German strategist often moved his real tanks at night, leaving the dummies visible during the day, effectively masking actual troop movements and outfoxing the Allies more than once. He also deployed dummy fuel tanks, fake artillery positions, and false supply dumps to trick Allied reconnaissance flights, which in those times were rudimentary and relatively easy to dupe, compared to presently.Comparable effortsMeanwhile, in a related ploy, the Indian Air Force too plans on deploying replicas of its principal fighters like Rafales, Sukhoi Su-30MKI and Tejas at several of its frontline bases at Leh, Ambala and Jodhpur as part of its ‘passive defence strategy’ to dupe an enemy attack.Sourced domestically, these fakes, much like the T-90 MBT mock-ups, would be aimed at ‘confusing’ the adversary’s surveillance and weapon-guidance systems, by fooling them into targeting the dummies, thereby ensuring the real combat platforms’ safety and availability for deployment. According to the independent defence news aggregator and commentator Indian Defence Research Wing, these decoy platforms would be ‘lightweight, rapidly deployable and designed for minimal maintenance’.In its March 22 post, the website stated that the Defence Research and Development Organisation, experienced in deception technologies like radar-reflective chaff, could lead the IAF’s ‘decoy fighter’ project, with series production executed by private or state-owned corporations, for around Rs 1 crore per dummy. IDRW anticipated the IAF would issue a request for information for these fake combat platforms by mid-2025, with procurement targeted for 2027-2028.Despite satellites, drones, and artificial intelligence, the basic principle of deception in combat has proven effective over millennia, as it principally served in wasting enemy ammunition, confusing intelligence, spawning hesitation and allowing tremendous scope for surprise by the deceiver.Decoys: Forever popularThe use of decoys on the battlefield aimed at making the enemy waste time, weaponry, resources and morale, is as old as war itself.Depiction of the Trojan Horse on a Corinthian aryballos (ca. 560 BC) found in Cerveteri (Italy). Photo: Kaiserlich Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Public Domain.Possibly the first and most famous of such subterfuge, involving the apocryphal Trojan horse, is attributed to the Greeks and dates back to the 12th century BCE. After 10 years of besieging Troy, the Greeks pretended to abandon the war, but left behind a giant wooden horse as an “offering” to the gods. But hidden inside the massive horse were elite Greek warriors, who then emerged, vanquished the Trojans and captured Troy.In medieval times, fake camps and burning additional extra fires at night were used to give the illusion of greater numbers to hide troop movements, or in some cases a combination of both. During World War I, for instance, dummy soldiers, cardboard tanks, and fake trenches were used to draw enemy fire or mask true intentions by either side. But with advances in technology, sonic deception came into being, in which sound recordings were used to simulate troop or artillery movements to deceive, and presumably demoralise the enemy.World War II, however, became the gold standard for battlefield decoys.Other than Rommel’s aforementioned dodges, the Allies, for their part, launched a massive deception in Operation Fortitude ahead of D-Day, featuring fake inflatable tanks, wooden aircraft, phoney radio traffic and a phantom army led by US General George Patton from Dover in the UK. The British also successfully used sound engineers, artists, and illusionists to stage battlefield illusions at various locations and in various battle zones during the War.The Russians were also amongst the pioneers of battlefield duplicity via their “Maskirovka” doctrine that encompassed a broad range of measures for military deception, including camouflage, denial and disinformation. The term literally means “masking” or “disguise” and is used to mislead the enemy regarding the presence, disposition and intentions of forces and emerged as a key component of Russian military strategy, aimed at achieving surprise and securing combat operations.Rapid advances in technology during the Cold War that followed, led to the clever use of radar reflectors that were used to mimic ships or aircraft on enemy radar, fake missile silos and airfields, designed to confuse satellite reconnaissance and electronic spoofing or jamming and disseminating fake signals to mislead enemy systems.Thereafter, decoys in the drone and cyber era in the 21st century took this deceit to significantly higher levels with inflatable or wooden High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, fake F-16s and autonomous dummy vehicles, all ably exploited by Ukraine’s military to confuse Russia’s armed forces.All this merely serves to confirm the ancient wisdom of Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu’s dictum that all warfare was, indeed, based on deception.