Good news: Apparently the game of S-300 hide-and-seek between Russia and NATO is still going strong.
It was revealed late last year that Russia had mobilized a vast army of inflatable military hardware in order to make its already highly-mobile army even more difficult to detect.
According to reports
Rusbal, a Russian toy company started in 1993 by a hot air balloon enthusiast, originally made hot air balloons, inflatable children's play sets, and inflatable costumes. Eventually the company began making inflatable jets, tanks, and surface-to-air missile batteries as part of a Russian tactic known as maskirovka—warfare by deception.We almost forgot about this inflatable armada until we saw this tweet pop up in our "feed" this morning:
Many commentators have mocked Russia's inflatable army as a sign of "weakness" — and lack of rubles.
Except Russia is the largest country in the world (so not so easy to cover with military hardware), and only the United States can afford to spend $600 billion each year on "defense".
We love this so much:
© Reuters
© Reuters
Russia inflates its military with blow-up weapons
[Link]
No Richard Brandt the idea is to give the enemy the impression they have more equipment than they actually have in reality - decoys.
Rather like having your planes circle over on mayday parade to give people the impression you have more planes than you have - another Russian ploy.
Remember Richard?
Russian insider seven years behind the times.