A paradummy is a

military deception Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an advantage during warfare by misleading adversary decision makers into taking action or inaction that creates favorable conditions for the deceiving force. This is usually ac ...

device first used in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, intended to imitate a drop of paratroop attackers. This can cause the enemy to shift forces or fires unnecessarily, or lure enemy troops into staged

ambushes An ambush is a long-established military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind mount ...

. The dolls used for Operation Titanic were nicknamed Rupert by British troops and Oscar by American. The official name was "Device Camouflage No. 15". They were made of burlap and filled with straw or green waste. Some were found in a warehouse on an old British airfield in the 1980s. Some of the original dolls from this find are now exhibited in war museums. The dolls are immobile and about 85 cm tall, consequently smaller than a person, but on the ground during twilight it is difficult to tell the difference between real parachutists. In addition, real parachutists let themselves be hung motionless on the ropes during the jump, so that the ground troops could not tell them apart from real jumpers or comrades who had already been shot in the air.

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