Russians fooled by wooden Leopard tank decoy in Ukraine
A video showing a destroyed Leopard 2A4 tank in Ukraine appeared on social media. According to the Military Portal on its official Facebook account, this was a machine in Polish camouflage, which turned out to be a wooden dummy posing as real military equipment.
Military dummies of various types are nothing new. Both Russians and Ukrainians use them to confuse their opponents and encourage them to waste ammunition on targets of marginal significance. For example, inflatable models of HIMARS, Abrams tanks, or F-16 fighters appear in Ukraine. Many of these are equipped with built-in heating systems that can deceive the enemy's thermal imaging.
Russians were fooled by the wooden Leopard dummy
A significant portion of the decoys consists of wooden constructions, such as the Leopard 2A4 tank in Polish paint visible in the video. The wooden tank was most likely intended to fool the Russians, and it apparently succeeded in doing so.
The Leopard 2A4 is a third-generation German main battle tank, an evolution of the Leopard 2 model. Its combat weight is about 61 tons. It is powered by a 12-cylinder MTU MB 873 Ka 501 engine with 1,500 horsepower, which allows it to reach a maximum speed of 45 mph on the road and 35 mph off-road. The tank's operational range is about 342 miles on the road.
The main armament of the Leopard 2A4 is a 120 mm smoothbore Rh-M-120 gun produced by Rheinmetall, capable of firing modern anti-tank ammunition. Additionally, the tank is equipped with an advanced fire control system, which increases its combat effectiveness.
Ukraine received Leopard 2A4 tanks from its Western allies. Among them was Poland, Canada, Spain, and Norway.
