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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Russia's Bouncy Tanks

Every May, Russia proudly marches its biggest, fiercest-looking military hardware across Red Square in a show of force one might expect from one of the biggest militaries in the world. Tanks, missile launchers and rockets worth billions of dollars thunder across the cobblestones.

But in a small field outside Moscow, two men wheel out a small package that could save the Russian military millions and prevent it from needing to deploy that fearsome arsenal. The men fire up an air pump and within minutes there stands a towering S-300 anti-aircraft missile launcher.

Russia's Defense Ministry is in talks with a private company called Rusbal to develop a range of inflatable decoy armaments they could place in battlefields to deceive the enemy about positions and lure it into attacking cheap replicas with their million-dollar rockets.

Tanks, radars and jets are part of the series, along with the S-300.

"They're light, possible to move quickly, meaning more mobile," says Viktor Talanov, Rusbal's head of marketing. "They're the full imitation in every sense: visually, heat and on radar."

Rusbal workers demonstrate with another dummy weapon, a T-80 tank.

Within three minutes, the 200 pounds of limp fabric turn into a full-size T-80, the barrel propped up with a steel bar.

One of the workers grabs the front and parks it effortlessly next to the inflated S-300.
Talanov won't say precisely how much they would sell a fake T-80 to the military for, but the commercial version is $6,000. The military version, he says, is about double, a far cry from a real T-80 (no longer produced), which can run into the millions.

From the air, the decoys look remarkably realistic. But in this day of thermal imaging and heat-seeking missiles, Rusbal has had to improve dummy technology to interest the military. They line various parts of the equipment with a thin layer of metal and install a heating system so that, for example, an inflatable truck would appear to have a warm engine when viewed through thermal imaging.

Talanov claims that in side-by-side tests conducted by the military, one can't tell the difference between the real and the fake.

by ALEXANDER MARQUARDT of ABC News.

Sneaky Russians.

66 comments:

  1. USA should bomb those with inflatable missiles

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  2. Can I rent on of those for my birthday party? Feel like freaky out the neighbors lol.

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  3. I like your post and I would really like to see more of them

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  4. inb4 this becomes a unit in candc

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  5. they should have one at Mcdonald's :D

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  6. Another way to improve the science of killing people! :D

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  7. this is relevant to just what I was thinking about

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  8. Useful, really...keep the enemy guessing.

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  9. Nail gun is the new ultimate weapon. :D

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  10. Seems like they wouldn't need to do that this day and age. Maybe they are getting ready for something...

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  11. wat! Those are awesome.

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  12. This reminds me of the game R.U.S.E.

    It's quite brilliant.

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  13. thanks for your insight on my blog... people are trying to be scandalous against Taylor :(

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  14. I could destroy them with a sharpened pencil.

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  15. Oh look, tanks bouncy like dolls!

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  16. oh god WE ARE ALL DOOMED wait pin nvm people

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  17. England used a similar idea during WW2

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  18. You haven't seen shit till you see Russias new jet fighter.

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  19. that is a very good idea

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  20. they should put inflatable dolls inside those hahaha

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  21. the US did this back in the day. they hired a magician to make the decoys. it was pretty epic. take that david copperfield

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  22. lol, that is pretty cool. Wish they offered those to the public. :)

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  23. I want an inflatable tank.

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  24. fuck thats awesome! thanks for posting.

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  25. Lol looks cool. I thought they used those earlier in WW2 and stuff too though. Are these just better?

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  26. lol, I'd like to drive one of those tanks to go to school!

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  27. That's a pretty good idea. I wonder what the gov't would think if I got one and put it up in my backyard.

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  28. I want some! Think of that sitting in your backyard :D

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  29. wow, thats quite ingenious indeed!

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  30. so just fight back with tacks. presumably expensive military technology, ruined by Staples

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  31. Haha... #2, momo, you made me laugh. :P Inflatable missiles. :P

    Now following this blog! :D

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  32. great content bro - now following

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  33. very cool post man thnx for the info

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  34. Made the news... All over the world! Was in the local paper!

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  35. lmao funny shit , i wonder how many times the govemenr go fool by these types of things and wasted alof of money...

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  36. That tank looks almost as fun as a real one

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