10 Mind Blowing Tricks That Were Used During War

Wars are mostly godly. They leave you amazed, stunned, challenged, deprived and mostly shaken. Even though most of us haven’t witnessed a war in real life, we have read about it in our books, heard about it from our parents, seen it in movies and imagined the horror while reading a war novel.

But the story doesn’t end here. What you do not know is some mind boggling winning strategies by war masterminds who took the battle quite literally, since obviously, million lives were at stake.

1. The British wanted to hide their newly found radar’s efficiency developed by their RAF team, which enhanced their shooting efficiency at night. In order to safeguard that, they rumored about carrot being the reason for it

During the time of WW II, Britain’s RAF fabricated a special radar to enhance their efficiency during night time, but they couldn’t talk louder about it. Adding to it, since they every little piece of information about the Germans that they needed to know, they were launching their flights quite accurately, which was obviously surprising for the world. Therefore, with the help of a massive propaganda, that carrots are good for eyesight, they solved two issues. One about keeping their RAF’s efficiency secret and another by making people eat more carrots in the times of attrocities.

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2. Britishers once wired a mansion where they were keeping senior German officers, who were detained. Of course, no one knew about the wiring and these officers discussed their plans loud and clear inside the mansion

What then appeared like an unbelievable act was, in fact, a very intelligent move by the British. When they were in charge of hosting senior German officers during the time of war, they gave them all the luxury, including newspapers to read every day, in return they wired the entire mansion and, therefore, could listen to everything that they discussed; right from their next strategy to what they think about the war. This helped them in outlining how the war was shaping up to the other end and, of course, the secrets helped them in managing the next course of action.

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3. This wall made of mud encircled the entire fort and saved it during the time of the attack, not just once but four times. It ate all cannonballs that were shot at it and stopped it from exploding

This 7 feet thick layer of mud that was built around the Lohagarh Fort, Rajasthan thwarted Britishers from entering in or invading the fort. Because of the water in the lake, the mud wall wouldn’t dry and will always remain wet, subsequently enabling the cannonballs to get stuck in it, sans the explosion. Britishers attacked it four times consecutively on 9th and 21st January and 20th-21st February 1805, but failed miserably. This winning strategy not only shooed Britishers away, but a mark in the history.

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4. Indian Rajputs pulled a marvellous trick where they dressed their horses like elephants, apparently making them look like baby elephants, on which other animals wouldn’t attack

The Marwaris  war horses created a dent in the Indian history. The Indian Rajputs sensed some threat during the times of war and the result couldn’t have been any cleverer. They turned their well trained horses into baby elephants by camouflaging them with a big trunk on them. This made them appear like a baby elephant, to which the adult animals would not attack and therefore helped them in fighting the battle.

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5. When Pakistanis planned to attack India, Indian Army went a step ahead by fooling them about their negligence, converting the entire sugarcane farm into a damp land, followed by an attack that bashed their army

This battle of Asal Uttar during 1965 India Pakistan war was the largest tank battle in the history of wars after WW II. Maj. Gen. Gurbaksh Singh was leading the army then and he planned this rewarding plan of covering Pakistanis from all sides, when they heard about their plan of coming to India and invading certain parts of the country. Furthermore damping the land (Sugarcane fields) so as to make those tanks immobilized and then attacking them from all the three sides. Indian Army did a brilliant job and also managed to capture 11 of their tanks.

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6. This ship was disguised as a tropical island, and apparently was the last Dutch ship that made it through when Japan attacked at the end of 1942

The hardship of WW II is not a well-kept secret. The Dutch were amongst those who were devastated by the entire massacre. During that time, the Dutch were only left with four warships and escaping from that Japanese zone was not possible. Therefore, they painted the roofs of this ship like rocks and kept ample of leaves and branches on the desk, so as to camouflage it as an island. Since Indonesia has many islands, it wasn’t possible for Japanese to spot this slow moving piece, which only moved during night time.

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7. T-shaped doors in Indian forts are there to hinder the force from the opposing army to enter the fort with speed

Have you ever wondered as to why the fort gates are usually small, considering that the average height of kingly epoch in India was 6’2? Well, there’s a rather amusing story about this fact. The small T-shaped doors were made so that the soldiers from the opposing side could not enter with force or all at once. Also, these gates were low in height so as when soldiers would bend down to enter the fort,  soldiers standing right beside the gate could cut their heads.

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8. Safeguarding the sole aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and creating a fake story for the world to believe, especially Pakistan, that was planning to sink it down

After the hostilities of 1971, Indian Navy sensed Pakistan’s plan for destroying INS Vikrant. They then secretly moved it to X-ray, a harbor in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. However, they still portrayed as if it was docked at Visakhapatnam at the eastern coast of India. Pakistanis lost PNS Ghazi during this repertoire and the false rumor that INS Vikrant had sunk never came true.

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9. The Ghost Army of United States that fooled Hitler by spreading rumors about the size of the army and their future endeavours, apparently making him change his plan of actions

During the time of WW II, United States Army produced this clique of quite intelligent and espionage experts who fooled Hitler and his allies. These 1,100 men were entitled to a unique mission where they had to fake about its army, plans, proficiency and everything else. These men forged their entire plan, leaked fake stories through prostitutes in the brothel and drunk officers (who too were fake) in bars and mislead Hitler. The team comprised of actors, makeup artists, media professionals, photographers, painters etc. Condemned by the plan, Hitler vested his time, energy, manpower over this, only to realize that the real damage has been done somewhere else.

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10. The Indian Army planned a hijack of its own plane because they wanted to stop Pakistan from using the Indian flying space

1965 Indo-Pak war did not end with a closure, instead kept on inviting trouble. The biggest problem between the east and west Pakistan was communication and travel. Anything other than the Indian air space would cost them a fortune and India knew about it. Thence, India planned a hijack of their own plane and forged Pakistanis. Hashim Quereshi and his cousin Ashraf Butt (Kashmiri citizens) who hijacked it portrayed it in a rather promising plan that the hijack was done to draw world’s attention towards the Kashmir issue. The then minister Zuklfiquar Ali Bhutto was also caught amid this trap and burnt the aircraft, after releasing all the passenger. This gave India a reason to ban the Indian airspace for Pakistanis.

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The barbaric fights of course led to a misfortunate era, but these tricks did save some lives.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

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