Deception in War - Softcover

Latimer, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910670677 ISBN 13: 9781910670675

Publisher: Thistle Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

'Skilful and sober... Latimer describes not only the steps taken to deceive ... but also the conditions of mind that allowed for the trickery to work.'
The Washington Post

‘Let us hope that this fine book is given the attention it deserves by the professionals, for it will surely entertain and inform the rest of us.'
Osprey Military Journal

‘Engagingly written, punchy and well researched.’
Birmingham Evening Mail

‘Episodes from very distant eras jostle illuminatingly against each other... The first modern full length (and public) study of deception in warfare. It is completely authoritative.’
The Guardian

Deception has been an integral part of warfare since Troy accepted a wooden horse from the Acheans, but it has generally been looked on as the ruses de guerre of cunning individuals rather than as an integral part of the command skills necessary for success. Even today, though military commanders are expected to include deception in their operational planning, they are not taught its principles and methods.

Military historians likewise often underestimate its importance. Yet the Peninsula Campaign during the American Civil War was a failure because Major-General George B. McClellan was fooled into thinking the way to Richmond was blocked, when it was not. The success of the Normandy invasion in 1944 was in large part due to the greatest ever act of military deception — and a colossal achievement — Operation Bodyguard.

This book is the first to describe fully the place of deception in warfare and to explain the principles that make deception successful. Jon Latimer shows how simple some tricks have been, but also how technology has increased the range and subtlety of what is possible, using for instance bogus radio traffic, virtual images, even smell. He draws examples from land, sea and air, and these are invariably entertaining. There is something delicious about not only beating an opponent, but doing so through guile.

About this title

About the Author:

Jon Latimer served for sixteen years with the Territorial Army, with the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia), The Royal Welch Fusiliers and The Royal Regiment of Wales (as a battalion intelligence officer). His service included attachments in Northern Ireland, to Headquarters, 4th Armoured Brigade, in Germany, and to the Royal New South Wales Lancers. He has published widely in military journals and is author of the Osprey Campaign Series titles Operation Compass 1940 (No. 73) and Tobruk 1941 (No. 80).

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: Thistle Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1910670677
• ISBN 13: 9781910670675
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 530