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Beating the Sensor Symphony

Why Decoys Still Matter

 

Col. David Acosta, US Army Reserve
Christopher Paul, PhD

 

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The character of conflict is changing at an exponential rate, and with these changes, the fog of war is lifting, moving us ever nearer to the transparent battlefield.¹ War is subject to ever-increasing transparency and more efficient kill chains because of the vast array of sensors deployed, particularly in the form of cheap, commercial drones. It is these drones, or more properly, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), combined with the presence of loitering munitions that “enhance sensor-shooter integration” and “raise situation awareness through battle damage assessment” that make today’s battlefield so lethal.² These sensors enable more efficient kill chains—the series of sequential steps needed to engage and kill a target.³

Notably, Russian and Chinese doctrine espouse kill chains for engaging command-and-control nodes. These kill chains are comprised of mobile signals intelligence cueing, UAS confirmation of target location, and artillery executing massed fires aimed at hitting their targets before opposed forces can even react.⁴ As Paul Dolan writes, “The threat to U.S. forces this system represents is not theoretical, it unfolds daily on the battlefields of Ukraine and represents the conditions under which American forces are expected to fight and win.”⁵ Given this outlook, it is easy to see why many feel that in the competition between hiders and finders, the finders appear to be winning.⁶

Even though war is hyper-accelerated, recent experiences in Ukraine show that decoys remain a powerful and effective tool for protecting key assets and preserving combat power. So, why do decoys persist and continue to succeed in ever more transparent operational environments? The answer, we’ll argue, is because decoys, and their various states of fidelity or realism, still have the power to distract sensors and sensor operators, inviting the closure of kill chains on false targets and creating opportunities for the obfuscation of real systems. Further, this injection of uncertainty has compounding effects on an adversary, imposing both economic (wasted munitions, increased burden on reconnaissance assets) and psychological costs.⁷

Building on and shaping this argument, we examine the current state of decoys, providing insights into their continued utility. Then, we explore the impact of operating conditions based on that information. From this analysis, we create a visual model that joint planners can use to identify optimal conditions for decoy utilization. We conclude with suggestions for future research. By analyzing and understanding the impact of variations in operating conditions on decoy effectiveness, we intend to help joint planners improve their intuition about when to use which kinds of decoys and to be better able to plan for the employment of decoys.

Understanding Decoys as Part of Deception

Since antiquity, decoys have had a place in war. From the siege of Troy to the forests of Ukraine, the ruse of a decoy has paid huge dividends despite war’s constantly changing character. As the sensor picture has changed and improved, decoys have also improved, retaining and reinforcing their relevancy. Within the last thirty-five years alone, numerous examples of decoy employment continue to demonstrate their effectiveness on ever more sensor saturated, complex battlefields. Regardless of the level of fidelity or employment, decoys have met the changes to the character of war by exploiting vulnerabilities in the operating conditions for each conflict.

To understand the importance of decoys, consider where they fit into the deception ecosystem. Deception, or more specifically military deception, is defined as activities intended to mislead and cause adversary actions or inactions that are beneficial to the friendly force.⁸ Even in the era of highly effective sensing systems, there are vulnerabilities which create opportunities to misrepresent reality, and thus deceive the enemy.⁹ With this in mind, Army and Marine Corps doctrine identify four key tactical purposes for leveraging decoys: increasing the survivability of key unit equipment and personnel; deceiving an enemy about the disposition of friendly forces; drawing out enemy fire and positions; and encouraging the enemy to expend munitions on relatively low-value targets, that is the decoys themselves.¹⁰ Thus a doctrinal definition of decoys is as “an imitation, in any form, of a person, object, or phenomenon intended to deceive adversary sensors and mislead adversary evaluation regarding the existence or condition of the subject it mimics.”¹¹ How good then does a decoy have to be to deceive, confuse, or divert an enemy?

Degrees of Decoy Fidelity

When constructing and employing a decoy, two main factors help to convince an adversary of the ruse: the decoy’s fidelity and realism. Fidelity addresses whether the decoy registers with the relevant sensor as the thing it represents. Realism concerns the plausibility and verisimilitude of the decoy’s deployment location—does the environment match its typical employment characteristics?¹² In deception, traditionally there have been three means used to convey or deny information or signatures to the deception target: physical, technical, and administrative.¹³ Of these three means, decoys fall most obviously into the physical category; however, as the need to for greater fidelity increases, decoys must incorporate technical aspects such as thermal, radar, and electronic signatures as well to make them nearly indistinguishable from real systems to the prying eyes of complex intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) networks.¹⁴

Fidelity exists on a spectrum. While Army and Marine Corps doctrine acknowledge two levels of decoy fidelity, low and high, we’ll include a third category: perfect fidelity. Characterized by overall simplicity, low-fidelity decoys usually rely on only one means of deception: the physical. Low-fidelity decoys look (mostly) like what they purport to be in the visible light spectrum, and usually nothing more. The World War II inflatable tanks and the US Civil War quaker guns (typically little more than an appropriately sized painted log), are prime examples of low-fidelity decoys.¹⁵ Conversely, high-fidelity decoys usually leverage both physical and technical means; that is, they can be seen and produce electromagnetic or thermal energy allowing them to appear authentic to a wider range of sensors. During the late 1980s, US Army units in Germany employed high-fidelity multispectral close-combat decoys in the form of M1 Abrams tanks that could portray a “technically correct visual image” but also give “a realistic thermal signature,” adding to their credibility.¹⁶ By 2025, the next iteration of high-fidelity multispectral decoys not only displayed a physical signature but also thermal, radar, electromagnetic, and acoustic signatures.¹⁷

Of course, there is no substitute for the real thing, and that is where perfect fidelity comes in. If one has the means to substitute an actual system, such as a tank or howitzer, perhaps one that is inoperable or a variant no longer being serviced, a unit may try to leverage this actual system as a decoy to deflect adversary sensors away from operable ones.¹⁸ Therefore, if you can afford to sacrifice an actual system, the chances of fooling an adversary’s sensors should increase significantly. But that “if you can afford to” captures the tradeoffs and dilemmas inherent in choosing different degrees of decoy fidelity: What is the minimum degree of fidelity (and thus, the lowest possible price point) necessary to fool the adversary and increase the survivability of real systems and enable the preservation of combat power?

Examples from Recent Employment of Decoys

To better understand the emplacement of decoys, it is first necessary to review instances of their employment in order to recognize the operational conditions that can ensure successful decoy utilization in defensive and offensive operations. Defensively, while decoys tend to be static, they are used to draw out enemy fire, protect actual troop dispositions, and encourage an enemy to expend munitions on relatively low-value targets (the decoys). During Operation Allied Force in 1999, Serbian decoys of armored systems were routinely attacked by NATO aircraft because NATO’s rules of engagement constrained operations to relatively high altitudes where it was difficult to distinguish decoys from real targets.¹⁹ Consequently, Serbia survived the air campaign with most of its army still intact, and NATO expended many air-to-surface weapons. Another example took place in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when Hezbollah undertook an elaborate deception effort to construct decoy fortifications along the demarcation boundary known as the Blue Line in Southern Lebanon in full view of Israeli UAS, United Nations observers, and Lebanese spying for Israel.²⁰ When Israel invaded and targeted these fake bunkers, they found themselves exposed and targeted from real bunkers secretly constructed out of sight from sensors.²¹ In this example, like in Serbia, decoys helped preserve combat power and protect force dispositions but also led enemies to unmask, revealing their positions, which were then targeted.

Conversely, offensive employment has traditionally involved the air domain and been more mobile. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Air Force leveraged the Northrop BQM-74 aerial target drones to fly air routes over Iraq to cause Iraqi air defense radars to reveal themselves and subsequently become targets for Air Force Wild Weasel aircraft armed with antiradiation missiles in what was known as Operation Scathe Mean.²² As a result of this decoy-hunter combination, Iraqi electronic systems all but went silent after the first seventy-two hours of the war with the Iraqis resorting to blindly shooting surface-to-air missiles at allied aircraft flying overhead.²³ In this example, not only did drones draw out enemy fire, but they also helped preserve combat power and survivability of friendly aircraft. More recently in the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan utilized old Soviet-made AN-2 biplanes to fly at medium altitudes in the war’s opening days to be targets for Armenian air defense systems. The Armenians turned on their radars, fired at the AN-2s, and then quickly found themselves easy prey for loitering munitions and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs).²⁴ As a result of these decoys, Armenia air defense was reduced to man-portable surface-to-air missiles while Azerbaijan established air superiority for its fleet of UAS, loitering munitions, and UCAVs.²⁵ As in the example from Desert Storm, Azerbaijan’s decoys targeted Armenian air defense systems, drawing out their fire and revealing their locations, resulting in their subsequent targeting and destruction but preserving Azerbaijan’s actual air systems. Both in defense and offense, successful decoy employment at various levels of fidelity has resulted in significant advantages.

Decoys Today and Tomorrow

These examples demonstrate that joint planners would be wise to leverage decoys in future planning, not just because of their potential advantages but also because adversaries like Russia and China recognize their utility. Russia leverages decoys currently in Ukraine with somewhat mixed results, but their use is pronounced in Russian military thought.²⁶ Similar to the famous “Ghost Army” of World War II, the Russian Army still maintains its own deception unit, the 45th Separate Camouflage Engineer Regiment, formed in 2017 with the capability to replicate many of Russia’s premiere weapon systems such as Sukhoi fighters, S-300 air defense batteries, and T-72 tanks.²⁷ Chinese military writing also advocates for decoy employment. According to one Chinese strategist, “When the ratio of real and fake targets on the battlefield is 1:1, it is equivalent to increasing the combat force by 40%”; and when it is 1:3, “the target loss can be reduced to 50%, and the enemy’s ammunition consumption can be increased by 70% to 90%.”²⁸ With this information in mind, there looks to be a continued future for decoys.

While most decoys in the land domain have been static emplacements, advances in robotics make it quite apparent that “in the race between sensor and decoy there’s no reason the decoy themselves have to stay still.”²⁹ At one British exercise in 2020, uncrewed ground vehicles were equipped with loudspeakers that could be used to give the impression of more or larger vehicles, or even disrupt verbal communications in a close-quarter combat scenario.³⁰ As retired Australian Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan and author Peter Singer observed, both in defense research and acquisitions, when governments procure new systems in the future, they must simultaneously procure decoys so that crews have the capabilities up front to protect themselves and their systems.³¹ Thus decoys, by adding a kernel of doubt in the mind of an adversary who believes they’ve found a target, greatly add to maintaining the fog of war and extending the hider-finder fight.

The Impact of Operating Conditions on Decoys and their Effectiveness

To better understand why decoys persist and thrive against the symphony of sensors, we now consider and examine the operating conditions under which armies employ decoys. We recognize that decoys will not always defeat opposing ISR systems, but as one analyst commented, “they might be able to tax it.”³² This section explores those factors which make up the “decoy tax” on ISR. We group the relevant operating conditions into four categories: human conditions, battlefield conditions, weapons conditions, and kill chain conditions. As we discuss each of these conditions, we hope to offer a more holistic picture of the sorts of things that affect the relationship between sensors and decoys.  

Human operating conditions. Fundamentally, war is a human endeavor. Despite all the technological advances and changes in its character, war continues to involve people. Because of this fact, this set of operating conditions can disrupt the effectiveness of sensor fidelity. Two characteristics to consider include the training of sensor-operating troops and the psychological impact of the decoys themselves. First, keeping in mind that the war in Ukraine is one of attrition, which will likely be the case in future conflicts where near-peer competitors with large pools of resources can replace initial losses but in the long term extensive training and mastery of complex sensor systems may become a luxury many forces will not be able to afford.³³ While one can be trained to fly a drone in a few days or weeks, gaining tactical knowledge and technical expertise to develop a comprehensive ISR plan takes much longer. As military analysis Alex Vershinin notes of the US Army, “A squad leader generally has at least three years in service and a platoon sergeant has at least seven.”³⁴ But in attritional war, characterized by high casualties and personnel turnover, this kind of knowledge cannot easily be replaced. In the Ukraine conflict alone, some sources have Russian casualties by the summer of 2025 at nearly one million, with roughly 250,000 killed, a number higher than all the wars fought by the Soviet Union and Russia combined from the end of World War II until its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.³⁵ The result of this is turnover and inexperienced forces: one estimate from Ukraine claims between 60 and 80 percent of Ukrainian first-person-view drones fail to even reach their targets, let alone successfully pick out the real from the fake.³⁶ With this high turnover of personnel who lack battlefield awareness, the ability of a decoy to fool the inexperienced conscript is likely high. Combined with this lack of training are the psychological impacts decoys have. Once the attacker discovers the ruse, there continues to be a lasting impact. It can create enduring uncertainty that can lead to hesitancy, and hesitancy kills.³⁷ Again, in Ukraine, sowing the seeds of doubt through decoys erodes Russian forces’ confidence in the reliability of their own intelligence and distorts their decision-making processes.³⁸ Losing confidence in one’s own ISR systems only adds to the myriad of challenges faced on the modern battlefield.

Battlefield operating conditions. Today’s battlefield in Ukraine is a harbinger of what the future of combat looks like. One Army intelligence officer describes it as a “multi-layered information collection and rapid sensor to shooter systems” made possible by the prevalence of signals intelligence collection, integration of UAS, and massed indirect fires.³⁹ This complex targeting process is only bolstered through the use of electronic warfare systems to jam significant swaths of the electromagnetic spectrum to further obfuscate the battlefield. If you can be seen, you can be killed. Added to these complexities are that many of the small first-person-view drones and UAS now have infrared optics able to pick out visually concealed systems—a relative game changer as such optics become ubiquitous.⁴⁰ While drones have become more technologically advanced with infrared optics and other sensors, the contested nature of the battlefield still limits their time on station to targetable intelligence. Often the reality is that UAS will remain on their assigned targeting area long enough to confirm a target’s data before moving on to identify another target.⁴¹ Ultimately, it comes down to how close you can get and how long you have to observe something that will dictate whether one can discern whether it’s a decoy. In essence, time and distance matter.⁴²

Even weather factors into this battlefield calculus, working to further degrade sensors throughout the year. One only has to think of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and the heavy snows across Ukraine to see that cheap drones, while plentiful, are at the whim of freezing winds, snowdrifts, and even mud that can impact performance and collection capability. Decoys will continue to succeed, despite the complexities of the modern battlefield, because close scrutiny isn’t always possible. This translates into decoy fidelity as well. Charles Fowler and Robert Nesbit identified this point of air-land warfare over thirty years ago: “For operations with little exposure time, minimal realism is required. Simple, cheap decoys and signal simulators can be used.”⁴³ While sensors may be plentiful now and in the future, they will remain susceptible to a variety of threats, leaving open the room for decoys to continue to thrive.

Weapons-related operating conditions. Weapons also play a key role in the operating conditions between sensors and decoys. The choice of which weapons, their cost, and their logistical burden compared to those of decoys all factor into this condition. When the weapons themselves are plentiful and targets few, as was the case in Serbia in 1999, it might be more feasible to waste some bombs on the decoys, but even pilots from that conflict realized that with the increased reliance on “costly precision weapons,” should there be a shortage, then the “efficient utilization of ordnance” comes more into play.⁴⁴ This is exactly what an attritional war like Ukraine has shown: magazine depth matters. The shift to high-cost precision weapon systems means fewer rounds, higher costs, and a need for greater sensor certainty before launching a strike. Russia has repeatedly wasted its arsenal of sophisticated and expensive weapons like the Krasnopol laser-guided artillery round attacking Ukrainian decoys.⁴⁵ The results of these costly errors are slowly being felt. There are indications the Russians are shifting away from “mass-fire tactics” to more precision-oriented attacks to ease logistical burdens and bottlenecks.⁴⁶ With precision laser-guided artillery shells costing upward of $70,000 and even standard 155 mm artillery shells costing $8,400 each, massed or ineffective artillery fires are not cheap and, furthermore, have the ability to cue an adversary to one’s own location, leaving it susceptible to very accurate and quick counterbattery fires.⁴⁷ The result of today’s precision weapons means that each round has to count when fired, and decoys, ranging in cost from between $1,000 and $10,000, offer an opportunity for one to cause an opponent to waste munitions and further breakdown effectiveness both of sensors and shooters.

Kill chain conditions. The last set of operating conditions to explore relate to kill chains: the actual targeting sequence from sensor to shooter, the links along the way, and the impact of a transition to kill webs. While there is some existing sentiment that it’s a transparent battlefield and “there is nowhere to hide,” keep in mind that kill chains are dynamic, as demonstrated in Ukraine, and in future wars, kill chains will require constant upkeep and innovation to stay relevant.⁴⁸ Even so, no system is perfect, and the kill chains have vulnerabilities that provide for opportunities for deception.⁴⁹

One key vulnerability is the networks the sensor systems rely on. The first challenge is implementing constant, careful frequency management and not engaging in fratricide in the electromagnetic spectrum, which impacts the efficiency of one’s own UASs.⁵⁰ As communications have transitioned to more software-defined radios and systems, the networks require constant upkeep to stay one step ahead of an adversary. In Ukraine, Russian forces will reset their frequencies every twenty-four hours, and synchronize electromagnetic warfare with maneuver in order to minimize information fratricide at crucial times in a battle.⁵¹ There is an advantage from using software defined systems; however, once an adversary adapts, the advantage is short-lived and the situation becomes “tactically volatile.”⁵² There is the question of how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact kill chains in future conflicts. While research has shown how AI can identify targets and eventually one day autonomously engage those targets, there are conditions here as well that could impinge on the effectiveness of a system. Countermeasures to these AI-enhanced kill chains are through the leveraging of just as effective AI-produced deepfakes, synthetic images created by computers, resembling the operational environment but capable of wreaking havoc on one’s ability to target effectively. As two RAND researchers describe, “rather than lifting the ‘fog of war,’ AI and machine learning may enable the creation of ‘fog of war machines’—automated deception planners designed to exacerbate knowledge quality problems.”⁵³ From these two examples, the reality of the kill chain is that it is very susceptible to both to disruption and thus a potential victim of deception.

Analysis

As this article argues, decoys are a crucial asymmetric instrument against comprehensive sensor systems. The point is clear: decoys are not just supportive tools but “pivotal in countering advanced detection technologies and reshaping adversarial targeting dynamics.”⁵⁴ With an understanding of decoys, the sensor saturation of today’s operational environment and the operational conditions that can disrupt those sensors, we now create a model that highlights how planners should think about decoy employment in the future. Based off previous work on the subject, this updated model paves a way forward for future research in this critical subject area.

In describing tactical deception in air-land warfare, the work of Fowler and Nesbit provides an initial insight into the relationship between decoy fidelity and analysis time. Their argument in 1995 was, “The realism required for any deception activity is a function of the sensor and analysis capabilities available to the opponent and the time available to analyze the situation, disseminate the data to the appropriate points, and take appropriate action.”⁵⁵ Figure 1 depicts the differences between the sophistication of decoys against the time required to run simple tactical actions all the way up to complex campaign strategies.⁵⁶ It provides planners with an idea that the longer one needs to execute a deception or leverage a decoy, more fidelity is required.

Given Fowler and Nesbit’s model addressing the basics of decoy fidelity, there is room to expand and improve. With the discussion on operational conditions that impact sensor effectiveness and decoy fidelity, an improved model is possible for joint planners to understand optimal conditions for decoy utilization. Following the idea that decoy fidelity is on the y-axis and time depicted on the x-axis, decoy fidelity (y) can best be described as a function of the overall effectiveness of an adversary’s sensor capability (m) multiplied by the current point in time for an operation (x) and the initial friendly decoy fidelity level (b). This produces a basic slope equation showing the trajectory of decoy fidelity as time increases and sensor fidelity improves (see figure 2). The impact of change by the operating conditions on this model then becomes apparent (see figure 3): by reducing or degrading sensor effectiveness, the slope of the line can be reduced (a), flattened (b), or even trend downward (c) (i.e., negative slope).

An example of this change in slope-to-sensor effectiveness versus decoy fidelity can be found in Operation Desert Storm. During the initial air campaign, the utilization of high-fidelity decoys such as in Scathe Mean were prevalent. However, as radars were either destroyed or turned off and Iraqi aircraft were destroyed or flown to Iran, air superiority was achieved and the need for decoy fidelity diminished and eventually was not necessary. The same was the case in the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War when Azerbaijan’s AN-2 fleet served as decoys to lure Armenia to turn on their air defense systems inviting attacks. Within a few weeks, Azerbaijan controlled the skies over the battlespace, and the AN-2 fleet was replaced by uncontested loitering munitions and UCAVs.

In both cases, this model of decoy fidelity versus sensor effectiveness holds true. Likewise, there could be innovations that accelerate the need for decoy fidelity from an enemy just as a breakthrough in quantum computing or AI targeting. With a sudden improvement to sensor effectiveness, the slope would increase dramatically, indicating an immediate need for greater decoy fidelity. Planners might be faced with the need to leverage perfect-fidelity decoys to meet the new sensor threat, or at least decoys that are nearly perfect. This model serves as a basic framework for planners to understand what kind of decoy fidelity is necessary for a particular scenario.

The key to successful decoy emplacement is first understanding the adversary’s sensor effectiveness and where to “jump in” with the fidelity of your own decoy systems. By disrupting the variables that make up the operating conditions for those sensors, one can delay the frequency with which decoy fidelity must adapt. The model provided here does just that: it affords planners a paradigm from which to begin and thus survive long enough to gain the advantage over their enemy.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This article attempted to draw attention to the continued utility of decoys both now and in the future against the sensor symphony being conducted on the modern battlefield. Contrary to the notion that the battlespace is transparent and you can’t hide, we identified several operating conditions that impede maximum sensor effectiveness.⁵⁷ It is the ability of these operating conditions to degrade sensors that not only allow for decoys to fool an adversary but also to shift the track at which one side may need to increase the fidelity of their own decoys to meet the sensor threat.

We showed the relationship among decoy fidelity, sensor effectiveness, and the impact of operating conditions over time. While qualitative in nature, it offers a glimpse into how joint planners can better understand the stochastic nature of these variables and better plan as a result. Future research should conduct a quantitative analysis of this formula based on available data to better understand these relationships. Likewise, another area for further research concerns exploring the optimal relationship between real and decoy systems. While Chinese military writings indicate more decoys are better, US writings indicate this is not the case.⁵⁸ Further analysis could provide joint planners the ability to understand the best ratios of low-, high-, and perfect-fidelity decoys for each real system employed against the enemy’s sensor capabilities. More than anything, only through continued decoy experimentation and simulation coupled with the sharing of these lessons learned will the US military and its allies be able to fully grasp and implement emerging technologies, tactics, techniques, and procedures of these powerful tools.

Finally, it should be well understood by now that using decoys is still essential for survival. This often-simple system has endured for thousands of years despite the ever-improving symphony of sensors available to one’s adversary. In the ongoing fight between hiders and finders. What every commander should strive for is to be able to win and have the enemy think of the immortal words of Arthur C. Clarke’s short work “Superiority”: “We were defeated by one thing only—by the inferior science of our enemies.”⁵⁹ Decoys, as proven over thousands of years, continue to be that inferior science despite technological leaps, and thus maintain their essential value both now and in the future.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US government, US Department of War, or its components, to include the Department of the Navy, and the Naval Postgraduate School.

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Notes

1. For more on this discussion, see John Antal, 7 Second to Die (Casemate, 2022), 51; Mark Milley, “Strategic Inflection Point: The Most Historically Significant and Fundamental Change in the Character of War Is Happening Now—While the Future Is Clouded in Mist and Uncertainty,” Joint Force Quarterly 110, no. 3 (Summer 2023): 8, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Joint-Force-Quarterly/Joint-Force-Quarterly-110/Article/Article/3447159/strategic-inflection-point-the-most-historically-significant-and-fundamental-ch/. 
2. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 59.
3. Patrick Griffin, “Enter the Killweb: A Concept for Drone Warfare,” Proceedings 149, no. 3 (March 2023), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/march/enter-killweb-concept-drone-warfare.
4. See Paul Dolan, “Like Moths to a False Flame: Lethality and Protection Through Deception Operations,” US Army, 8 July 2025, https://www.army.mil/article/286861/like_moths_to_a_false_flame_lethality_and_protection_through_deception_operations; Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 7-100.1, Russian Tactics (US Government Publishing Office [GPO], 2024), https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN40737-ATP_7-100.1-001-WEB-4.pdf; ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics (US GPO, 2021), https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34236-ATP_7-100.3-001-WEB-3.pdf.
5. Dolan, “Like Moths to a False Flame.” 
6. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 104.
7. Nicola Bonsegna, “The Strategic Role of Decoys in the Conflict in Ukraine,” Defence Horizon Journal, 31 October 2024, https://tdhj.org/blog/post/decoys-conflict-ukraine/.
8. Joint Publication 3-54, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception (US GPO, 2025), I-1.
9. Charles Fowler and Robert Nesbit, “Tactical Deception in Air-Land Warfare,” Journal of Electronic Defense 18, no. 6 (June 1995): 76.
10. ATP 3-37.34, Survivability Operations (US GPO, April 2018), 6-17.
11. JP 3-54, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception (US GPO, 2025), I-8.
12. ATP 3-37.34, Survivability Operations, 6-7.
13. JP 3-13.4, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception (US GPO, 2017), I-10–I-11. Note JP 3-54 removes the types of deception means and just lists examples; however, the authors feel that delineating the types of means still holds relevancy in planning deceptions and in understanding decoys.
14. Bonsegna, “The Strategic Role of Decoys.”
15. For information concerning the US inflatable tanks during World War II, see Jonathan Gawne, Ghost of the ETO: American Tactical Deception Units in the European Theater 1944-1945 (Casemate Publishing, 2002), 24–28; for information on the Quaker guns, see Eric Weiss, “Faking Out the Enemy, Civil War-Style,” Washington Post, 12 July 2002, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/07/12/faking-out-the-enemy-civil-war-style/808c69c1-303e-4560-bcf7-660c47013734/.
16. Randall Scheffler, “Battlefield Deception,” Armor (May-June 1988): 26.
17. Jorge Rivero, “Decoy Warfare: Lessons and Implication from the War in Ukraine,” Proceedings 150, no. 1 (April 2024), https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/april/decoy-warfare-lessons-and-implication-war-ukraine.
18. One example of a something close to perfect fidelity occurred during a training exercise in California in 2024. See Britton Spencer, “Modern Capabilities, Resurrected and Refined Tactics: How Army Reserve Combat Support Units Train to Counter UAS at CSTX,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, 11 June 2024, https://www.dvidshub.net/news/473690/modern-capabilities-resurrected-and-refined-tactics-army-reserve-combat-support-units-train-counter-uas-cstx.
19. Phil Haun, “Attacking Fielded Forces: An Airman’s Perspective from Kosovo,” Joint Force Quarterly 95, no. 4 (October 2019): 70–77, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-95/jfq-95_70-77_Haun.pdf?ver=2019-11-22-115925-903.
20. David Acosta, “The Makara of Hezbollah: Deception in the 2006 Summer War” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2007), 43–44, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA469918.pdf.
21. Acosta, “The Makara of Hezbollah,” 43–44.
22. Phil Smith, “Tactical Deception in the Desert—Scathe Mean,” in From the Line in the Sand: Accounts of USAF Company Grade Officers in Support of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, ed. Michael Vriesenga (Air University Press, 1994), 93, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0014_VRIESENGA_LINE_IN_THE_SAND.pdf.
23. Smith, “Tactical Deception in the Desert,” 101.
24. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 26–27.
25. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 26–27.
26. On decoys use in Ukraine, see Erin Snodgrass, “Ukraine Says Russia’s Putting Inflatable Tanks on the Battlefield—But the Decoys Deflated,” Business Insider, 27 January 2023, https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-says-russia-using-inflatable-tanks-they-deflated-2023-1; for discussion on Russian Army use of deception and decoys, see ATP 7-100.1, Russian Tactics, 5-33.
27. David Axe, “Russia’s Inflatable Tanks Are Back in Action,” Forbes, 25 September 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/09/25/russias-inflatable-tanks-are-back-in-action/.
28. For more information on decoy operations in the People’s Liberation Army, see ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, 6-9; for information on the decoy rations, see “Information Warfare Gives Rise to a Camouflage Revolution [in Chinese],” Sina News (China), 10 August 2012, https://news.sina.com.cn/o/2012-08-10/053924941796.shtml.
29. “Military Decoys in Ukraine - Fake Equipment, Inflatables & Lessons in Deception for Foreign Forces,” posted 25 August 2024 by Prerun, YouTube, 59 min., 33 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPqYvn5NOEs.
30. Harry Lye, “Using UGVs for Decoy and Deception: Digital Concepts Engineering,” Army Technology (UK), 26 November 2020, https://www.army-technology.com/features/using-ugvs-for-decoy-and-deception-digital-concepts-engineering/. 
31. Mick Ryan and Peter Singer, The Future of Deception in War: Lessons from Ukraine (New America, May 2025), 63, https://d1y8sb8igg2f8e.cloudfront.net/documents/The_Future_of_Deception_in_War_Lessons_from_Ukraine_2025-05-27_173809_A1N7VmF__BYOyIbN.pdf.
32. Prerun, “Military Decoys in Ukraine.”
33. Alex Vershinin, “The Attritional Army of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine,” Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 18 March 2024, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/attritional-art-war-lessons-russian-war-ukraine.
34. Vershinin, “The Attritional Army of War.”
35. Seth Jones and Riley McCabe, “Russia’s Battlefield Woes in Ukraine” (Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 2025), 2, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-06/250603_Jones_Battlefield_Woes_0.pdf.
36. Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, Tactical Developments During the Third Year of the Russo–Ukrainian War (RUSI, February 2025), 10, https://static.rusi.org/tactical-developments-third-year-russo-ukrainian-war-february-2205.pdf.
37. Christopher Paul, “Innovation in Combat: Decoys & Deception in Russo-Ukrainian Conflict - Seapower Conversation,” lecture, posted 21 November 2023 by Naval Postgraduate School, YouTube, 57 min., 6 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgbhhBw-jNE&t=3227s.
38. Bonsegna, “Strategic Role of Decoys.”
39. Dolan, “Like Moths to a False Flame.”
40. Paul, “Innovation in Combat.”
41. Dolan, “Like Moths to a False Flame.” 
42. Paul, “Innovation in Combat.”
43. Fowler and Nesbit, “Tactical Deception in Air-Land Warfare,” 76.
44. Haun, “Attacking Fielded Forces,” 76.
45. Rivero, “Decoy Warfare.”
46. Rivero, “Decoy Warfare.”
47. Axe, “Russia’s Inflatable Tanks Are Back in Action.” David Axe lists the cost of the Excalibur. The data on the Excalibur’s effectiveness can be found at Jack Watling et al., Preliminary Lessons from Ukraine’s Offensive Operations, 2022-2023 (RUSI, July 2024), https://static.rusi.org/lessons-learned-ukraine-offensive-2022-23.pdf.
48. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 59.
49. Fowler and Nesbit, “Tactical Deception in Air-Land Warfare,” 76. Ryan and Singer also echo this analysis, saying that deceptions such as decoys “are clearly possible despite the enhanced … visibility of the battlespace and the availability of rapid, massed precision-attack capabilities.” See Ryan and Singer, The Future of Deception in War, 35.
50. Watling et al., Preliminary Lessons from Ukraine’s Offensive Operations, 38. 
51. Watling et al., Preliminary Lessons from Ukraine’s Offensive Operations, 38. 
52. Watling et al., Preliminary Lessons from Ukraine’s Offensive Operations, 38. 
53. Edward Geist and Marjory Blumenthal, “Military Deception: AI’s Killer App?,” War on the Rocks, 23 October 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/military-deception-ais-killer-app/.
54. Benjamin Robitaille, The Art of Illusion: The Role of Decoys in Military Deception and Modern Warfare (Finabel, January 2025), https://finabel.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Ben-IF-7.2.pdf.
55. Fowler and Nesbit, “Tactical Deception in Air-Land Warfare,” 44.
56. Fowler and Nesbit, “Tactical Deception in Air-Land Warfare,” 39.
57. Antal, 7 Second to Die, 59.
58. For the Chinese perspective, see Sina News, “Information Warfare Gives Rise to a Camouflage Revolution”; for the US perspective, see Kenneth Blanks, “An Effectiveness Analysis of the Tactical Employment of Decoys” (master’s thesis, US Army Command & General Staff College, 1994), 57–88, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA284608.pdf.
59. Arthur C. Clarke, “Superiority,” Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1951, 3.

 

 

 

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July-August 2026