Russia Plans to Use Tanks as Decoys to Kill Enemy Artillery

Will it work?

Michael Peck [2]

Russia has unveiled a devious new battlefield tactic: use tanks as decoys in order to hunt down enemy artillery batteries.

It’s a bait-and-switch con job that relies on relies on Russian tanks, drones, artillery—and an opponent that is just a tad gullible.

The technique works like this, according to [3] Russia’s Sputnik News: When facing an enemy that has artillery, Russia will attempt to locate the enemy batteries and destroy them through counterbattery fire. The problem, which dates back to the eighteenth century, is that the enemy batteries will attempt to remain concealed.

So how to lure them out? Russia intends to do it by having its tanks pretend to be artillery pieces. Normally, tanks use direct fire, in which they have a line of sight to the target. But on occasion, they have been used as artillery. During the Korean War—because the terrain was too rocky for armor to maneuver—the United States inclined tanks on ramps [4] and had them fire indirectly with high, arcing shots that passed over hills and hit targets on the other side.

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