Aircraft Decoys

Django · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:19 am

Anyone else have any photos of Allied or Axis decoys?

warbirdguy · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:31 am

In the January 2001 AC, they have some photos of full size B-24's among other Allied aircraft including P-40's and B-25's.

EDIT - Magazine date change.

Michel Lemieux · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:49 am

Litterally gives a new meaning to bamboo bomber

Cool, tks for sharing

daveymac82c · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:13 pm

Wow, cool pictures. I've never seen Japanese decoy airplanes.

They seem far more complex and harder to build than the British/American equivelant.

Cheers,

David

Randy Haskin · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:54 pm

Pretty darn effective, though.

daveymac82c · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:03 pm

Randy,

you're very right. They were effective.

I remember reading an article years ago in a magazine that talked about the decoy planes and bases, and even decoy towns that they lit up at night to confuse bombing raids.

Does anyone know if the German military took part in the use of decoys?

-David

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:12 pm

My contribution -

Ryan

michaelharadon · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:48 pm

I've read that the Germans had constructed a dummy airfield near the Channel coast of France with buildings, aircraft, and vehicles all made of wooden frames and covered with canvas.

Once finished, a lone Mosquito flew down the runway and dropped a dummy bomb, made of wood and covered with canvas.

Bluedharma · **Posted:** Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:15 pm

Here is something about bombing decoys.
http://www.ajg41.clara.co.uk/mirrors/cherrycobbdecoy.html

Swiss Mustangs · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:05 am

sure the Luftwaffe had it's decoy airplanes, too - here's an example of a Ju-88 copied from ebay some time ago...

Martin

JDK · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:11 am

Knit your own Zero?

michaelharadon wrote:

I've read that the Germans had constructed a dummy airfield near the Channel coast of France with buildings, aircraft, and vehicles all made of wooden frames and covered with canvas.

Once finished, a lone Mosquito flew down the runway and dropped a dummy bomb, made of wood and covered with canvas.

It's a great story, isn't it? Sadly it's almost certainly just a story though.

http://www.snopes.com/military/woodbomb.asp

PeterA · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:03 am

Here is the 'stock' Spitfire decoy taken by S/Ldr Tony Cooper some time before D-Day. From memory the the location was Friston.

Although I can't locate it this moment I do have on file somewhere the General Arrangement drawing of this device.

I am reminded of a 'Goon show' sketch on the radio in the 1950's, the father of Monty Python humour. The team had a fiendish plan to float a full size replica of Southern England, made of old cornflake packets, in to the English Channel to fool the Germans.

PeterA

airnutz · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:40 am

Neat stuff guys! Here's an old thread with more decoy photos, scanned review of a book on Eisenhowers
"secret weapon", the 23rd Headquarters Special Troop "deception unit", quite an elaborate ruse machine.
The book is "Silent Warriors"...
www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpB ... 8&start=15

tom d. friedman · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:38 pm

great stuff........ i've seen inflatable u.s. tanks/ vehicals, japanese plywood aircraft, etc, all to expend ordinance needlessly to waste effort & rescources, quite often affectively. i've also seen a collapsible f-16 falcon decoy that a guy was selling for 15 grand in cleveland. a great book to find about ww 2 decoys is named "secret soldiers" forgot who the author is. they even used hi def sound equipment to fake tank & truck movement, & quite sucsessfully after the normandy invasion to dupe the enemy. a great read!!! screen actor douglas fairbanks jr. was quite active with this outfit along with other 40's era hollywood special affects pros to make it all work.

Swiss Mustangs · **Posted:** Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:38 am

exhuming an old thread......

here's a photo of a dummy P-51B at Gosselies Airfield, Belgium, 1945

looks a bit 'out of shape' :shock:

Martin

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