Next-Generation Decoys for the Marine Corps
Jorge Rivero
November 7, 2024
Sometimes, even mannequins fight battles. In the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, a captivating video surfaced on social media, offering a glimpse into tactics defining the conflict. The footage shows a Ukrainian trench line south of Kharkiv, battered by artillery craters and under assault from Russian tanks. Amid the chaos, lifeless figures — mannequins used as decoys — stood rigidly in place, absorbing the Russian barrage as projectiles attacked their positions. While almost absurd at first glance, this moment highlights a critical element of Ukrainian strategy: using a decoy to outmaneuver and outwit a far larger and better-equipped Russian force.
Since those hectic first weeks of the war, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have employed drones to enhance their targeting processes and maintain persistent observation over the battlefield, characterizing the war as the first drone war. This has made it much harder to mass forces or deploy critical assets near the forward line of troops. Drones variants have expanded to include resupply, air defense, and casualty evacuation functions. The deployment of thousands of sensors across the battlefield has highlighted the evolving nature of warfare. The U.S. military, through carefully evaluated lessons, must adopt novel approaches to mitigate these capabilities and emerging technologies. As the Marine Corps transforms its force structure, it must fully integrate technological advancements and update tactics, techniques, and procedures, particularly in decoy employment. As highlighted in the 2024 Marine Corps tactical publication, Deception, decoy efforts will ensure force survivability and degrade adversary targeting capabilities in the modern battlespace. To succeed, the Marine Corps must disrupt enemy sensors, deny the adversary the ability to engage first, and remain agile in contested environments deep within the enemy’s weapons engagement zone, where our opponents possess significant targeting capabilities. Decoys can be introduced into the force to enhance survivability, create ambiguity in enemy targeting processes, and maintain operational advantage in future conflicts. However, as it stands now, the Marine Corps has not integrated decoy operations into doctrine, training programs, or standardized equipment across the force.
A Brief Buzz Through Decoy Employment
Decoys are probably as old as war itself, but the modern era has seen many famous uses of this form of deception. Four days after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Red Army’s military engineer administration issued its first directive on Soviet maskirovka on June 26, 1941. Initially, Soviet decoys were crude and poorly executed. From 1942 onward, successful Soviet operations included deception plans with decoys, false radio traffic, misinformation, artificial sound effects, and altered appearances of installations and vehicles. This was evident during the winter counter-offensive of 1941–42 near Moscow. Soviet forces used fake bridges, dummy tanks, and artillery to mislead German intelligence, effectively diverting strikes and reconnaissance efforts toward counterfeit targets. Post–World War II, the Soviet Union used six decoy SS-4 missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the invasions of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
https://warontherocks.com/2024/11/next-generation-decoys-for-the-marine-corps/
