Colossal Blunder - German U-Boat Radar Countermeasure WWII Misstep Story

Ғылым және технология

This is a part 10 of a multipart video series addressing the contributions of the US bombers during the WWII Battle of the Atlantic. The German Submarine fleet deployed Radar decoys and adopted radar detectors as countermeasures to allied patrolling aircraft. Submarine deployed Radar decoys included both Aphrodite balloons and Thesis buoys. The Metox and Naxos radar detectors will be reviewed. The combat effectiveness of these systems will be addressed.

Пікірлер: 173

  • @rg3412
    @rg3412 Жыл бұрын

    I thought I knew a lot about technical WWII warfare but your channel makes me realize I do not. Thank you for your work

  • @Milkman3572000

    @Milkman3572000

    Жыл бұрын

    Agreed, I thought I knew alot about WW2. NOPE, I was wrong.

  • @kevinf2618
    @kevinf2618 Жыл бұрын

    “Mk 1 eyeball.” Best one yet!

  • @seanbryan4833

    @seanbryan4833

    Жыл бұрын

    It's a standard military term.

  • @raymondclark1785

    @raymondclark1785

    Жыл бұрын

    Not always that accurate :( In 1962 we were flying out of Cape Cod and the pilots reported seeing a surfaced sub. ADC gave them a mission change, check out the sub which was near the Russian "fishing boats" They put the EC-121 into a screaming dive. The Russians probably started putting the ELINT antennas away. The pilot came on the intercom, Well this is embarrassing, it's a whale :(

  • @franksayre9011

    @franksayre9011

    Жыл бұрын

    @@seanbryan4833 yup, but let him have his fun , , , it's still cool

  • @Chris_at_Home

    @Chris_at_Home

    Жыл бұрын

    @@raymondclark1785 I remember seeing these aircraft on the ramp at Rota, Spain when I was there regularly between 1972-1974 but the Navy’s it the WV or Willy victor.

  • @roberthutchins1507
    @roberthutchins1507 Жыл бұрын

    A little technical explanation for interested parties. Radar works just like sonar. It sends a "ping" and then listens for an echo to return. The range is based on how much power the "ping" has. There has to be enough power for 2 way travel. To get to the target, and then the echo has to have enough power left over to return to the radar set to be detected and displayed to the operator. A radar detector can receive the signal up to twice the range of the Radar, because it doesn't have to deal with the "ping" having enough power left over to return to the Radar set.

  • @Inkling777

    @Inkling777

    Жыл бұрын

    A good point! Today's wave-hugging anti-ship missiles use a similar principle. They use the radar emissions from a ship to steer toward it. They'll rise up just high enough to pick up the signal, fairly confident they can hear a radar further out that it can see them. Then the missile drops down beneath the radar signal.

  • @stevek8829

    @stevek8829

    Жыл бұрын

    The range is based on timing, not perceived signal strength.

  • @roberthutchins1507

    @roberthutchins1507

    Жыл бұрын

    @@stevek8829 My intent was to provide a very basic description of how radar works for viewers who may not have any knowledge of the scientific and technical principles involved. The "timing" or PRF is but a small component in determining the MTR of a particular radar suite.

  • @timburke4837

    @timburke4837

    Жыл бұрын

    Close but no cigar. Range is determined by the measuring the time it takes the pulse to travel from the transmitter and return to the receiver.

  • @timburke4837

    @timburke4837

    Жыл бұрын

    @@Inkling777 Close but no cigar, maybe a cigarette!. Missile skims the sea so as to use the sea 'clutter' to hide in.

  • @seanbryan4833
    @seanbryan4833 Жыл бұрын

    I read somewhere that a captured RAF airman told his German interrogators that the allies could detect Metox emissions, causing them to order all U-boats to turn them off, at a time when probably not all patrol planes had yet been upgraded to the 10cm radar sets.

  • @markdavis2475

    @markdavis2475

    Жыл бұрын

    Hi. That was a quote from the BBC book "The Secret War". Accompanied the 1970's TV series. I still have my copy🙂

  • @petercousins1645

    @petercousins1645

    Жыл бұрын

    Bletchley park playef a large role against submarines when a naval Enigma was captured & locations of wolf packs was revealed enabling shipping to be re-routed & Catalina flying boats sent to search would not have to switch on their radar sets so soon giving u-boats less warning from Naxos sets Royal navy also made their lives hell with new 'Hedgehog' forward firing projectiles, what baffling is why when we captured an intact magnetic mine off Shoeburyness the technology was'nt used for making depth charges to explode in proximity of U-boat as many could dive deep to avoid depth charges due to wrong settings on charges.

  • @JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe

    @JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe

    Ай бұрын

    Slop nonfiction again still.

  • @dupplinmuir113

    @dupplinmuir113

    Ай бұрын

    It's mentioned I'm Alfred Price's _Aircraft Against Submarines.

  • @JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe

    @JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe

    Ай бұрын

    @@dupplinmuir113 Thanks! When was he court martialed?

  • @Light-Machine-Gun
    @Light-Machine-Gun Жыл бұрын

    Love the Grey B-14 (O). Thank you. I know it's practically a huge flying garage of death with crooked engines, but I love them.

  • @tmswrs
    @tmswrs Жыл бұрын

    I met one of the WW2 airborne radar engineers at MIT. Asked him directly about Metox detection. He said that they could indeed detect the Metrox IF local oscillator leaked emissions... but that it was so limited in range to be unused.

  • @williamzk9083

    @williamzk9083

    Жыл бұрын

    -In the UK it is necessary to pay a license fee to operate a TV set, that is how the BBC is funded. TV detector vans supposedly could detect the local oscillator of VHF at 60m range. I doubt better could be done. -Competent German electronic engineers would have looked at the signal strength, looked a the background noise and circuit noise and decided this couldn't be tactically exploited because the S/N ratio was below that which could be detected. The problem is it raised doubts in u-boat captains and certain elements but professionals would have been boggled but who would put their balls on the line when confronted by intelligence information and say it was impossible? -Metox was replaced with Wanze which didn't have the local oscillator leakage problem but by then Coastal Command were moving to ASV. MIII which was a 9cm radar. The Luftwaffe had developed a detector called NAXOS for this but its adoption was delayed because of the erroneous belieft that Metox had been betraying the u-boats rather than the new 9cm radar the Luftwaffe knew about from a crashed Stirling bomber. -By the end of the war the Germans had apart from Naxos to detect 9cm emissions they also had Athos to detect 3cm and 9cm that could work of a u-boat mast while the u-boat stayed at periscope depth. (Earlier Fliege and Mucke could do the same job but only when u-boat was surfaced). -In fact the u-boat mast in late 1944 early 1945 could detect 3cm, 9cm, 50cm-1.5m radar as well as had an infrared detector to pick up aircraft engines. A radar called FuMO 390 Lansing could send out a single omni directional pulse and detect any aircraft within 100km and a derivative of the German 8.4cm radar called Berlin could be used while the the u-boat was under water (only in test). -The Germans always just lagged by the few months it took to be int trouble though by the end of 1944 they had all the bases covered though by then it was too late.

  • @A.G.798

    @A.G.798

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@williamzk9083❤ Herzlichen Dank für die Tolle Erklärung in diesem Kommentar, Sie haben das ganz ausgezeichnet beschrieben, Tolle Arbeit.

  • @mikecumbo7531

    @mikecumbo7531

    Жыл бұрын

    My sole criticism of this video, please leave images and graphics on screen a little longer. In tv production classes we were taught to leave a graphic on screen so that you can read it twice. A full screen image/picture of a sub deploying decoy balloons should be on screen long enough so a viewer who is new to this subject can understand what they are viewing. The content was great,

  • @roberthubal6278

    @roberthubal6278

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mikecumbo7531 hit the stop video button. Then on different area of the video screen. Touch the video image. You should be able to clearly examine the image st your leisure. Further, if you wish, you could take a screen shot. And then have the ability to expand the new photo image.

  • @mikecumbo7531

    @mikecumbo7531

    Жыл бұрын

    @@roberthubal6278 why create a workaround when simply leaving the graphics on screen a few more seconds is what is common practice?

  • @i-a-g-r-e-e-----f-----jo--b
    @i-a-g-r-e-e-----f-----jo--b Жыл бұрын

    I've watched thousands of hours of WW2 films and never heard about sub decoys before. Great info, thanks!

  • @tokencivilian8507
    @tokencivilian8507 Жыл бұрын

    This whole series is magnificent. Great stuff WW2USB.

  • @allegrofantasy
    @allegrofantasy Жыл бұрын

    Excellent series keeping important history alive- thanks. 😂I thought I had a fair working knowledge of this subject but I never heard of the floating decoys. A British POW deliberately misled the Germans and claimed aircraft relied on Metox emissions and only switched on the radar to check range. He quoted detection at 90 miles from 3,000 ft height. According to German reports, this coincided with and reinforced their own concerns about Metox.

  • @williamzk9083

    @williamzk9083

    Жыл бұрын

    No one knows who this POW was. He was a great shit talker because though impossible it was plausible enough to raise doubt.

  • @TheEulerID

    @TheEulerID

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@williamzk9083 The air crew were probably told to use that story were they ever to be captured and interrogated as the allies were desperate to keep the existence of centimetric radar a secret. A semi-plausible story like that would do the job perfectly.

  • @A.G.798

    @A.G.798

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@TheEulerIDdas Zentimeterradar wurde im September '43 in einem abgeschossenen britischen Bomber bei Rotterdam erbeutet, und erhielt in deutsch auch den Namen "Rotterdamgerät",aber auch die original Bezeichnung H2S-Gerät war bekannt, und auf dieser Basis erhielten die neuen U-Boote der Klasse XXI, so ein Radargerät mit sich drehender Parabolantenne.

  • @SeattlePioneer

    @SeattlePioneer

    Жыл бұрын

    @@TheEulerID Interesting theory. That would likely produce several POWS offering the same false information to the Germans, which would make their accepting the deception a lot more likely than it coming from a single person, I would suppose. I wonder what the actual truth might be?

  • @richardvernon317

    @richardvernon317

    2 ай бұрын

    @@A.G.798 H2S was captured in February 1943. Allied ASV radar was working at 3CM by late 1944.

  • @RonLWilson
    @RonLWilson Жыл бұрын

    A while back I read a very interesting book, The Invention That Changed the World , on the development of the magnetron which was the enabling technology for the 10 cm radars. Today every microwave oven has a magnetron but it was top secret when developed in WW2 by two British scientist (sort of by accident). The magnetron also was the enabling technology for Proximity antiaircraft fuses. Both of these were huge game changers and helped shorten the war and saved lives and material!

  • @williamzk9083

    @williamzk9083

    Жыл бұрын

    Randall and Boot were the two scientists. The Russians had invented one but lacked any electronics to make use of it, so had the Swiss. The Germans had one, I have a picture in a paper by a guy called Doering of a Lorentz multi-cavity magnetron with circular holes and narrow slits in 1940 though it was small. The Germans had them but didn't think to use them for radar. The Sanitas company made 8 cavity 1.2kw magnetrons with square slits. -The Japanese developed multicavity magnetrons and had Type 22 10cm surface search radar in use in early 1942 in two cruiser before British Navy. The Japanese didn't prioritize them thinking their superb Pentax optics was better and didn't allocate the nickel needed for the magnets. They did start feverish efforts to develop them when they realised too late. -It wasn't so much the magnetron that changed the world as much as they idea of using it for radar.

  • @markdavis2475

    @markdavis2475

    Жыл бұрын

    The Engineer Guy's channel has a great episode about this

  • @alexwild4350

    @alexwild4350

    Жыл бұрын

    No. The Proximity Fuze is credited as being the second most valuable invention, second only to the Nuclear Bomb. Hows that for landing its place in history. The Proximity Fuze did not rely on the Magnetron at all. In essence the Prox Fuze was a metal detector, much like one would use for metal detecting on a beech for coins, but it had to fit inside a metal shell casing, which was put inside the barrel of a gun, and then withstand the firing from being stationary to the speed of a bullet in milliseconds and accompanying G forces [ read as loads of G force as the round is fired ] all without prematurely detonating or falling apart killing the people carrying or loading or firing it out of the gun. The US combat films from the US Pacific theatre of war with the kamakazi planes attacking the ships, the sky is full of black puffs of smoke and shrapnel as thick as rain, this is because most of the shells fired in this exchange with the aircraft were Proximity Fuzed anti aircraft shells. This is what lead to the Japs going over to kamikazi attacks because they realised up to this point that the odds of their pilots being able to fly into and out of such anti aircraft fire was so low, attempting to fly into the anti aircraft fire was suicide. So they better label such attacks as suicide missions, and so was born the kamikazi attacks. The Japs realised this by the maths of the odds of surviving aerial attacks to american ships in previous battles. They didn't know what they were up against, only the odds of surviving were so low. That was the power of the Proximity Fuz. To note the action described above happened over water, so any shells that did not explode fell into water and not into enemy hands. Such was the British concern about the secrecy of this weapon [ It was a British invention that the USA perfected ] that I've heard with the commencement of D-Day in Europe, the British forbid the use of Prox Fuze's over land, in particular over enemy held land. The Fuz was only to be used where a fired shell that failed to explode would land in water. This means up to and over the English Channel. But I have read accounts of German soldiers coming under 'air burst' shelling in the Battle of the Adrennes, the battle of the bulge, and to me 'air burst' shells are Proximity Fuze's used over land. The Fuze detects the presence of land and can thus be set to explode at a given height above the ground. And this is how a Nuclear bomb can be set to detonate on impact, which has a more localised damage, or air burst at a given height above ground, as was used in the Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. Worth noting but so often over looked is the German anti aircraft fire around the major German cities in WW2 the gun laying systems to the 88mm were Radar guided, since the 88mm shell would take up to 30 seconds to get to the height of the B17 formations. The radar predicted where to put the shell to meet the anticipated flight path of a given aircraft. But the Germans never developed a proximity fuze, so the 88mm shells were all based on time, so would detonate so many seconds after being fired. A precise way of doing things when what got results was being close enough, especially considering that an aircraft in 30 seconds time may have deviated from its predicted course. To improve the chances of a kill over one aircraft, one shell, the Germans linked many 88mm guns to one Radar Predictor, such that the shells all arrived at slightly heights to create a 'box of death' in the sky, likely to severely damage or down any aircraft unlucky enough to fly into their box area. In effect, any aircraft in the proximity of the prediction, but still not a Proximity Fuze.

  • @rogeratygc7895

    @rogeratygc7895

    Жыл бұрын

    It's an excellent book - I recommend it. The author was Robert Buderi. Another excellent one is "The Secret War" by Brian Johnson.

  • @markdavis2475

    @markdavis2475

    Жыл бұрын

    @@rogeratygc7895 The Secret War is excellent. I watched the BBC series in the 70,s I got the book for my 14th birthday, according to the inscription my mum wrote inside😀

  • @GeneralChase
    @GeneralChase Жыл бұрын

    I just found your channel and I started watching these all out of order. These videos are great. Thanks

  • @SuperTf2fan
    @SuperTf2fan Жыл бұрын

    It’s great seeing you branch out to more and more topics, great work! Such a great combo of historical photos, diagrams, and historical documents

  • @robdgaming
    @robdgaming Жыл бұрын

    Thanks for presenting the details on this, countering the often-repeated story that the Allies were indeed routinely detecting Metox.

  • @jeffreyyoung4104
    @jeffreyyoung4104 Жыл бұрын

    I was given many WWII radio sets back in the 1970s that I was able to get some up and running, but as I didn't have a ham license, most of it was sold off, or disassembled for parts in other projects! All of what I had was HF tho, nothing above 30 MC ever came my way! Altho, having the fun of having it led me to become an electronics tech and I still play with radio today!

  • @crispy_otter
    @crispy_otter Жыл бұрын

    Fasinating subject, as I was unaware of this aspect of radar use.

  • @TheEulerID
    @TheEulerID Жыл бұрын

    One of the great secrets of WW II, which made centimetric radar possible, was the cavity magnetron invented at the University of Birmingham. Nowadays, it is relegated to powering microwave ovens. However, it was the cavity magnetron that, from mid-war onwards made allied radar massively better the anything the Germans had. For some time, planes carrying this radar were forbidden from overflying German held territory for fear a set would fall into German hands. Fortunately, when one did, it seems the Germans were singularly slow in exploiting the information.

  • @KJs581

    @KJs581

    Жыл бұрын

    Correct, the magnetron was the huge breakthrough and was used in almost every radar when I started with radar in the 70's, although some high power CWI radars used klystrons. The 70's magnetrons got smarter, with spin tuned frequency agility etc etc, but by the 80's travelling wave tubes (BWO's) were being increasingly used; they were around in the 70's, but mainly in low power applications (local oscillator, etc). By the time I left ten years ago, the only magnetrons onboard a warship were in the microwave ovens and in the nav radar; and they probably have TWT's by now.

  • @richardbeckenbaugh1805

    @richardbeckenbaugh1805

    Жыл бұрын

    Arthur C. Clarke was involved in developing the radar you’re talking about. He was instrumental in developing many advancements in electronics.

  • @TheEulerID

    @TheEulerID

    Жыл бұрын

    @@richardbeckenbaugh1805 Arthur C Clarke specialised in ground approach radar, something covered in his novel Glide Path. That's rather different to the search radar used in the war against U boats, airborne radar and so on.

  • @jimmiller5600

    @jimmiller5600

    Ай бұрын

    In defense of the Germans, they only recovered pieces of the system at Rotterdam. A few months later they had collected other downed pieces and created a working model.

  • @TheEulerID

    @TheEulerID

    Ай бұрын

    @@jimmiller5600 According to the Royal Society that is not the case. "The H2S radar using the cavity magnetron was first used in January 1943, and a Stirling bomber with H2S crashed a few nights later near Rotterdam. The radar equipment was recovered almost intact by Telefunken engineers." This is from an extract of an article written by a B. Lovell, and yes, it is that Bernard Lovell, as he also says "The author of a German report on the equipment, Otto Hachenberg, subsequently became a colleague of the present author in radio astronomy. He died in 2001 and his report of May 1943 was discovered among his papers. It reveals that the principle of the cavity magnetron was already well known in Germany, based on work published in Leningrad in 1936." The words above are from an extract on the Royal Society's website with the full wording having restricted access. The extract has the title "The cavity magnetron in World War II: was the secrecy justified?" and was published in 2004. So the Germans appears to have had an almost intact HS2 radar system to study early in 1943. It seems the Germans never got any prototypes they produced into service.

  • @lwrii1912
    @lwrii1912 Жыл бұрын

    I am really enjoying this series. Very cool stuff. You are doing a great job.

  • @kevinwhitehead6076
    @kevinwhitehead6076 Жыл бұрын

    Always concise, accurate and informative!

  • @davidelliott5843
    @davidelliott5843 Жыл бұрын

    The British accurately located U-Boats by triangulation from numerous land based receivers. This was especially useful at night when they sent out radio reports. Bombers were vectored in. They switched on radar at the last moment. Leaving little reaction time. Then just as the image went off they switched to powerful lights “Ley Lights”. These converged on the boat at the perfect bomb release point. The U-Boat crew had no time to respond to their radar detector and there were no survivors to tell how it was done.

  • @francisbusa1074

    @francisbusa1074

    Жыл бұрын

    Wow! Brilliant tactics!

  • @stevehadfield9519

    @stevehadfield9519

    Жыл бұрын

    Leigh lights

  • @gwaters8067
    @gwaters8067 Жыл бұрын

    Another well researched and entertaining video. There is always something new to learn regarding WW2. Thanks good sir

  • @Paughco
    @Paughco Жыл бұрын

    As stated previously, I appreciate your excellent work. Please keep it up. BRAVO ZULU!

  • @blockboygames5956
    @blockboygames5956 Жыл бұрын

    Superb research as usual. Thank you. Information presented here I have not seen anywhere else!

  • @scottjackson5173
    @scottjackson5173 Жыл бұрын

    My specialty in the US Navy was electronics warfare. The words we used to describe radar frequency were very different. Still this video is a fascinating story for the past. Of what became my specialty in 1980. Almost fourty years later. It amazes me that the germans didn't realize that the allies were switching to a shorter wavelength. The shorter the wavelength, the smaller the antenna needed for the set. So the higher the frequency, the smaller and lighter the radar would be. Also shorter wavelengths are more accurate, providing more detailed information. The down side being, that shorter wavelengths are more vulnerable to fog, and humidity refraction and reflection. Another upside being that the shorter wavelength is also far more likely to provide a solid return, from a small metallic object like a periscope, or a snorkel.

  • @robdgaming

    @robdgaming

    Жыл бұрын

    From what I've heard, the Germans were remarkably clueless about electronics, and especially radar.

  • @scottjackson5173

    @scottjackson5173

    Жыл бұрын

    @@robdgaming The Germans had radar. Using on ships, land, and night fighters. That's what is so surprising

  • @robdgaming

    @robdgaming

    Жыл бұрын

    @@scottjackson5173 It was inferior to Allied radar. US early-war radar was also inadequate until we learned how to make cavity magnetron tubes from the Brits.

  • @scottjackson5173

    @scottjackson5173

    Жыл бұрын

    @@robdgaming Perhaps! That's an easy assumption to make. Radar technology was developed simultaneously in many nations in the 1930's and 1940's. It's a well known fact that Japan was well behind the allied powers in radar technology. That didn't stop them from using ESM technology to give the US Navy a bloody lesson off Tassafaronga. The Germans were generally superior to the allies in developing high technology. Atom bomb technology was brought to the United States by German Scientists who were Jewish. Wanting the enemies of Hitler, to build the first Atom bomb. The first radio controlled weapons were German. The first cruise missiles and the first ballistic missiles were German. The first jet, and rocket powered fighters were German. In some ways the Germans may have been behind. Or perhaps research activity was delayed/disrupted by allied bombs over Germany. Without a lot of careful research? It's difficult to be certain.

  • @dougerrohmer

    @dougerrohmer

    Жыл бұрын

    @@scottjackson5173 Germany had this huge panic going because they lacked volume of adequate weapons. In war, it's the guy who is firstest with the mostest that wins. So the Germans bs'ed themselves constantly that their Wunderwaffe is gonna win the war, whereas the allies just kept churning out huge volumes of good enough weapons. The allies had jet aircraft at the same time as the Germans, but rather focused their manufacturing ability on established production lines so they had enough fighters to cover the bombers, as well as the German jet fighter bases. The jets might get through to the bombers, but not of you get them as they take off and as they land.

  • @user-ev5ur7fw4t
    @user-ev5ur7fw4t Жыл бұрын

    Amazing stuff. Thanks. Keep up the good work.

  • @deadendfriends1975
    @deadendfriends1975 Жыл бұрын

    Love these videos. I pause to read the entire pages.... interesting

  • @mitchwatson6787
    @mitchwatson6787 Жыл бұрын

    Awesome series!

  • @OnerousEthic
    @OnerousEthic Жыл бұрын

    Well explained and easy to understand. Well done!

  • @JamesPiccone
    @JamesPiccone Жыл бұрын

    I was a 1c4x in the Air Force "TACP" and when I was in tech school @ Hurlburt Field learning the prc 119 radio we learned about frequency hopping which our radios use. Apparently the we used torpedoes at some point in WW2 that used frequency hopping to prevent the Germans from jamming. Apparently the Germans could find the channel and fill it with RF interference. So for counter counter measures the US employed frequency hopping.

  • @francisbusa1074
    @francisbusa1074 Жыл бұрын

    Really interesting and different tech info and history. Thanks!

  • @dirkbogarde7796
    @dirkbogarde7796 Жыл бұрын

    Amazing content. Very interesting of a very brutal part of this war.

  • @Allan_aka_RocKITEman
    @Allan_aka_RocKITEman Жыл бұрын

    Great video...👍

  • @vomeronasal
    @vomeronasal Жыл бұрын

    Ah, the Mk 1 combat eyeball! Absolutely necessary. Always cary two!

  • @earlyriser8998
    @earlyriser8998 Жыл бұрын

    best discussion of Metox failure I have seen

  • @christopherjames5895
    @christopherjames5895 Жыл бұрын

    Thank you , very intresting !

  • @ryanclarke2161
    @ryanclarke2161 Жыл бұрын

    Excellent channel

  • @SeattlePioneer
    @SeattlePioneer Жыл бұрын

    I've wondered about the ability of allied radar to detect U Boat snorkels when in operation, and when that ability might have become available. It seems that will be discussed in an upcoming video. I will look forward to that. While the idea of the Schnorkel was to allow Uboats to travel submerged at high speed, It would be ironic if that left them blind to attacking planes that were attracted by the exposed Schnorkel itself. Perhaps Uboats tried to scan for attacking planes with periscopes, but that was bound to be a weak way of detecting inbound aircraft.

  • @Mikdeelow
    @Mikdeelow11 ай бұрын

    excellent video. wery interestink!

  • @Inkling777
    @Inkling777 Жыл бұрын

    Many thanks! I'd love to see a video that explores any personal radio contacts between Allied and German operators. Did they avoid contact? Did they occasionally have brief exchanges? Did they have a gentleman's agreements not to jam one another? Notice also that Hitler was close to discovering Enigma when he complained that the Allies seemed to know how many U-boats were operating in the Atlantic at any one time. Radar wouldn't tell them that but radio intercepts would. You might also explore the use of Huffduff for high frequency direction finding. That could apparently spot when U-boats were positioning themselves ahead of a convoy.

  • @john-hughboyd233

    @john-hughboyd233

    Жыл бұрын

    The Germans never figured out that Enigma had been compromised until the 1970s! While a few individual low level commanders had doubts about the security of the codes, the upper echelons did not. Military intelligence was dispersed in the various German forces, with interagency rivalries preventing effective doubts to be raised and review of suspicions done. The old German officer corps frowned down on intelligence as a "not proper military occupation". That and the fog of war provided enough plausible alternatives for them to keep believing in Enigma...... all this in spite of Churchill having revealed that they had actively worked to and eventually successfully hacked the German codes during the Great War - all which implied the Brits etc would try to do it again!

  • @alexwild4350

    @alexwild4350

    Жыл бұрын

    @@john-hughboyd233 Hmm, reading the history of Donitz, he had his doubts about Enigma's security. Because of this he had all the code books for the navy changed in one month. Can't remember the source, but my memory tells me this was May 1943. I could remember that incorrectly. Was this the time that the navy switched to the 4 rotor Enigma ? Concerning Churchill, I've never heard or read anything other than British Intelligence, Ultra signal decrypts were their most valuable and top secret resource. Everything was a closely guarded secret. Therefore Churchill implying publicly in any sense that they could read german signals I'd suggest is BS. The story of Bletchly Park did not even begin to surface until the 1970's, and as far as my history goes, Churchill had all the Bletchly technology destroyed after the war, while the Enigma's were sold to the Russian's after the war. Presumably Britian had other ways of decrypting the signals by then.

  • @john-hughboyd233

    @john-hughboyd233

    Жыл бұрын

    @@alexwild4350 Alec, you missed one critical note "Great War", as in World War ONE. Churchill mentioned in a history book he wrote that they decoded German messages then. The Germans learnt from that...hence the Enigma. Churchill did not make the mistake again.

  • @rogerwilliams2902
    @rogerwilliams2902 Жыл бұрын

    Randall and Boot , Birmingham University , definitely two of my heroes .

  • @bikenavbm1229
    @bikenavbm1229 Жыл бұрын

    well done

  • @billyponsonby
    @billyponsonby Жыл бұрын

    Fascinating

  • @simongee8928
    @simongee8928 Жыл бұрын

    After Doenitz's ordr for U boats to fight it out surfaced and had been suitably armed, according to one account, a U boat detected an allied aircraft and expecting a Sunderland or B.24, it was actually attacked by two Bristol Beaufighters. Oops - ! 😮

  • @francisbusa1074

    @francisbusa1074

    Жыл бұрын

    Bad news for Fritz!

  • @RemusKingOfRome
    @RemusKingOfRome Жыл бұрын

    Another great video. Guessing ! lets guess what the Allies are doing !

  • @sailordude2094
    @sailordude209420 күн бұрын

    Very cool war weapon tech, thanks! I wonder why Hollywood never put these devices in their films?

  • @airplayn
    @airplayn Жыл бұрын

    The Germans never developed the magnetron needed to generate microwaves. It probably would have been hard to put some kind of wind catcher sail on the decoys so they might show movement

  • @MrSimplyfantabulous
    @MrSimplyfantabulous Жыл бұрын

    Colossal Nazi blunders included Leningrad, Stalingrad and the Bulge. This was simply a run-of-the-mill snafu of the scope the Nazis whipped up all by themselves themselves almost daily from 1942 on.

  • @francisbusa1074

    @francisbusa1074

    Жыл бұрын

    Corporal Hitler running the entire show. Any wonder?

  • @charlesburgoyne-probyn6044

    @charlesburgoyne-probyn6044

    10 ай бұрын

    Their chauvanism blinded them, although Hitler taped in Finland acknowledges that Soviet equipment was more suited to the cold along with various other candid statements. Deceived by their own initial successes and holding Britain to a stalemate deciding to attack the Soviet Union and declare war against the USA in 1941 was insane

  • @alexandermelbaus2351

    @alexandermelbaus2351

    5 ай бұрын

    ​@@charlesburgoyne-probyn6044Germany has been painted as the evil villain, as if they were completely at fault for the entire war and had some mad hatter plan to conquer the world. Germany made every effort for peace with England and France, Germany did not demand anything from France or England, both countries declared war on Germany. Hitler wrote a lengthy open letter to France, deploring the idea of war between the two countries it was published on 28th Aug 1939 in the Times. It is a historic record of a very peaceful German position. "As an old front line fighter, I, like yourself, know the horrors of war. Guided by this attitude and experience, I have tried to remove all matters that might cause conflict between our two peoples." .......... "As you could judge for yourself during your last visit here, the German people, in the knowledge of its own behavior held and holds no ill feelings, much less hatred, for its one-time brave opponent." While Germany had to mobilise its armed forces against English and French armies preparing to attack Germany on the Western Frontier, the Soviet Union struck; Red Army’s attack on Finland (November 30, 1939), bombing of Sweden (February 21, 1940), the invasion of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (June 18, 1940) and that Stalin had forced Romania to surrender Bessarabia [Moldavia] (June 27, 1940). After defeating the armies of the two world colonial armies and allowing over 300,000 English soldiers to retreat back to England. Germany hastily mobilised "Operation Barbarossa" against a gigantic hostile Red Army that was positioned all along the Eastern border and had already attacked every European country on it's former Eastern border. The military hardware size and preparations was clearly directed for large scale invasion of Germany, which was expected to be tied up fighting in the West; the fast victory in the West was a shock to the world and left the Soviet Union off guard.

  • @glennledrew8347
    @glennledrew8347 Жыл бұрын

    Just a tiny comment. The word "corps" has the "p" silent, and is pronounced "core." 😊 I like the densely packed info in your presentations!

  • @mbryson2899
    @mbryson28993 ай бұрын

    It reminds me of the tech wars over nighttime Europe. Radar...radar detectors...radar detector detectors...and crews not knowing what to trust enough to turn on. Also the USN in the Pacificduring the Guadalcanal campaign. Some captains left their radar off fearing the radar emissions would give them away.

  • @brianjones3191
    @brianjones3191 Жыл бұрын

    I am really interested in knowing why there was a six month delay from the capturing of the radar, and the German scientists getting their hands on it! And the second six month delay in developing a response!!

  • @rogerlevasseur397
    @rogerlevasseur397 Жыл бұрын

    Of course decoy balloons or other floating decoys that drifted downwind slightly slower than the wind would give themselves away as decoys.

  • @philibeansor5843
    @philibeansor5843 Жыл бұрын

    I have a question about The first image in your video of the submarine. The large round object- a antenna ?? I Really enjoyed your presentation, Thank you.

  • @Zadster

    @Zadster

    Жыл бұрын

    That is a direction finding (or "DF") loop antenna.

  • @WBtimhawk
    @WBtimhawk Жыл бұрын

    just boosting for the algorithm

  • @cristiangarces5832
    @cristiangarces583210 ай бұрын

    I know a video of Japan under occupation in 1945/6 where a Naxos is clearly visible, its on the sail of RO-500 / U-511

  • @jonathanbaron-crangle5093
    @jonathanbaron-crangle509311 ай бұрын

    U-boat commanders not wanting to use air-search radars due to foe detection of radar signals isn't unheard of: I understand the captain of the Scarnhorst also had this fear on the Scarnhorsts' last mission, which was, I believe, unfounded.

  • @pavelslama5543
    @pavelslama5543 Жыл бұрын

    Germans: Ok, the only explanation is that the Brits are reading our messages, but thats impossible, because those are OUR messages, and noone can read those!

  • @frankbumstead3838
    @frankbumstead3838 Жыл бұрын

    New Radar, especially the 10 cm (S Band) was due to the British giving Magnetron technology to the US and using them on British AntiSubmarine Aircraft. Interesting that the Germans were not aware of this higher frequency Radar.

  • @TheEulerID

    @TheEulerID

    Жыл бұрын

    For some time allied aircraft carrying centimetric radar were forbidden from overflying German held territory to avoid the technology falling into their hands. Even the existence of such a capability was top secret. Later in the war, the rule was changed as the more advanced radars were required for accurate night-time bombing raids, and for allied night-fighters hunting down German night-fighters.

  • @Bingo551
    @Bingo551 Жыл бұрын

    The Biscayne cross.

  • @whitewittock
    @whitewittock Жыл бұрын

    There's something in RV Jones book about this, I think you're missing some part of the story

  • @rwnagel
    @rwnagel Жыл бұрын

    “Corps” is pronounced “core”, not “corpse”. The “s” is silent.

  • @bob_the_engineer1045

    @bob_the_engineer1045

    Жыл бұрын

    So is the "p", but it's used to it after psychiatric care. ;-)

  • @WWIIUSBombers

    @WWIIUSBombers

    Жыл бұрын

    ya, thanks for the clarification, my bad.

  • @Tiagomottadmello
    @Tiagomottadmello Жыл бұрын

    👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  • @shoominati23
    @shoominati23 Жыл бұрын

    If any of the paperwork shared in this video were still classified, then I very much doubt it would have any tactical value in 2023 terms lol

  • @nwmancuso
    @nwmancuso11 ай бұрын

    Who else remembers sneaking into a sub pen and destroying one of these?

  • @JPT1965
    @JPT1965 Жыл бұрын

    Excellent video, and gleaning from source material. Only criticism is pronouncing of Corps. The s is silent as in “core”

  • @redtobertshateshandles
    @redtobertshateshandles Жыл бұрын

    When your offensive weapon needs defence it's kind of an oxymoron.

  • @SgtMjr
    @SgtMjr Жыл бұрын

    German implementation of science, technology and engineering was out classed by the allies in almost every aspect. For all their so called 'wonder' weapons and tech the actual usefulness in the war German science was of little help. The allies caught up, passed and were several steps ahead of Germany's scientific war efforts by the end of the conflict.

  • @abbcc5996

    @abbcc5996

    8 ай бұрын

    thats because germany was isolated from the rest of the world while britain and US could cooperate freely and the US could bankroll any research for the allies while at the same time supplying majority of its allies war effort wonder weapons were a thing because germany had no feasible way of winning the war in a conventional way, they knew this. they would have sarin gassed england if they didnt fear the retaliation by the wars end germany was still ahead on a lot of isolated cases but they didnt have the industry to actually challenge the allies any ways (what little they had were being bombed 24/7) its not a real comparison

  • @gowdsake7103
    @gowdsake7103Ай бұрын

    AD OLF not AAA DOLF

  • @djackmanson
    @djackmanson Жыл бұрын

    To think the head of state and supreme military commander was bothering himself with approving details of ASW decoys. It just shows how ridiculously deep in unnecessary nonsense Hitler was. A good thing for the world he wasn't a competent administrator.

  • @zedoktor979

    @zedoktor979

    Жыл бұрын

    Imagine ww2, but Hitler was a logistical genius…

  • @Inkling777

    @Inkling777

    Жыл бұрын

    Contrast that to Eisenhower, who took care to delegate what he called 'urgent but not important' decisions to others, reserving the genuinely important ones for himself-such as the go/no-go for the Normandy invasion.

  • @gangleweed
    @gangleweed Жыл бұрын

    When you look back at the various devices the Allies used it is a wonder the Germans lasted as long as they did......but it must be understood from historic records, Hitler never envisaged the Brits would last so long and never wanted a prolonged war that the Germans were ill equipped for.......Hitler assumed, after the Battle of Britain that there was little to gain, even if they won and had to occupy, so decided that letting them rot on the vine was the best approach and so went on to invade Russia.

  • @user-xj6rr3yv8q
    @user-xj6rr3yv8q Жыл бұрын

    One thought, SLOW down!

  • @chamonix4658

    @chamonix4658

    Жыл бұрын

    no problems here

  • @xaquko9718

    @xaquko9718

    Жыл бұрын

    I watch his videos at 1.5x speed, and I'm perfectly capable of understanding everything he says even though english is not my first (nor my second) language. You can slow down reproduction or pause the video if you're incapable of following up, no need to bother the others.

  • @user-xj6rr3yv8q

    @user-xj6rr3yv8q

    Жыл бұрын

    @@xaquko9718 you missed my point, he has 3x more the content than he covers, if he slowed down and read more of the report, we would learn more.

  • @xaquko9718

    @xaquko9718

    Жыл бұрын

    @@user-xj6rr3yv8q Then use more precise wording. But I agree, long format (30min+) videos would be better than current short ones.

  • @rogeratygc7895

    @rogeratygc7895

    Жыл бұрын

    No! Don't!

  • @diegorodriguez5197
    @diegorodriguez5197 Жыл бұрын

    Algorithm

  • @lc79tourer26

    @lc79tourer26

    Жыл бұрын

    Not necessarily a computer program but it can be

  • @naughtiusmaximus830
    @naughtiusmaximus830 Жыл бұрын

    I bet that worked really well (balloons) at first.The innovativeness of Germans always amazes me. They had no chance against the globalists. They just gave it their best anyway.

  • @mitchwood6609
    @mitchwood6609 Жыл бұрын

    the majority of UBOAT losses was because the Brits had long cracked the ENIGMA CODE. If germans weren't so cocky they would have considered it but they never once did in the whole war!!

  • @xkj-286-86ho
    @xkj-286-86ho11 ай бұрын

    🤦🏽‍♂️

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