Ukraine's tactical decoys: British 3d replicas deceive Russia
In addition to weapons, the United Kingdom is providing Ukraine with numerous IKEA-style assembly kits. We explain why artificial tanks, self-propelled howitzers, and anti-aircraft systems are important.
According to The Times portal, the United Kingdom delivers many "do-it-yourself" replicas to Ukraine. As Lowri Simner, an RAF squadron commander, stated, "We haven’t gifted a huge amount of these, so anything we can do to make the quantities look greater on the front line is advantageous to us."
armoured replicas from the UK like IKEA furniture
This mainly refers to Challenger 2 tanks, AS90 self-propelled howitzers, or anti-aircraft systems based on ASRAAM missiles. Additionally, Simner mentioned that the Ministry of Defence team, designated as "Taskforce Kindred," has been tasked with developing better next-generation replicas capable of deceiving satellites since, for example, inflatable tanks from the World War II era are ineffective.
The "Taskforce Kindred" team first digitally scans the equipment and then produces replicas using 3d printing. These IKEA-style Challenger 2 tank replicas are then assembled on-site in Ukraine. Replicas, which take no more than a few hours to assemble, are practically indistinguishable from the original from even 25 metres away.
Moreover, Simner noted that for every five real tanks delivered, there might be as many as 30 decoys, and replica deliveries are ongoing.
Replicas in war — saving lives and equipment worth millions of dollars or euros
Ukraine continues its history of conflicts, showing that replicas still play a very important role. Ukrainians are massively using wooden replicas that are remarkably similar to real systems, which is a very effective method for drones with daytime cameras. The Russians have often wasted valuable weapons on the IRIS-T SLM system replicas, AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar, or F-16 aircraft, ensuring the originals were safe.
Particularly problematic for Ukrainians are Iskander-M ballistic missiles or Kh-22 supersonic cruise missiles, against which only medium-range anti-aircraft systems can defend. Ukraine has too few of these to protect key facilities. In such realities, replicas forcing the Russians to use missiles, which they also produce too few relative to their needs, is very sensible.
Additionally, Ukrainians add barrels of fuel to the replicas to reinforce the impression of a successful attack on the Russians if hit. This leads to Russian reports of destroying M142 HIMARS systems in numbers exceeding all those delivered to Ukraine.
