Deceive to Survive: Small-Unit Deception Tactics on the Transparent Battlefield

Abstract

Drones and multi-domain sensors have made the modern battlefield increasingly transparent, and traditional concealment is no longer sufficient to evade enemy detection. To improve survivability and reclaim tactical initiative, the U.S. Army must institutionalize and train deception tactics at the small-unit level. By establishing a formal framework and empowering junior commanders to innovate, the Army can meaningfully reduce the critical vulnerabilities created by persistent enemy surveillance.

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Introduction: A Warning from Recent History

Between 2014 and 2022, numerous defense thinkers published urgent warnings that the proliferation of cheap commercial drones would fundamentally transform warfare. Yet those arguments largely circulated within specialist forums and failed to drive broad institutional change; the U.S. Army as a whole did not absorb the lesson. When the drone-saturated reality of the Ukrainian battlefield arrived, the Army was caught flat-footed—now paying in blood for failing to heed those early warnings.

Today, the Army stands at another comparable historical inflection point, this time centered on tactical deception. If the Army continues to neglect the importance of deception tactics, it may spend the next decade relearning these lessons at great cost. Although the Army has long valued deception at the operational and strategic levels, at the small-unit level it remains an improvised skill—neither systematically taught at training institutions nor codified in formal doctrine. The proliferation of multi-domain sensors has made the battlefield transparent. In this new reality, simply "hiding better" is no longer enough. We must actively manage what the enemy can see, and through disciplined, institutionalized small-unit deception tactics, turn the enemy's tools of identification into their own fatal weaknesses.

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The Challenge of the Transparent Battlefield

The Army must operate under one fundamental assumption: ground forces are under enemy observation at all times. The modern battlespace is a layered network of sensors; near-peer competitors have demonstrated sophisticated capabilities to detect any electromagnetic emission, triangulate its position, and immediately cue indirect fires for engagement. This electronic warfare (EW) threat, combined with widely available satellite imagery and mass-produced aerial drones capable of extended loiter with powerful thermal imagers and night-vision cameras, is sufficient to expose any movement.

Although these foundational TTPs remain indispensable, they are fundamentally passive and highly failure-prone—camouflage netting tears, near-perfect discipline is almost impossible to maintain under the pressure of large-scale combat operations (LSCO), and dispersion demands stronger electromagnetic emissions to maintain unit cohesion.

Current conflicts provide incontrovertible evidence of this new reality. In Ukraine, the density of UAVs and EW sensors is so high that virtually no corner of the front line is blind. The threat is composed of two elements: cheap one-way attack drones capable of destroying main battle tanks, and sophisticated EW systems able to intercept encrypted tactical communications in near real time. Beyond Ukraine, Iranian-manufactured Shahed drones have been widely employed by both state and non-state actors across the Middle East, further demonstrating the lethality and reach these systems can impose on conventional military forces.

The institutional default response to these threats has been to double down on existing survivability tools: better camouflage, stricter emissions control, and greater dispersion. While these foundational TTPs remain indispensable, they are fundamentally passive and highly failure-prone—camouflage netting tears, near-perfect discipline is almost impossible to maintain under the pressure of LSCO, and dispersion forces units to emit more electromagnetic signals to maintain cohesion. Relying solely on these TTPs means we are always a step behind, hoping enemy sensors fail to find us and reacting purely defensively once detected. We must add an active layer to our survivability posture: small-unit deception tactics.

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Deception: An Ancient Art for a New Reality

A drone locating a single fighting position, or an EW asset intercepting a friendly squad's radio transmission, can provide actionable intelligence directly to an enemy small-unit commander, enabling him to mass operational-level assets for a strike. For the first time in history, the location of a single soldier can be visible at the highest levels of command.

Relying solely on existing countermeasures will trap the Army in a resource-intensive, never-ending cycle of reaction. When concealment fails, we must answer with deception. Military history provides rich precedents for deception's value: from the World War II Ghost Army's operational feints using inflatable dummy tanks (Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles, The Ghost Army of World War II), to the British SAS's tactical misdirection in North Africa (Ben Macintyre, SAS: Rogue Heroes), to MACV-SOG's electronic deception operations in Vietnam (John L. Plaster, SOG)—the core principle has always been the same: manipulate the enemy's perception to create friendly advantage.

Viewing these historical cases through a modern lens, however, reveals a fundamental shift. In the past, deception was primarily a tool of higher headquarters against enemy reconnaissance and strike assets; a squad's actions were largely irrelevant to an enemy brigade commander. Today, the situation has changed entirely. A drone locating a single fighting position, or an EW asset intercepting a friendly squad's radio transmission, can provide actionable intelligence directly to an enemy small-unit commander, enabling him to mass operational-level assets for a strike. For the first time in history, the location of a single soldier can be visible at the highest levels of command.

This extreme transparency means we must push the principles and practice of deception all the way to the lowest echelons. By empowering squads to employ false observation posts (OPs), decoy obstacles, and deliberately heated empty tents to generate thermal signatures, soldiers can become active architects of their own survival—transforming a critical vulnerability into the most effective form of defense.

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Defining Deception for the Modern Battlefield

There is a gap in current Army doctrine. FM 3-13.4 (Army Support to Military Deception) describes military deception (MILDEC) and tactical deception (TACDEC), but only down to the brigade, division, and theater level. No doctrine currently prescribes formal terminology for small-scale deception tactics suited to modern survivability, nor does any guidance exist for building a decentralized deception framework. To win on the transparent battlefield, we must close this doctrinal gap by formally defining and managing deception operations at different echelons.

Doctrinal Deception (MILDEC and TACDEC)

As defined by applicable current Army doctrine, doctrinal deception consists of higher-echelon deception operations aimed at misleading enemy analytical judgment—primarily intelligence staff and commanders—to achieve operational or strategic effects. It is tightly synchronized and controlled at the theater command level (MILDEC) and as low as brigade (TACDEC). Modern training continues to develop this capability:

• During a Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) rotation, the author's brigade established a deception task force that simulated the operational signature of the brigade command post (CP). The task force combined physical decoys with electronic emitters to create a convincing signal signature, successfully attracting the attention of a support cell from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command Center of Excellence (SMDC CoE). At the exercise's conclusion, the SMDC cell confirmed they had identified the false CP and had been prepared to engage it with jamming and signal-denial assets. Through this successful deception, the brigade's actual CP was never detected—one key measure being the use of deliberately misleading naming conventions for all Wi-Fi devices associated with the real brigade CP.

Small-Unit Deception

The point is not the specific TTPs themselves, but that we currently neither emphasize, document, nor institutionalize this kind of creative thinking. We have no formal process to measure the effectiveness of these TTPs or preserve them for future use, relying almost entirely on the isolated creativity of individual junior commanders.

Small-unit deception must be conceptualized and trained at the squad, platoon, and company levels, distinct from any current military deception doctrine. This lowest-echelon deception is not intended to manipulate an enemy theater commander or his staff, but rather to improve the survivability of a fighting position, cause the enemy to waste time and effort, or give a squad a decisive advantage in the opening seconds of an engagement. The following cases illustrate the breadth of possibilities:

Case 1 (JRTC): While serving as an opposing force (OPFOR) platoon leader at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), the author was tasked with impeding a training unit's entry into the operational area. A three-man team emplaced a convincing fake improvised explosive device (IED)—constructed from a painted air canister and wiring—on a key road. Following standard procedures, the training unit's lead convoy immediately halted and stood by for a brigade-level explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team. This single low-cost deception by a three-man team immobilized the convoy for more than 12 hours, severely disrupting the training unit's operational schedule.

Case 2 (Finland Exercise): The author's cavalry squadron integrated multi-layered deception during an exercise in Finland, helping to delay an OPFOR consisting of a Finnish task force reinforced with a tank company. First, thermally heated false observation posts were established on predictably high-value terrain, successfully inducing Finnish forces to expend substantial artillery fires against them while the actual OPs went undetected. Second, scouts emplaced fake anti-tank mines along likely enemy avenues of approach, forcing lead tanks to halt and creating ideal targeting conditions for anti-tank teams. This initial deception produced a secondary effect: complacency. After clearing the fake mines, OPFOR relaxed their caution and advanced directly into a real anti-tank minefield.

Case 3 (Alaska Exercise): During a brigade-level exercise in Alaska, the author's cavalry squadron tailored a deception operation to the specific TTPs of the U.S. Army OPFOR. Knowing OPFOR preferred to use EW assets to cue drones, friendly forces broadcast "ghost radio" transmissions in unpopulated areas, paired with heated Arctic tents and fake snowmobile tracks to produce convincing multi-domain composite signatures. The deception successfully triggered OPFOR's intelligence collection cycle: EW assets detected the signals and cued a reconnaissance drone; the drone operator observed thermal signatures and snowmobile tracks, assessed the target as valid, and triggered the dispatch of a one-way attack drone—causing OPFOR to expend significant time and resources destroying an empty tent while the actual friendly positions remained undetected kilometers away.

These cases span diverse environments, but the principles are universal. Tankers at the National Training Center (NTC) can generate false thermal signatures from their hulls after a night movement; a forward support company in Hawaii can position empty crates at abandoned jungle intersections to attract enemy drones; a platoon defending key terrain can establish false fighting positions, giving an attacking enemy something to engage rather than immediately targeting the actual position.

The point is not the specific TTPs themselves, but that we currently neither emphasize, document, nor institutionalize this kind of creative thinking. We have no formal process to measure the effectiveness of these TTPs or preserve them for future use, relying almost entirely on the isolated creativity of individual junior commanders.

This ad hoc innovation is not unique to U.S. training environments—it has become operational reality in Ukraine. Reports indicate that both Ukrainian and Russian forces are employing similar small-unit deception tactics for survival. Ukrainian forces have constructed wooden mock-ups of high-value assets such as HIMARS rocket systems, successfully inducing Russian forces to expend costly cruise missiles against worthless targets. In the electronic domain, Russian forces have deployed deception measures to "flood enemy systems with false drone signals and simulate ground control station signatures." Soldiers on both sides of the conflict have independently developed and employed these TTPs out of battlefield necessity—the clearest possible signal that small-unit deception is no longer a niche skill but a core capability for modern tactical survival.

The Risk of Unintended Consequences

Uncontrolled interaction between the two levels of deception operations carries serious risk. Without clear guidance, a platoon leader's "small-unit" deception could produce unintended operational-level consequences. A well-intentioned company commander who names a Wi-Fi device "Brigade Main CP" could catastrophically redirect enemy attention toward the very high-value asset the brigade is genuinely trying to conceal. For decentralized mission command to function effectively, small units must be able to act without seeking approval at every echelon. Therefore, tactical commanders must possess a clear framework to distinguish the boundaries of authority at each level.

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Call to Action: Institutionalizing Deception Tactics

To fully exploit the power of deception while managing its inherent risks requires a deliberate, structured approach. To enable junior commanders to act decisively without compromising the overall operational picture, the Army must develop a formal system that integrates small-unit deception into doctrine, training, and command culture. This requires closing the doctrinal gap, building systematic training across all echelons from squad to brigade, and cultivating a command culture that encourages creative thinking and integrates successful TTPs upward.

The transparent battlefield will not disappear—it will only become clearer as sensor technology advances. The U.S. Army must act now, before history repeats itself and the gap in small-unit deception is filled at the cost of lives, to institutionalize this core survival skill.

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