Fake materiel has been a good strategy to draw enemy fire for a long time. It was used in WWII, with inflatable armor mockups used to draw enemy bombardment, and also by the Iraqis in the Gulf War, where they used an old Hilux with a 44gal drum with some fuel in it to simulate a mobile rocket launch. This would then trigger a retaliatory missile from the Americans, so, for the cost of a busted old ute and a few liters of fuel, you could cause your opponent to fire off a missile worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. However, the Iraqis failed to realize that the US MIC don't care how much money they spend, in fact, the more the better for them.
One story I heard only recently happened during WWII, I don't know if it is true or not, so I don't claim it either way, but it is entertaining.
The Germans were building a bunch of wooden decoy planes to try and get the allied forces to waste bombs on them. Allied spies discovered that they were fakes and their response was to fly a mission over the fakes and drop a single wooden bomb.