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Looking back at the most significant battles
and military operations in history, deception has always been an
important strategy, and in modern-day Russia balloons are one of
the most important tools of deception.
Bouncy castles aren’t known as the most effective tools of war,
but in Russia, they are just as important as actual weapons
worth millions of dollars. That’s because bouncy castles
designed to mimic actual weapons cost a hundred times cheaper
than the real thing, and can be deployed and moved a lot faster.
And if your goal is to deceive the enemy, to appear stronger
than you really are, drawing their fire, or simply buying time
by forcing them to verify targets, this inflatable army is an
important piece of your arsenal.
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“If you study the major battles of history, you see that trickery wins
every time,” Aleksei A. Komarov, the military engineer at balloon
company RusBal, told The New York Times. “Nobody ever wins honestly.”
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Once a simple balloon company, RusBal now specializes in inflatable
replicas of various war machines used by the Russian military. Its
creations range from life-size replicas of rocket launchers, tanks and
fighter jets, to inflatable military tents and even radar stations. It
was founded in 1993 by a hot air balloon enthusiast and specialized in
hot air balloons and inflatable children’s play sets, but today its
biggest client is the Russian military.
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Inflatable military gear has become such a big part of RusBal’s
business, that it started developing accessories to complement its
creations. For example, the company sells a device designed to create
tank tracks to make its inflatable tanks deployed in the middle of
barren fields less suspicious.
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Russia’s inflatable army is part of Maskirovka, a Russian doctrine that
mixes strategic and tactical deception with the aim of distorting an
enemy’s conception of reality. The balloons, while very realistic to the
untrained eye, are probably not going to fool the modern technology of
the US Army or Russia’s other military rivals for too long, but they are
realistic enough to be confusing for a while, and sometimes buying time
is very important.
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According to a 2010 report by the BBC, RusBal’s inflatable creations
“are made of a special material that tricks enemy radar and thermal
imaging into thinking they are real weapons”. This is a decade-old
information, so it’s unclear if the balloons can still trick modern
cameras and reconnaissance technology.
An inflatable T-80 tank reportedly costs around $16,000, which may sound
like a lot for a bouncy castle, but considering that an actual tank
costs millions to make, and probably more to maintain for several years,
it’s actually a bargain. Plus it can be transported in two duffel bags
and deployed using a simple air compressor.
Russia was hardly the first to use an inflatable army – the Allies used
a “ghost army” during World War 2, and NATO forces bombed fake Serb
tanks during the war in Kosovo – but it is definitely relying on this
deceptive tactic more than any other country or military alliance in the
world.
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