Little known camouflage deceptions of World War Two

[fritzthefox]

I made this cartoon for aviation buffs, so I'm pretty sure a lay audience won't get it. But I'm still concerned it may be a little oblique, even for aviation nuts. Anybody get it? Feedback welcome...

[RyanShort1]

Ok, so they made a fake "target" that was of such a small scale that the Stukas didn't realize they were so close to the ground?

Only problem I see with this is that as a pilot, you're primary means of altitude information is your altimeter - and things like cloud bases, and horizon, and such would be a dead giveaway to the truth of the matter. Also, you'd have to make the area of the scale deception really huge in order for it to have a chance of working...

Was my guess right?

Ryan

[Chris Brame]

Not far from reality - didn't Lockheed have a half- or quarter-scale suburban neighborhood built over the roof of their plant in Burbank during the war?

[Robbie Roberts]

Lockheed had a "neighborhood" and "orange groves" built over its production facility, and Boeing also had a similar "neighborhood" built- houses, streets, cars and businesses etc. - over its production facilities.

There were several scale copies of London scattered throughout the countryside of England during the war. It was not so much to fool Stukas into crashing into the ground as to fool higher flying bombers, mainly at night, into believing and dropping on false targets.

Altimeters are great, but from altitude what you see is what you believe- which is why dummy aircraft, tanks and towns were so believable...

Robbie

[The Inspector]

Boeing had a 'town' built over Plant 2, and it worked great until some government type suggested that the runways @ KBFI be painted black so they wouldn't reflect moon light, as soon as that was done, the airfield and plant area stuck out like a strobe light in a dark basement.

The British fooled Rommel by outfitting smalller vehicles with plywood shapes to make them look like armor, with no other outside references for scaling, the recon guys in the Luftwaffe thought they were real and full sized and reported the British had greater numbers of armor than they really did........

And who was the British illusionist who made the Suez disappear by using rotating searchlights?

[fritzthefox]

OK, so you guys not only got it, you are going to end up writing a book on the topic.

And I thought I was an airplane trivia nut

[Warbird Kid]

Pretty funny in my book.

[k5083]

Cute picture.

I see you are having some Escher-like fun with your balloon cables, too, like the one in the background that seems to go behind the bridge, and the one at lower right that seems to go in front of the foreground Stuka's stabilizer.

A great deal of effort and ingenuity was put into the camouflauge deceptions that people have mentioned. What is less clear is whether any of them ever fooled enough of the enemy to be worth the effort.

August

[Robbie Roberts]

The Germans are known to have dropped on the false Londons... But once they got their radio based ranging- (I forget whether it was X-Gerat or Knickbein- It has been a long while since I studied German systems) where they used intersecting radio signals over a target, they were a little more on target. Until the British started mimicking their signals, and rerouting the bombers again!

As to the ground decoys of false aircraft, tanks, etc, they worked well to convince Germany of larger amounts of materiel in paces it wasn't- while the real stuff was hidden elsewhere. And fake aircraft were used by all sides on the ground- as strafing decoys: as the aircraft came in to strafe, AA woud target them...

So I'd say they were al used to good effect, and did fool people.(There was even a truck left out in the open as a decoy in Viet Nam by the NVA along the Ho Chi Minh trail- one memoir I was reading mentioned it. The piot came home all excited about his "Kill" only to be informed that it was a decoy, and had been recognized as such, and everybody knew about it- and avoided it!)

Robbie

[gilt]

Robbie-

Interesting story, I would like to have some verification. Much has been written about the Blackout, phony armies and airfields but I've never heard about a fake London and think it would be very difficult given the size and very distinctive river flowing to and thru London.

In the US there was a bogus Richmond AAB layout built SE of Richmond by the USAAF School of Camouflage that was visible into the 70's. Bradley Field was designed using camoflage techniques, the barracks were made to look like the local tobacco barns, hangars were dispersed, etc.

Tom-

[Robbie Roberts]

Robbie-

Interesting story, I would like to have some verification. Much has been written about the Blackout, phony armies and airfields but I've never heard about a fake London and think it would be very difficult given the size and very distinctive river flowing to and thru London.

In the US there was a bogus Richmond AAB layout built SE of Richmond by the USAAF School of Camouflage that was visible into the 70's. Bradley Field was designed using camoflage techniques, the barracks were made to look like the local tobacco barns, hangars were dispersed, etc.

Tom-

From what I am reading, it wasn't so much a graphic representation of London, but a night time pyrotechnics display, intended to create the illusion of London being attacked: http://www.aviationmuseum.net/decoys.htm
http://unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk/co ... ents=48,95
http://unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk/co ... =48,95,213
http://www.northlondonflyingschool.com/ ... sanger.htm

Robbie

[gilt]

Robbie-

Thanks for the GREAT links, they've confirmed my prior reading on the subject. Sorry I had to question your comment about "false Londons".

Tom-

[Robbie Roberts]

No Worries, Tom!


Robbie

[tom d. friedman]

firstly......... i'm sick of logging in all the time!! now back to this thread......... i saw wartime california pics of tennis courts with submerged aaa guns underneath that would slide back in the event of enemy attacks. an excellent book to find ......" secret soldiers" forgot the author, but do a google search via title. truly amazing stuff!! a special forces outfit faked tank / truck troop movements via early hi fi recordings, inflatable tanks, bogus infantry units complete with fake unit insignias that moved about european civilian populations, bogus built aircraft made of wood or inflatable materials. some prominent hollywood actors designers were part of this outfit, most notably hollywood legend douglas fairbanks jr, & future fashion designer bill blass. this outfit had many hollywood movie techs who used their civilian expertise in convert camo, deception etc, all toward the enemy, but in the european theater of operations.

[JDK]

Great cartoon. I like it.

Only problem I see with this is that as a pilot, you're primary means of altitude information is your altimeter - and things like cloud bases, and horizon, and such would be a dead giveaway to the truth of the matter. Also, you'd have to make the area of the scale deception really huge in order for it to have a chance of working...

Just before the invasion of Poland in 1939, there was a Stuka practice bombing, at Neuhammer-am-Queis for a number of senior German officers. The forecast told the aircrew that there were two layers of 3/10ths cloud between 2,500 - 6,000 ft above the target, but it was clear itself.

While on their way, the cloud vanished, and a ground mist formed. Thinking the ground mist was a top layer of cloud, they did not check their altimeters and the pilots dived right in - and 26 crews were killed and 14 Stukas destroyed.

I came across this while researching the Stuka for our MMP book on the aircraft and the Stuka Pilot feature for Aircrew in Aeroplane magazine in Jan 2008.

Cheers,