Camouflage, Deception, Espionage, Intelligence ..
Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an advantage during
warfare by misleading adversary decision makers into taking actions detrimental to the adversary. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial
fog of war via
psychological operations,
information warfare, visual deception, or other methods. As a form of
disinformation, it overlaps with
psychological warfare. Military deception is also closely connected to
operations security (OPSEC) in that OPSEC attempts to conceal from the adversary critical information about an organization's capabilities, activities, limitations, and intentions, or provide a plausible alternate explanation for the details the adversary can observe, while deception reveals false information in an effort to mislead the adversary.
Deception in warfare dates back to early history.
The Art of War, an ancient Chinese military treatise, emphasizes the importance of deception as a way for outnumbered forces to defeat larger adversaries. Examples of deception in warfare can be found in Ancient
Egypt,
Greece, and
Rome, the
Medieval Age, the
Renaissance, and the
European Colonial Era. Deception was employed during
World War I and came into even greater prominence during
World War II.In modern times, the militaries of several nations have evolved deception tactics, techniques and procedures into fully fledged doctrine.
Operation Bodyguard was the code name for a
World War II deception plan employed by the
Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. The plan was intended to mislead the German high command as to the time and place of the invasion. The plan contained several operations, and culminated in the tactical surprise over the Germans during the
Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) and delayed German reinforcements to the region for some time afterwards.
German coastal defences were stretched thin in 1944, as they prepared to defend all of the coast of northwest Europe. The Allies had already employed deception operations against the Germans, aided by the capture of all of the German agents in the United Kingdom and the systematic decryption of German
Enigma communications. Once Normandy had been chosen as the site of the invasion, it was decided to attempt to deceive the Germans into thinking it was a diversion and that the true invasion was to be elsewhere.
Planning for Bodyguard started in
1943 under the auspices of the
London Controlling Section (LCS). A draft strategy, referred to as Plan Jael, was presented to Allied High Command at the
Tehran Conference in late November and approved on 6 December. The objective of this plan was to lead the Germans to believe that the invasion of northwest Europe would come later than was planned and to expect attacks elsewhere, including the
Pas-de-Calais, the
Balkans, southern
France,
Norway and Soviet attacks in
Bulgaria and northern Norway.
Operation Fortitude was the
code name for a
World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named
Bodyguard) during the build-up to the 1944
Normandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two sub-plans, North and South, with the aim of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the invasion.
Both Fortitude plans involved the creation of phantom
field armies (based in
Edinburgh and the south of England) which threatened
Norway (
Fortitude North) and
Pas de Calais (
Fortitude South). The operation was intended to divert Axis attention away from Normandy and, after the invasion on 6 June 1944, to delay reinforcement by convincing the Germans that the landings were purely a diversionary attack.
Operation Quicksilver was a
military deception operation performed during the
Second World War. Undertaken by the Allies in 1944, the operation threatened an invasion of France in the
Pas de Calais region through the simulation of a large Field Army in South East England. Quicksilver formed part of the
Operation Fortitude deception, itself part of the strategic
Operation Bodyguard plan. The key element of Quicksilver was to convince the German that "
First United States Army Group" (FUSAG) commanded by General
George Patton would land in the
Pas-de-Calais for the major invasion of Europe, after the landings in Normandy had lured the German defenders to that front. (FUSAG was a genuine army group headquarters which later became
Omar Bradley's
12th Army Group, but was given a fictitious role and many non-existent divisions for purposes of deception.)
Juan Pujol García, known by the British code name Garbo and the German code name Arabel, was a
double agent loyal to the Allies who played a crucial role in the deception by supplying Germany with detailed information from a network of non-existent sub-agents supporting the idea that the main invasion was to be in the Pas-de-Calais.