Two seamstresses are busy on their machine to connect shapeless sections of grey-green Nylon. It’s hard to imagine that, once sewn, these pieces of fabric will form the frame of a fake but very similar SA-8, a Russian anti-aircraft vehicle. Inflatable in a few minutes, this life-size copy can serve as a target for training Western forces, but also as a decoy, intended to deceive enemy artillery. A vital artifice for the Ukrainian army in the face of Russian bombing.
The activity takes place in the Czech Republic, in a small factory of the Inflatech company, located in Decin, a town clinging to the German border, in the northwest of this central European country. If the owner of the premises, Victor Talanov, refuses to confirm that he works for the Ukrainian army, he admits, with a touch of black humor: “Putin did good marketing for us, we doubled our turnover in 2022.”
“Highly Skilled Seamstresses”
With its brand new production unit installed behind the tinted windows of an old supermarket, the company, which employs around twenty-five people, including several Ukrainian women, is taking full advantage of the boom in the very unique market for military decoys. It offers around thirty inflatable models, such as the imitation of the SA-8 or the T-72 tank, all designed on a computer, then printed in separate parts and sewn by a “team of highly skilled seamstresses able to read blueprints in diagram form”, says Mr. Talanov.
While this technology was believed to belong to the Second World War and the famous “Fortitude” operation carried out by the Allies on British territory to deceive the Nazis at the landing site, Mr. Talanov ensures that his products are more than ever topical. “They cost around 25,000 euros, it’s much cheaper than a real tank and even an anti-tank missile, you’re a winner in any case”, he boasts. According to him, “Decoys are the best way to improve the survival time of vehicles on the front.”
“One of the usage scenarios” proposed by his company is summarized as follows: “You receive an alert about the presence of an enemy artillery system. In five minutes, you can hide your tanks and replace them with our decoys which will be bombarded. » Packed in two large black packages of about 40 kilos each, the lure and the inflator – with electric or thermal motor, depending on the model – “can be unfolded and folded by one or two people”he assures. Inflatech even provided an air heating and reflector system to fool night thermal cameras and radars.
You have 49.84% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.