Re:German tank problem
by vonmoltke on Friday February 21, 2014 @02:20PM
(#7278824)
The Soviets used to semi-randomly change ship pennant numbers and other identifying marks on their equipment to throw off NATO efforts to develop accurate strength estimates, orders of battle, and movement pictures.
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As a less intentional version of this - at early stages of the 1973 war, Israeli forces in certain areas tended to consist of whatever scraps of forces arrived at the front first. This led Egyptian and Syrian intelligence to wildly overestimate Israeli force sizes, since they would sometimes see the identifying marks of multiple brigades when facing a very small force.