OT: Deception in WWI and WWII

There was a MOST excellent Bio Channel program regarding the life and accomplishments of one

Jasper Maskelyne

on the TV last Friday... the man and his Magic Gang performed some amazing trickery in North Africa...

SC
:kilroy:
 
Yes Jasper was indeed the master of deception, for his demo to British high command he made a full scape battleship appear on a English river far from the sea. He started with magic tricks in the desert and was invovled in inflatable tanks, and vehicles in the UK preperatory for the Invasion. The Germans did a lot of trickery too, and much of it was in the art of camoflage and other deceits. A remarkable part of the story.
 
whitehawk_2009 said:
I was coming home from CAP last week and came across this. It is a discussion about Mis-Intelligence in WWI and WWII. It is about an hour and a half long podcast, but it is very interesting.

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/ext720/wgnam-x720-unabridged091110,0,3926469.mp3file

WH
Click to expand...

As a former teacher of guerrilla/counterguerrilla warfare this is an interest of mine. I used to own a very interesting book on camo/deception in WW2, it was in paperback, I'll have to search Amazon. It covered the rubber tanks and Monty's fake fuel pipeline across the desert made of excess water tins. I can remember one chapter was titled "Everything But The Ammo" concerning US camo methods.

An exellent study on guerrilla war/deception is found in Robert Asprey's "WAR IN THE SHADOWS: The Guerrilla In History" I got it through Military Book Club in 1978 and is available, both volumes, for a few rubles on Amazon. It's the bible for study of guerrilla war though his conclusions on Vietnam I do not agree with. It spotlights Mao's plagerizm of Sun Tzu and nearly every form of guerrilla fighting there is. A favorite study is the Philippine guerrillas planting pungee sticks on the side of a trail and firing a shot as a patrol/column passes; the hapless troops dive for cover and onto the sticks.

That's my kind of warfare.

We practice deception in day to day life: Cover is protection from projectiles. Concealment is hiding from view. Camouflage is concealing the fact you have concealed something. We all practice deception; from our tax returns to getting elected President, we are all guerrilla terrorists.

Tony Bones
 
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