During WWII the German in one instance used a bombing run over England to drop wooden bomb replicas and wooden paratroopers on a fake base in Britain populated by fake wooden airplane replicas.

Who says war isn’t “fun” ?

I don’t understand how tanks parked in Britain would have fooled or even
bothered the Germans on D-Day.  I don’t even think the allies had a shortage
of tanks.  Its not like they were fighting most of the world, as the Germans
were.

But its true that using decoys has been used before in warfare.  Prior to Erwin
Rommel arriving in africa in 1941, their was no German military presence at all
in the middle east.  With most of the German army and materiel supporting it
going to the Russian front starting in June 1941, the Germans would soon have
a shortage of men and materiel.

When Erwin Rommel arrived in Libya in early 1941 he had to make Germany’s
enemies believe his force was much bigger than it was, so the allies wouldn’t
overrun his small force.  The “Desert Fox” arrived and had a relatively small
number of tanks unloaded which he paraded around the block several times to
create the impression he had a much larger force than he had.  Having a smaller
force than the combined Anglo-American forces, the “Desert Fox” used decoys
often in the war in Africa.  Although the Italian army did not perform very well,
Rommel praised their ability to build good decoys.

Reminds me of the WWII effort to fool the Germans into
thinking the invasion of France would not come at
Normandy.