Dummy tanks saw significantly more use during World War II by both the
Allies and the
Axis. German forces utilized mock tanks prior to the start of the war for practice and training exercises. Their use in
military deception was pioneered by
British forces, who termed them "spoofs". One of the first uses of dummy tanks during the Second World War was in the
North African Campaign. The
Royal Engineers stationed there constructed two per day; between April and June 1941, they were able to build three dummy
Royal Tank Regiments, and another in November that same year. These were foldable, and thus portable; and the Royal Engineers improved them further.
Jeeps were used to make the "spoofs" more mobile: a steel frame covered with canvas was placed on them, making a self-propelled dummy tank. The Jeep did not realistically simulate the noise or movement of a tank, but allowed the dummy to be deployed quickly. Meanwhile, the reverse was also done, to make tanks look like trucks. A further device was put into use that both created simulated tank tracks and erased real ones. Inflatable dummies consisted of a fabric covering supported by a network of pressurized rubber tubes that formed a kind of "pneumatic skeleton". These were generally preferred in the field, despite their tendency to rapidly deflate if punctured by accident or shellfire. 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. Contrary to common wisdom there is actually no evidence that inflatable dummy tanks were used during
Operation Fortitude, the massive deception plan enacted prior to the
landings at the Normandy Beaches, while there was a limited use of other dummy vehicles, mostly made of wood, sheet metal and canvas. 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. and the Fortitude deception was largely carried out using double agents and false radio traffic. During
Operation Shingle at
Anzio,
Italy, inflatable
Sherman tanks were deployed when the real tanks were elsewhere. In the
Pacific Theater of Operations, the
Japanese also utilized decoys; one recorded instance was during the
Battle of Iwo Jima. 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. ==Modern era==