Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan Horse to the Gulf War - Hardcover

Latimer, Jon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585672041 ISBN 13: 9781585672042

Publisher: Overlook Press, 2001

Synopsis

A riveting account of deceit and cunning documents the many instances of deception in war, from the Trojan Horse and Pharoah Ramses II's campaign against the Hittites to the Gulf War, and details how technology has evolved and increased the range and subtlety of what is possible, from bogus radio traffic to false smells.

About this title

About the Author:

Jon Latimer served for sixteen years as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, as Platoon Commander, Assault Troop Leader, and Battalion Intelligence Officer. He has published widely in military journals, and is also the author of Operation Compass 1940 and, with Jim Laurier, of CAM080 Tobruk 1941. His Deception in War was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the History Book Club, and the Military History Book Club.

From Publishers Weekly:

From simple low-tech tricks to the digitized crackle of false data, Latimer, a combat-experienced British intelligence officer, offers a wide-ranging history of military deception. He divides the ruses into their respective warfare modes "Naval Deception"; "Deception in Air Operations"; "Deception in Counter-Revolutionary and Irregular Warfare," etc. and analyzes the fundamentals of deception, "always aimed clearly at the mind of the enemy commander." Although the bulk of the book centers on WWII, Latimer also shows how the Hittites lured Ramses II into an ambush, tells the familiar biblical story of the Israelite commander Gideon and how he panicked a much larger Midianite soldiery, then looks at Venetian-Genoese rivalry in the Mediterranean. British decoy aircraft, Operation Bodyguard (one of 36 bluffs covering the allied invasion of Europe in 1944 that is a chapter in itself), and commanders and theorists like Eisenhower, German Generaloberst Franz Halder and China People's Liberation Army commander Liu Po-Ch'eng are all put through their paces, along with the now much talked-about "Hail Mary" maneuver that enabled coalition forces to rout Saddam Hussein's large army in the Gulf War. The end result is a broad study of military bluff and how it has influenced decisive wars, campaigns and battles. Perhaps it should be classified. 10 maps; 35 illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1585672041
• ISBN 13: 9781585672042
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356