Hello Derek.
This is an age-old way to deceit, it can be very successful and cost almost nothing, tricking an enemy into believing there is a greater threat to them than there actually is, can and often does work. Inflatable tanks, and aircraft during WWII, altering the outline of ships with canvas rig, Amethyst Yangtze escape, and today, the Border force cutters which have a fire fighting water cannon covered over with canvass that makes the unsuspecting think they are armed.
Back to pennant numbers which I find very interesting, having them on a model warship (If appropriate) enhances the look of it, a lot of people recognize a particular ship from its pennant number. During wartime however, these recognition features can be removed as we did in the Falklands War.
During the 70’s A television programme used HMS Phoebe as the star of the series called Warship. Her pennant number was F 42, the name given to this warship in the programme was HMS Hero. In later series HMS Juno and HMS Dido were used, their pennant numbers were changed to F 42 to maintain continuity. I was told by an old coastguard that warships never change their pennant numbers, when on duty at Dover Straits Coastguard, I spotted a Leander Frigate travelling past us with the pennant number F 42, I knew this vessel was actually HMS Dido and logged it as such, receiving the above comment from my senior. Imagine my relief when sometime later we heard a radio call ,”Folkestone pilots this is warship Dido” sorry to go on a bit…….
17-09