Thread: Cardboard Cutouts

If we started leaving cardboard cutouts and life sized soldier Mannequins all over the place in Afghanistan, do you think it would mess with the enemy's minds?

Of course, they'd just take them and move them, to mess with our minds back.

How would that mess with their minds?
Startle them? Creep them out?

Britain used inflatable artillery 'n stuff to fake preparations for the invasion of France in WWII. They set them up at Dover, but attacked the beaches of Normandy.

While a bunch of mannequins replacing people is definitely Stephen King worthy, it wouldn't work. ...Heck, that's horror gold. But not in real life. They'd be all, Sweet, no soldiers. Resume farming marijuana, you guys.

If you want to mess with them, you'd need something more intrusive. Like if the mannequins had motors and attacked trespassers with knives as their backs were turned, like souped-up drones. Or if the mannequins moved behind their backs, like in front of doors people were using, or if their heads fell off and they bled, something really messed up. It sure would work in the end, though. You get the idea.

How could you have a robotic mannequin that actually worked, unlike Asimo, or one of those clunky awkward robots they have now...?
Are motors the solution? Or should one use electroactive polymers or something that would actually mimic muscles?
What about control? Like an Xbox kinect setup, linked to the mannequin, so soldiers miles away could control it just by moving?
That might be viable after all.

I could have some fun with that idea.

What if you had soldiers who were trained to hold perfectly still for long periods of time, and you slip a few of them in among the mannequins?


(I want to add that I know this idea is silly. Sometimes I don't know that....but this time I do. I just thought it would be fun to discuss.)

What about a bunch of soldiers with guille suits or other assorted camo?

How about Chuck Norris silhouettes so we can test fire our weapons.

One of the strangest things about being in the military overseas is the thousands of bad Chuck Norris jokes you usually see written on latrine walls.

And then what do you do if the real Chuck Norris decides to show up? I'm sure the bullets would just bounce off (or he'd catch them in the air) but what if it makes him angry? Then you've got an angry Chuck Norris on your hands.


My advice would be to try and get the terrorists to shoot at the cutouts instead.