What was the best ruse ever! For me, I would choose the ruse Hannibal used against the Romans at Lake Trasimenus. Hannibal ordered his men to light camp fires on the nearby hills, at a considerable distance, to give the impression that his army was much farther away. The Romans fell for the trick and walked through a long, foggy and narrow valley directly into the open land, where they were ambushed and attacked, being cut to pieces.

The apparently open flank that Napoleon left at Austerlizt. For those ignorant few, he left no troops on his right flank deliberately, and the enemy, who always dreamed of outflanking Napoleon and defeating him, sent a large portion of their army to attack that flank. Well, the flank was not empty, Davout led a corps on a forced march that stopped the enemy attack, and Soult's corps attacked the weakened enemy center that had troops drawn to attack their right. All in all, the combine Russian and Austrian army was vastly defeated and smashed to peices, setting the stage for a peace treaty later that year.

When we persuaded the Americans that they won the war of independence, rather than the truth, which was that we couldn't stand them any more and wanted rid of them :mischief:

Personally though I'd go for the skills of the British intelligence services during WWII who's achievements included "hiding" alexandria harbour and the suez canal, creating dummy airfields and tanks during numerous campaigns (Battle of Britain and those in Africa being two of the most important), inventing the army that Patton "commanded" before d-day, persuading the Germans that we were going to invade Sardinia, and confusing the hell out of the Germans around d-day :)

Ahh nevermind.

Pls stop making inconsequential posts. Last warning. - XIII

This one's fairly obvious, but I'd say Operation Fortitude was one of the biggest of all time. The non-existent 1st US Army group led by General Patton which Hitler was convinced would hit the beach at Pas-de-Calais. It was such an incredible success that for Weeks the Germans continued to hold their reserves back from Normandy, convinced that an even bigger invasion would still hit Pas-de-Calais. It's very probable that thousands of Allied lives were saved because of it.

-Elgalad

i agree with you on that

Personally though I'd go for the skills of the British intelligence services during WWII who's achievements included "hiding" alexandria harbour and the suez canal, creating dummy airfields and tanks during numerous campaigns (Battle of Britain and those in Africa being two of the most important), inventing the army that Patton "commanded" before d-day, persuading the Germans that we were going to invade Sardinia, and confusing the hell out of the Germans around d-day :)Jasper Maskeline was a great Magician and used his skills and knowledge on it to stunning effect prior to the battle of El-Alamein, indeed. I agree.

Link to the story (http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/jasper.html)

When we persuaded the Americans that they won the war of independence, rather than the truth, which was that we couldn't stand them any more and wanted rid of them :mischief:

Personally though I'd go for the skills of the British intelligence services during WWII who's achievements included "hiding" alexandria harbour and the suez canal, creating dummy airfields and tanks during numerous campaigns (Battle of Britain and those in Africa being two of the most important), inventing the army that Patton "commanded" before d-day, persuading the Germans that we were going to invade Sardinia, and confusing the hell out of the Germans around d-day :)


That's funny, I always thought what really happened was we let you think that we thought that we'd won the war so you'd leave, we didn't want you here anyway :crazyeye:

I thought the ruse against the germans was an ALLIED effort, I stand corrected, I didn't know you Brits were so smart.

Jasper Maskeline was a great Magician and used his skills and knowledge on it to stunning effect prior to the battle of El-Alamein, indeed. I agree.

Link to the story (http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/jasper.html)

like when he had the base turn all its lights off and had a bunch of lights turned on near the base

The lead up to operation Bagration on the Eastern front in '44. The Soviets tricked the Germans into thinking the offensive was going to be against Army Group South but really it was always aimed at Army Group Centre.

The result was an attack north of the Pripet Marshes, the butchering of Army Group Centre and the Russians rocking up to the gates of warsaw.

Good bye German army.....

That's funny, I always thought what really happened was we let you think that we thought that we'd won the war so you'd leave, we didn't want you here anyway

Pah! Revisionist nonsense :rolleyes: ;)

I thought the ruse against the germans was an ALLIED effort, I stand corrected, I didn't know you Brits were so smart.

Well a lot of it was British, I don't doubt the Americans helped in some ways for example in supplies etc. Generally speaking though the American high command was less for subtlety and more for blatant use of force, for example, the issue over Italy and the way that it was the British that were the biggest supporters and trainers of partisans and the resistance in Western Europe during the war.

well we didn't have to train partisans, because of our military might

:hmm: The partisans of europe benifited each country involved, if we didn't do it, someone would have to :p

i never said we shouldn't i said we didn't have to

Your point being? I was merely commenting that we did more of that kind of thing than the Americans because someone had to do the subtle ally rather than the obvious one, and we were damned good at it :smug:

I was under the impression that this topic was about what a country did, not what it might have done :mischief:

good point

I'd say Plassey. I don't know exactly what happened there. But English succeeded by treason to defeat French troops 20 times more numerous with only a handful of deaths. The result was India became English (whereas up to then it could have become French).
Hannibal's tricks are interesting on a purely military basis but it had no lasting effect while the one at Plassey was quite influential.

Personally though I'd go for the skills of the British intelligence services during WWII who's achievements included "hiding" alexandria harbour and the suez canal,

Hey now, Hudson! Didn't the Italians severely damage two of His Majesty's battleships in Alexandria Harbor with manned torpedo subs? :D

I'm not vastly familiar with the episode, but it seemed like I read that both the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Valiant were critically damaged and would have both been sunk if the harbor had been deeper.. is that true? If so.. and by the way this is Nothing against Britain's overall remarkable abilities at subterfuge, I'd say Britain should have done a better job - at least in Alexandria's case. ;)

-Elgalad

Well it's not possible to hide a harbour in daylight from sea (or undersea) level. What we did was hide it from air attacks and reconassaince, which is another matter entirely :)

That I can see.. I did a little more reading on the subject. It seems like those little minisubs were remarkably successful, though they were probably the only units of the Italian Navy that could make that claim. I looked them up a few weeks ago when researching alternate Italian/Roman UU's for various Ages in the new Civ 4. Anyway, back on topic.. Has anyone mentioned the British secret plan that put faked credentials and military invasion plans on the corpse of a soldier and set him adrift in the English Channel? The Germans found the body and were convinced he was a high ranking military officer and they had made a major intelligence coup. That was a doozy, wasn't it? Saw something about that on the History Channel.. I should really research this stuff more, but it's late. :)

-Elgalad

Hmmm...

Not sure, I've heard about a similar thing, but it was actually about Sardinia/Scilly rather than NW europe. Not sure if you're confusing the two, or if there was two similar events, I've never heard of the channel one, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen of course :)

And yes, they were very sucessful operatives, they even tried some of them against Gibraltar during the war :eek:

Think you have the right of it, the more I remember now. Sardinia sounds more accurate. Wasn't the body an unknown soldier too? Seems like they did something else to honor his 'sacrifice' like award him posthumous medals or the like. In any case, the ingenuity you guys displayed during that war was incredible. :hatsoff:

-Elgalad

Think you have the right of it, the more I remember now. Sardinia sounds more accurate. Wasn't the body an unknown soldier too? Seems like they did something else to honor his 'sacrifice' like award him posthumous medals or the like. In any case, the ingenuity you guys displayed during that war was incredible. :hatsoff:

-Elgalad

Not sure about him, I'm only passingly familiar with the story. Talking generally though, yes the British win the subtlety award for WWII though :)

There was also an article in a recent Fortean times about a double agent during WWII who tricked the Germans into thinking that an invasion of the Calais area would happen a certain time after the Normandy landings. From what the article said, the Germans were bringing to the region an SS panzer corps (9th and 10th SS IIRC) but this agent did such a good job that they stopped and turned back before reaching Normandy only to return later when the ruse was found to be false. It was part of an article that went through some of the details discussed such as the magician and others like "Monty's double" :)

Well, since a lot of the examples are from the 20th century (esp. WWII) how about some more ancient ruses? There is Zhuge Liang's "Ruse of the Empty City" during the 3 Kingdoms era (3rd century AD). The guy was left with very few troops in a city with his nemesis Sima Yi coming towards him with a huge army. What he did was open the city gates, dress up his remaining soldiers as normal citizens and had them sweep the streets and sat on the city wall playing his lute. Sima Yi saw all this, got very suspicious. Zhuge Liang relied on several things. One, Sima Yi was a brilliant careful commander (he would found the Jin dynasty that reunited China). If the commander was not as smart as Sima Yi this ruse would never have worked. Secondly, Zhuge Liang had an infamous reputation for elaborate ambushes and other tricks (which Sima Yi amongst others had been the victim of many times). Third, Zhuge Liang had a famous reputation as a great commander who would never leave himself open. Sima Yi seeing all this, refused to believe that a great commander like Zhuge Liang would leave his city totally defenceless like this, and knowing his reputation came to a conclusion it was an ambush. Therefore he had his entire army retreat. This then gave Zhuge Liang the opportunity to clear out of the city safely with his troops:

Quite open lay the city to the foe,
But Zhuge Liang's lute of jasper wonders wrought;
It turned aside the legions' onward march
For both the leaders guessed the other's thought.

Another good one was when he died. Zhuge Liang knew Sima Yi would attack his army as soon as news of his death reached him. He organised a lifelike wooden sculpture of him to be made and painted. Sure enough as soon as news of Zhuge Liang's death from illness reached him, Sima Yi attacked the Shu-Han army. Then out of nowhere came Zhuge Liang's chariot with him in it (really it was the wooden statue) and his banner. Thinking the news of the death was a ruse, Sima Yi and his army retreated in haste, allowing the Shu-Han army to retreat safely. A poem was written:

In the depth of night a brilliant star
Fell from the northern sky;
Doubts stayed Sima Yi
When he would pursue
His dead, but fearsome enemy.
And even now the western people,
With scornful smile, will say
"Oh, is my head on my shoulder still?
It was nearly lost today.

I don't know, I just like the idea of someone pulling off a ruse which uses their own (real) death as the main pivot...

The famous naval battle of Chibi (well it's the most famous naval battle in China. Practically unknown outside of China though...If Cao Cao had succeeded it could have saved China 400 years of civil war. The battle broke Cao Cao's ability to invade Wu and Shu-Han due to his severe losses and loss of nerve for naval battles on the Yangtze afterwards) was a whole series of ruses (well the winning navy was more than 10 times smaller than the losing one, so I guess this was necessary). First, the Wu commander, Zhou Yu pretended to get drunk and "allowed" one his traitorous friends to take a letter which was supposedly from two of Cao Cao's generals (in fact the only generals who had naval experience) saying they wanted to betray Cao Cao. Cao Cao executed the men. He realised he had been tricked later and so did everyone else, serving to decrease morale. One of Zhou Yu's generals volunteered to pretend to defect to Cao Cao. To make this seem genuine, he insulted Zhou Yu and got heavily whipped in full view of the rest of the Wu army (and the Wei spies of course). Then Pang Tong (who was secretly working for Wu) convinced Cao Cao to chain his ships together as his sailors were men from the north and hence not used to ships and were getting sick all the time. Zhuge Liang had predicted that a strange (for the time of the year) very strong SE wind would be blowing on the chosen day (legend says he summoned up the wind, but it is far more likely he was just good at reading the weather) which was necessary for Zhou Yu's fire attacks to go in the right direction and to whip up the flames. On the night of the battle, Huang Gai (the general who got whipped) had arranged to defect to Wei. When they saw his small group of fast ships coming to the fleet they didn't shoot because they thought he was defecting. When he got close enough, Huang Gai and his men set all the ships on fire and dove into the Yangtze River. The fire ships slammed into Cao Cao's ships and set them on fire. Since Pang Tong had convinced Cao Cao to chain the ships together, the fire spread rapidly, engulfing the entire fleet and Cao Cao's "million man army". Also the wind was a strong SE wind, carrying the rest of Zhou Yu's fire attacks right into Cao Cao's fleet.

Later on when Cao Cao tried to escape, Zhuge Liang sent Guan Yu after him. Now Zhuge Liang knew his master Liu Bei was weak. He knew that if the common enemy Cao Cao died, then Wu would turn on him and Liu Bei. So he sent the one man who could be assured of letting Cao Cao go *free* after Cao Cao. Guan Yu had been captured by Cao Cao before and treated very well. Zhuge Liang knowing Guan Yu's sense of honour knew Guan Yu would never kill Cao Cao. However to make everything above board, he got Guan Yu riled up before hand, refusing to deploy him anywhere in the battle because he said Guan Yu could not be trusted to kill Cao Cao. Guan Yu got extremely upset and vowed to kill Cao Cao. Zhuge Liang then (faking) reluctantly agreed, saying Guan Yu could go after Cao Cao but only after signing an agreement that if he failed he would accept military justice i.e. execution. When Guan Yu came back to be executed for his failure, Zhuge Liang (once again faking) allowed himself to be "persuaded" not to execute Guan Yu. Actually Guan Yu's refusal to kill the supposed "villain" Cao Cao (as well as his refusal to betray Liu Bei when captured by Cao Cao) is one of the primary reasons he is so admired. In all respects he acted with personal honour....

@uiler: No wonder those ruses were successful - my head spins just trying to make sense of all the ruses and counter-ruses! :crazyeye:

@uiler: No wonder those ruses were successful - my head spins just trying to make sense of all the ruses and counter-ruses! :crazyeye:

Hey, I didn't even mention all of the ruses Zhou Yu tried to use to off Zhuge Liang before Chibi (both of them knew what was going on but both kept on smiling in public and pretending nothing was happening). Sure they were *supposed* to be allied, but both Wu and Shu-Han knew that as soon as the Wei threat got defeated, both would be at each other's throat. Then after Chibi...Plan A. Oops. Didn't work. OK, Plan B. OK, that didn't work either. Now Plan C. Damn it. OK, I'm going to die of fustration (Zhuge Liang was not only good at defeating Zhou Yu he was good at doing it in a way which literally rubbed Zhou Yu's nose in it). No wonder Zhou Yu's last words were "Heaven made Zhou Yu. Why did it have to make a Zhuge Liang as well?" Official cause of death listed in his biography: wound from poison arrow (which was non-fatal) + sheer fustration from dealing with Zhuge Liang. Then to add insult to injury, after Zhou Yu's death, Zhuge Liang held a huge mourning ceremony where he cried copious amounts of tears for the dear departed Zhou Yu, causing people to comment, "People lied when they said these two were enemies. Look at the sincerity shown in sacrifice." The Wu delegation were particularly impressed by Zhuge Liang's show of grief and even blamed Zhou Yu for being unreasonably obsessed with killing Zhuge Liang who clearly had no ill intentions to Zhou Yu. Pang Tong (the guy who came up with the ruse to get Cao Cao to chain his ships together) however worked out what was going on and said to Zhuge Liang, "You exasperated literally to death the man whose body lies up there. To come here as a mourner is an open insult to the South Land. It is as good as to say they have no other left." The two of them became good friends needless to say and Pang Tong later joined Shu-Han with Zhuge Liang's letter of recommendation :)

the issue over Italy and the way that it was the British that were the biggest supporters and trainers of partisans and the resistance in Western Europe during the war.

Agreed :cool:

Incredible threadjacking has been going on here... Good job getting it back on track Uiler.

My vote for best ruse would go to Alexander the Great. The Sogdian Rock was an impregnable fortress in Western India. It was situated on the front of a mountain, about a hundred meters from the summit. The back of the mountain was sheer, and widely believed to be unclimbable. Alexander had neither the resources nor the time for a long siege (re: Tyre), but could not afford to leave this outpost to his rear. He sent a couple hundred volunteers to scale the back of the "unscalable" cliffs behind the fortress, and had them display themselves above the fortress. The overawed defenders, sure that their opponents must have had wings to reach the summit, surrendered immediately -- Alexander didn't suffer a single casualty (and eventually married the king's daughter!)

An event in the French and Indian War was also an impressive ruse. During Pontiac's great uprising in 1762-1763, Fort Michilimackinac, a relatively isolated British fort, was captured by trickery. The fort was commanded by Major George Etherington. While he was surrounded by Indians who had always hated the English, Etherington was confident that the garrison in the fort could fend off any attack. However, on June 4th, teams of Chippawa and Sauk began a game of lacrosse near the fort. Etherington and some troopers left the fort to watch the game. During the game, a prearranged covert signal was given and the ball was kicked into the open gates of the fort. Then the players rushed towards the gates, where Indian women handed them weapons they had concealed under blankets. The armed lacrosse players continued through the gates, killing every soldier and English trader they could. Only Major Etherington, Lieutenant William Leslie, and some twenty men survived the secret attack. They were captured and eventually turned over to Pontiac. I know it's hard to believe that the oh so humble English underestimated a "uncivilized" opponent, but... ;)

Threadjacking? :hmm: Talking about British ruses in WWII is hardly that :)

Threadjacking? :hmm: Talking about British ruses in WWII is hardly that :)

Yeah, I don't understand that either, I think this thread has stayed pretty much "on topic" there is alot of threadjacking going on around here but I don't see this one as being an example of threadjacking.

Anyway, another ruse I remember but I really don't know the details or who is responsible but the Allies dressed up a dead (polish???? not sure) soldier in a British flight suit with false invasion plans (Pas de Calais??) and made sure he washed up on German soil.

You're right -- this definitely isn't the worst example of threadjacking that I've seen. However, conversations about partisans and whether or not a ship was sunk, involving many one line posts, don't really have any bearing on the original topic of "Best Ruse Ever." While I too have more than a passing interest in the topic, neither does every single misinformation campaign run by either the Allies or Axis in WW2.

Three more famous ruses from Chinese history:

When the First Emperor died he favoured his oldest son to succeed him. Now the Crown Prince was a good strong person. Good because he denounced his father's tryannical laws. Strong because he had the strength to actually tell his father that (the same person who buried hundreds of scholars alive don't forget). Which was the reason why he got exiled to the Great Wall for a while. It's a good question of what might have become of China if the Crown Prince had actually succeeded the throne. The person who actually did become Emperor was extremely weak and incompetent. The First Emperor died while on one of his periodical tours of China. The Chief Eunuch who favoured the second son, hid this and pretended that the First Emperor was still alive. He hired a cart of rotten fish to follow the caravan to hide the rotting smell. In the meantime, two letters were sent to the Great Wall, one to the Crown Prince and one to the General who built the Great Wall, one of the First Emperor's closest friends. The letters ordered the two men to committ suicide which they did. The rest is history.

Talking about the First Emperor. The most famous ruse of all (which seems to get repeated all the time in any movies/TV shows about him. The latest movie about him, Hero is all about a variation of this ruse). It occurs when it looks like he is going to conquer the rest of the countries. Panicking, one of the countries puts together a ruse. First they need a way to get close to the First Emperor. A general wanted by the Emperor (well the Qin King at the time, not the Emperor) offered his head. The country put together an (accurate) map of all the secret passageways. A nameless - (wonder where Hero gets the inspiration for the name of the hero from...) swordsman was given the suicide task. The nameless swordsman went to Qin and showed them the head and map. Trusting him now, they let him present them personally to the King. However unknown to them, a sword is hidden in the map scroll. When he gets close to the King he pulls out the sword. Somehow the King manages to escape until the guards rush in and overpower the swordsman. The King then has everyone in the room at the time executed except for one boy because none of them (except the boy) came to his aid when he was in trouble.

Another famous ruse is known as the "Hongmen Banquet" ruse. When Liu Bang (the founder of Han) and Xiang Yu were still battling it out, Xiang Yu's uncle wanted to reconcil the two so he invited them to a banquet at Hongmen. Xiang Yu ordered Xiang Chang to perform a sword-dance for the banquet and take the opportunity to kill Liu Bang. However as Xiang Chang got close to Liu Bang, Xiang Yu's uncle saw what was happening, got up, did another sword-dance and fended off the attack from Xiang Chang. Then one of Liu Bang's followers burst in really pissed off, denounced Xiang Yu and the confusion allowed Liu Bang to escape unharmed. Not a particularly sophisticated ruse, but I just like the idea of one dancer trying to kill Liu Bang and another dancer trying to save him and both trying to hide what's happening :)

Incredible threadjacking has been going on here... Good job getting it back on track Uiler.

My vote for best ruse would go to Alexander the Great. The Sogdian Rock was an impregnable fortress in Western India. It was situated on the front of a mountain, about a hundred meters from the summit. The back of the mountain was sheer, and widely believed to be unclimbable. Alexander had neither the resources nor the time for a long siege (re: Tyre), but could not afford to leave this outpost to his rear. He sent a couple hundred volunteers to scale the back of the "unscalable" cliffs behind the fortress, and had them display themselves above the fortress. The overawed defenders, sure that their opponents must have had wings to reach the summit, surrendered immediately -- Alexander didn't suffer a single casualty (and eventually married the king's daughter!)


:D :goodjob:
John Rogers Clark, and of course Rommel

Rommel: Rommel used to tie sticks, sheets, whatever to his trucks in the desert and drive them around to stir up dust and 'fake' a major armored attack - all to great effect. While in France during the 1940 campaign, he and his men were once described as an 'armored circus'; they advanced so deep into French lines that in order to stun the enemy and convince him to surrender, Rommel had his men stand on the tanks and wave huge flags to disorient the enemy. Weird stuff.

John Rogers Clark: The next tricks was in taking a fort somewhere in Indiana (I forget which one, maybe Fort Wayne?); he had his men line up (at night) in a zigzag and march at the fort with the flags at the corners. When the British commander saw this, he was convinced he was outnumbered and surrendered to what was, in fact, a much inferior force.

Hannibal escape ruse: The Romans under Fabius, the "delayer", managed to trap and surrounded Hannibal in the Falerian Spain, and as they awaited for Hannibal to try to make a breakthrough, they were to attack him. Fortunately, Hannibal hit a clever strategy, he collected thousands cattle, and tying torches to their horns, drove them at night across the slope, giving the Romans the impression that his army was attempting to escape, and soon found themselves puzzled and confused. When they abandoned their positions in order to attack, Hannibal's army now had a chance to escape. Under this brilliant and ingenius ruse, the Carthaginians managed to escape to safetey. leaving the Romans back in the valley they had just left..

Ruse by Counter-insurgency Expert Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale

When I introduced the practical-joke aspect of psywar to the Philippine Army, it stimulated some imaginative operations that were remarkably effective.... One operation played upon the popular dread of an asuang, or vampire.... When a guerilla patrol came along the trail, the ambushers silently snatched the last man of the patrol.... They punctured his neck corpse back on the trail. When the guerilla returned to look for the missing man and found with two holes, vampire-fashion, held the body up by the heels, drained it of blood, and put the their bloodless comrade, every member of the patrol believed that the asuang had got him and that one of them would be next.... When daylight came, the whole guerilla squadron moved out of the vicinity. Few weapons have quite the same effect on guerrilla morale as a pair of ice picks lashed together, used to puncture a guerrilla jugular, if the guerrilla is left for his companions to pick up.

Another Lansdale example of tactical psy-war in the Philippines was perhaps even more bizarre than the vampire operation, and was devised to terrify—and to clear the area of—an entire community. As in the previous example, there is no consideration of possible long-term negative repercussions. The operation was also seen as an unqualified success, suggesting a rather unbelievable naivete on the part of either the entire rural population of the Philippines (or Colonel Lansdale himself):

The army unit captured a Huk courier descending from the mountain stronghold to the village. After questioning, the courier, who was a native of the village, woefully confessed his errors in helping the Huks. His testimony was tape-recorded and made to sound as if his voice emanated from a tomb. The courier was killed. His body was left on the Huk-village line of communications. Soldiers in civilian clothes then dropped rumors in the village to the effect that the Huks had killed the courier. The villagers recovered the body and buried the Huk. That night army patrols infiltrated the cemetery and set up audio-equipment which began broadcasting the dead Huk's confession. By dawn, the entire village of terror-stricken peasantry by the “mysterious voice” and had evacuated! In a few days, the Huks were forced to descend the mountain in search of food. They were quickly captured and/or killed by the army unit.

The Marine Expedition to Granada

While under constant harassment by guerrilla forces, Marine colonel Major Smedley Darlington Butler finally sent word ahead. To Granada to warn General Mena that the Americans were prepared to attack him if he ordered any further assaults on the train. Mena replied that he was sending a peace delegation. Hoping to impress the emissaries with his military power, Butler put together an elaborate ruse. He ordered poles put in the muzzles of two small field guns on flatcars and covered them with tents to give them the appearance of fourteen-inch guns. He then lined up his 250 marines in a tight-packed semi-circle, so it would be impossible to see over their heads, hence know how many men he had. He further awed the emissaries by receiving them seated on a wooden camp chair mounted on stilted legs like a primitive throne.

Glaring down at them, he warned that unless Mena signed an agreement surrendering the railroad property and moving his troops out of the railroad area, Marine "regiments" would attack Mena's two-thousand-man force in Granada with “my big guns and all my regiments”. Hi bluff worked so well that Mena not only agreed but, to Butler's amazement, also offered to surrender himself and his army if the Americans would provide a warship to take him safely to exile in Panama. The jubilant Marine major notified Admiral Southerland and the admiral at once agreed.

operation barbarossa

The Germans read Stalin so correctly. There preparetions could not be hidden so the mis-informed stalin by planting information that Hitler as before could be brought off by dipolmatic means. That he German mobilization was mearly a show of strength intended to extoriot consetitions from Stalin. (This of course is what stalin himself had done unto others.)

another ancient chinese one;

in a campaign against the hsiung-nu the chinese general places strippers on a hillside and had them " perform ", soon the hsiung-nu broke ranks to watch, the chinese attacked and routed them.

The Germans read Stalin so correctly.

the germans played him before that. during the great army purges of the 1930's, the names of disloyal officers was supplied by reinhart heyrich thru spies and middlemen [ meaning that they were most likely NOT disloyal ]

@pawpaw - Particularly Tuchachevskii.

Also, part of the German deception for Barbarossa was that
the buildup was actually pulling German troops out of range
of British bombers.

I will put forth Grant's deceptions (both intentional and
unintentional) during the Vicksburg campaign. The
unintentional deceptions were the attempts to bypass
Vicksburg via canal, and to get above Vicksburg via the
Yazoo river. They didn't work, but created much confusion
for the defense. The deliberate deceptions were Grierson's
raid, and Sherman's fake attack on Snyder's Bluff (the
forts immediately above Vicksburg). The net effect of all
this was that Grant was able to cross the Mississippi unopposed
at Bruinsburg, and able to defeat the numerically superior
Confederate forces in detail.

another ancient chinese one;

in a campaign against the hsiung-nu the chinese general places strippers on a hillside and had them " perform ", soon the hsiung-nu broke ranks to watch, the chinese attacked and routed them.

It did run the danger that the Chinese would also break ranks to watch :mischief:

British electronics during the "Wizard War" of WW2, beam bending, Starfish
Window, etc.

"Confusion to the King's enemies"

The greeks and the troyjan horse. Classic, literaly

I think the Battle of Cowpens was an excellent ruse. See BOTP's recent thread on the 25 Greatest Tactics here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=104969)

Someone mentioned how Alexander took Sogdiana Rock, but ironically enough, Indian forces would do the same to Pakistani forces TWICE in the Indo Pak Wars, once in 1949 and again in 1999. I'll post more details after a bit of sleep and research;)