Dummy tank

Early designs included wooden shells and inflatable props that could fool enemy intelligence; they were fragile and only believable from a distance.

German forces utilized mock tanks prior to the start of the war for practice and training exercises.

[8] Inflatable dummies consisted of a fabric covering supported by a network of pressurized rubber tubes that formed a kind of "pneumatic skeleton".

In one operation in September 1944, the British deployed 148 inflatable tanks close to the front line and around half were "destroyed" by fragments from German mortar and artillery fire, and by Allied bombs falling short.

However, dummy vehicles played only a small part of the overall deception plan as, at that stage of the war, the Germans were unable to fly reconnaissance planes over England and such effort would have been wasted.

A "tank" was surrounded by American infantry, which had been under artillery bombardment: they found it was not real, but merely a sculpture carved out of volcanic ash.

[16] During the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant constructed and deployed wooden mockups of various vehicles in order to distract Coalition airstrikes.

Specialists from the National People's Army (NVA - Nationale Volksarmee) of the former DDR built amazingly lifelike mock-ups of Warsaw Pact military technology and combat vehicles here.

Instead of large full dummies, mock-ups of small combat equipment or tank turrets are usually produced for training purposes.