Military Deception: Strategic Illusions, The Art and Science of Warfare Deceit

By Fouad Sabry

What is Military Deception

Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an advantage during warfare by misleading adversary decision makers into taking action or inaction that creates favorable conditions for the deceiving force. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial fog of war via psychological operations, information warfare, visual deception, or other methods. As a form of disinformation, it overlaps with psychological warfare. Military deception is also closely connected to operations security (OPSEC) in that OPSEC attempts to conceal from the adversary critical information about an organization's capabilities, activities, limitations, and intentions, or provide a plausible alternate explanation for the details the adversary can observe, while deception reveals false information in an effort to mislead the adversary.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Military Deception

Chapter 2: Operation Fortitude

Chapter 3: Operation Bodyguard

Chapter 4: Ruse de guerre

Chapter 5: Operation Bertram

Chapter 6: Counterattack

Chapter 7: Quaker gun

Chapter 8: List of military strategies and concepts

Chapter 9: Operation Zeppelin (deception plan)

Chapter 10: Military dummy

(II) Answering the public top questions about military deception.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Military Deception.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 3, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Military deception

Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an edge in combat by fooling the decision-makers of the enemy into taking action or inaction that generates advantageous conditions for the deceiving force.

Deception in combat dates to ancient times.

Many conventional military activities are deceitful, but deception is not one of them. For instance, a unit may move into an assembly area before to a mission to complete planning and practice. It is common practice to conceal the vehicles, equipment, and soldiers in the assembly area in order to confuse the opponent.

Deception can be achieved by enhancing or diminishing an adversary's awareness of the operational environment. By giving many alternative friendly courses of action, ambiguity-increasing deception is meant to cause confusion in the mind of the enemy's decision-maker. Because the adversary does not know which statement is accurate, his reactions are delayed or paralyzed, giving the allied side the upper hand. As ambiguity reduces deceit, the friendly side intends to convince the enemy that the friendly course of action is certain, but incorrect. As a result, the enemy will misallocate time, personnel, or resources, providing an advantage to the ally.

On the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of combat, deception may occur. The five fundamental strategies are::

Diversion

Use of feints, demonstrations, displays, or ruses to divert the enemy's attention from a friendly major effort and compel the opponent to concentrate resources at an unfavorable time and place.

In the night between 17 and 18 August 1943, Royal Air Force executed Operation Hydra, the bombing of a World War II rocket research center at Peenemünde, German city located on the Baltic Sea.

Over the course of time, By deploying de Havilland Mosquito bombers along the same route towards Berlin, the British had conditioned the Germans to anticipate and prepare for attacks.

When the British carried out Hydra,, The Germans suspected that the eight Mosquitoes flying towards Berlin were the vanguard of another attack on the same target.

Consequently of this deviation, The majority of German fighter aircraft were stationed over Berlin, which gave the British an advantage over Peenemünde.

Feint

Offense featuring force-on-force contact with the enemy that deceives the enemy as to the location and/or timing of the friendly side's major effort. A feint will force the opponent to concentrate their resources at the wrong moment and place. A series of feints will acclimate the enemy to friendly activity in the same location, causing them to relax their guard or respond ineffectively to the main effort of the allies.

In May 1940, Army Group B of Nazi Germany assaulted the Netherlands and Belgium. Army Group A invaded France at the same time by pushing through the Ardennes towards the city of Sedan. Army Group B's attack was a diversion meant to deceive British and French military officials about Germany's true intentions.

Demonstration

A demonstration is a display of force comparable to a feint, but it avoids actual force-on-force contact with the opponent. The objective of a demonstration is for the opponent to mistakenly determine the time and position of the friendly main effort, giving the friendly side an advantage by forcing the opponent to misallocate resources, move to the wrong place, or fail to move.

During the Peninsula campaign of the American Civil War, Union commander George B. McClellan misjudged the strength of the Confederate force under the command of John B. Magruder. Magruder bolstered McClellan's perspective with various displays, such as parading his forces where Union watchers could see them, concealing them as they went back to the starting point, and then parading them once more within view of McClellan's observers. McClellan determined he was outnumbered and chose to retreat.

Ruse

The purposeful dissemination of misleading information to the enemy in order to mislead them regarding friendly intentions and capabilities. A ruse is a military technique that relies on deception to contribute to a wider deception scheme.

Example: The invention of the fictional Major William Martin (The Man Who Never Was) as a British officer transporting crucial war plans during World War II. As part of Operation Mincemeat, a ruse designed to conceal the site of the planned Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allies intended for the Nazis to get phony documents indicating a planned Allied assault of Greece and the Balkans and then mistakenly allocate soldiers and supplies.

Display

The depiction of activities, personnel, or equipment in a motionless state. A display is meant to confuse the adversary's visual observation capabilities, leading him to believe the friendly force is at a position other than where it is, possesses a capacity or capability it does not possess, or lacks a capacity or capability it does possess.

The use of sunshields by the Allies during Operation Bertram

Protocol I (1977) of the Geneva Conventions prohibits perfidy during the conduct of warfare. A perfidious act is one in which one party pledges to act in good faith with the aim of breaching that commitment in order to achieve an advantage. Examples include one side flying a truce flag to attract the opponent into the open so they might be taken as prisoners of war, and then starting fire on the exposed enemy. Additional examples include the misuse