Side note: I was the director of the National Electronics Museum (2005-2022). I interviewed a guy who was a German kid during WWII. He told me Allied Chaff/Window hung from everyone's Xmas trees during the winter of 44. The museum had a Giant Wurzburg on display that I located in Boulder, Colorado. After a post-war stint in Sterling Va., as part of three Wurzburg radars painted red, white and blue. We had the red one. It was sent west to a more RF friendly area to do research the on the Northern Lights. It was eventually abandoned in place at Table Rock, I believe after the 1957 International Geophysical Year.
I’ve worked in the EW community for much of my career. I’m getting ready to wrap up a 45 year career in Naval Aviation and was a flight test engineer for much of it. EW to me is so challenging and rewarding, much like a good game of chess. Love this video!
I worked in EW from 1966 to 2012 when they made me superintendent for ten years. Here is another EW document, much of it was classified much of my career. falcon.blu3wolf.com/Docs/Electronic-Warfare-Fundamentals.pdf
this is why Grampa Roy flew as B 17 air crew operating these, won the War, came out and bought motorola stocks, went back to working on cars, and had a "Car Phone" radio in the 60's.
Wow, honestly amazed. When I first subscribed to this channel, I was skeptical about choosing such a narrow scope of aircraft- specific time, type, and nationality. I thought there wouldn't be much that I didn't already know, being in the US and interested in WW2 aviation. But wow! Every other video contains some system or feature or weapon or tactic that I didn't even know existed. Fantastic work.
I am old an have always been interested in WWII and military technology and I never heard of the vast majority of this. Thanks, you are doing an incredible job!
This is an extremely impressive video. Subscribed. The most impressive aspect is the large volume of high quality original source material. _Very good work._ The only improvement would be references to the documents in the description. That would elevate this to engineering-research quality. This is better than any technology-history public broadcasts I've ever seen. I knew about chaff/window. However, I did not even _suspect_ active electronic countermeasures were so effective, so early. Best Wishes. ☮
Operation Biting played a significant role in identifying the capabilities of the Wurzberg Radar, the risks and difficulties of this mission is a good illustration of the allies comprehension of the impact of this system on their campaign.
I'm not even 60 seconds in and I'm already excited due to the introduction highlighting the previous videos in the series. I love watching the evolution of this channel! Also, congrats on 50k subscribers!
After 11 bombing missions in late 1944, my father and his crew were transferred to radar and other counter measures. As he described them to me, these missions generally were solo flights to detect radar or radio transmission or to do the primary jamming off the coast of England. One of his crew once related to me that they had a radio intercept mission a few days into the Battle of the Bulge that for the lack of radio traffic led them to believe they may have been the only plane flying in norther Europe at that time.
@@wdtaut5650 Yes he was. He originally was with the 492nd Bomb Group until it was taken over by the OSS to serve as an espionage unit. I have some of his flight record information from his time in the 492nd, but nothing concerning the 36th Bomb Group.
@@cdjhyoung My dad was in Lt. Hamilton's crew. The 36th was his only overseas assignment. He told us, in general terms, what they did but never said anything about any particular mission. I got the idea flying solo as they did was nerve-racking.
@@wdtaut5650 Nerve-racking may not be the whole of it. These crews were considered expendable. Missions were by time in the air. My dad related to me they were given missions with no end time or return time on three occasions. He challenged the officer briefing them the first time if they could land after a certain time. He told me the look on that Major's face told him they didn't expect them to ever make it back. I don't know if it was common, but my dad's crew were together their entire tour until they returned state side. He, his co-pilot and flight mechanic were obsessed about trimming those airplanes in such a way as to gain the maximum linger time possible. They couldn't do much with a bomb load, but once free of bombs, or these radar jamming missions they could re-trim the airplane and shift the load enough to gain air time. When on their last leg of Transport from Iceland to Scotland, they still had enough fuel to continue on to their assigned air field instead of a layover in Scotland like the rest of the crews. It served them well returning from missions when the airfields were socked in being able to go north for open skies or in these jamming missions when they could exceed the normal linger time of a B24.
Awesome military tech video, thanks! I served on a ship as a Radar technician 40 years ago, so I'm always interested in its origins. I didn't realize the Germans had that tech in 1936! Thankfully, they didn't adopt it on a rapid pace.
@sailordude2094 Various Nations had thought about radar from the late 1920's onwards (thought the people to did ionosphere research had been measuring the height of the ionosphere with pulsed radio transmissions from the mid 1920s). A few of them being Gregory Breit and Merle A. Tuve who were doing research in the US and got a guy called Leo Young at the NRL to build a pulse Transmitter for them. In the UK, its Edward Appleton and a guy called Watson Watt doing the same. Leo Young was the Leader of US Navy Radar Development and build a short range set in 1934. Somebody in the Royal Navy came up with the concept in 1928, but couldn't get funding. The British Army's Signals Experimental Establishment had two guys called Butement and Pollard who came up with the idea of a Pulse radar in 1930 for aiming Army Coastal Batteries at ships. As at the time there was no threat and no Money, nothing came of it even after they build a working lab model. Germans were working on a Continuous Wave system for ship detection until the switched to a pulse method in 1935. Watson Watt of course got asked to look at the Air Defence Issue in early 1935 and that lead to the British going all out on a long wave length / Long range system off the bat (Chain Home), and following that with aircraft based systems to make up for the limitations. As soon as the Royal Navy and British Army found out about what the RAF were doing, they both wanted in, the Navy just on the Info side, but the Army joined the RAF effort which saw Butement and Pollard joining the RAF effort and they developed a number of systems which lead to British Beam Radars like the US and German Radars. The Germans radar development was mainly driven by the Electronics industry. The German Armed Forces wouldn't work together and stopped the industries that they dealt with from sharing data or kit. Three systems in Service or Development at the start of the war. A Search Radar (for surface search and gun laying and air search use (SEEKET and FREYA) and a search light layer for flak (WURZBURG). The US (Navy and Army) Systems were driven by the Service Signals Research Establishments. The Navy working on an Air / Surface Search kit (CAMX) and the Army working on two for Air Search and Search light aiming (can't remember the SCR numbers). all systems beginning deployment in 1939-1940 British had CH long range early Warning operational in 1938. A smaller Transportable CH type system called Mobile RDF Unit in production in 1939. Air Intercept and Air to Surface Vessel in an advanced state of development. A Transportable Gun Layer radar (not a good one) just entering production and the Coastal Defence Radar in advanced development which became the basis of the Chain Home Low radar which was ordered in July 1939.
-Germany can be credited with inventing radar in 1932 ahead of the UK and USA in the sense of both detecting the first ship and detecting the first aircraft by radar. The head of the German Navy's Signals Branch the Physicist Admiral von Kunhold had been developing active sonar for both mine hunting and hunting of enemy submarines but wished to extend the sonar to fire control for both submarines and surface ships. It eventually worked for u-boats (the famous Type XXI could aim its torpedoes with 3 undetectable Doppler pings (at the time since maximum straight methods didn't work). -The difficulty of using active sonar on a surface ship against another surface ship lead him to use sonar techniques with radio instead of sound waves. -They developed a 13.5cm microwave radar of a mere 600mW output using a Barkhausen Kurz Oscillator and were able to create a Doppler radar that could detect ships. -The microwave was way to weak but more success was achieved with a 50cm split anode magnetron or 4kW. So by 1932 and 33 they were detecting ships and aircraft and ranging them. -Split anode magnetrons tended to be a little unstable so the switch to acorn valves was made and a 1.2kW 50cm set called Seetakt was produced which was latter changed to 1.5kW at 60cm. By 1938 all German Cruisers and Destroyers on up were being fitted out with Seetakt. -Bismark had the FuMO 23 Seetkat of 1.5kW power but only 3 months latter Tirpitz had FuMo 26 with 8kW power and lobe switching for blind fire control (0.25 degree accuracy) and new vacuum tubes shock resitant to gig gun fire. -Seetakt altered to 2.5m was called Freya and used as an early warning radar against air raids about 13 were in service by the battle of france. -von Kunhold had originally approached Telefunken Company but the head of R&D a Runge mocked the idea of radar so von Kunhold had the little GEMA company who made sound recording equipment for training hydrophone operators make the radar. -Runge had second thoughts and this lead to Telefunken developing the Wurzbuirg radars. -The poor relationship between the men caused by Runge rudeness lead to poor cooperation. von Hunkhold was a proponent of microwaves and Telenfunken could have developed them. -In April 1942 the Germans made a fatal mistake and abandoned their microwave program due to shortages of staff against advice of Dr Martini who headed the Luftwaffe electronic warfare operations. They had by then developed a tunable 800W split anode magnetron and a LD6 disk triode that could produced about 25kW at 27cm but could produce 9kW at 9cm. About 8 month latter they discovered the British magneto but by then staff had been disbanded with many even drafted into the army. This meant the Germans took a long time to analyse the captured device.
Wurzburg Radar development started in 1936. The first production equipment's were not issued until the summer of 1940. The first equipment was not fitted with the conical scan based steering system, so were not that actuate. The Conical Scan system entered service in 1941, but even then the radar didn't have the accuracy to aim guns by radar fixes alone. The Giant Wurzburg was capable of aiming guns by itself, but it was needed to provide GCI radar control due to its range (and until mid 1943, two Giant Wurzburg radars were required for each GCI box). The Giant Wurzburg's primary role in Early Warning was as a height finder as the Freya radar couldn't do that function.
Würzburg could conduct blind fire. Here is the timeline: -Wurzburg A entered service by mid 1940. It did not have conical scan but 3 separate Operators: one for elevation, another for traverse and another for range. By nodding the aerial, the Position of the bomber could be determined within 2-4 degrees. It had been designed as an easily transportable early warning radar. It occasionally scored hits on bombers in clouds using verbal aiming but was usually used to que searchlight and optics. -Wurzburg C with conical scan entered service in Feb 1941. The conical scan allowed tracking accuracy of 0.3 degrees (when directly above without ground plane interference in which case accuracy was 0.5) and required only one man to operante both elevation and traverse but still had a range Operator. -Wurzburg D entered service in May 1941. By June 1941 there were 72 on the production line. It had the same conical scan but added synchro's for transfer of data to the Kommandogerate FLAK predictor. It also improved range accuracy from 100m to 16m. -Thus Wurzburg D could conduct blind fire. Obviously 0.3 degrees works out at 5.23m at 1000m or 25m at 15,000ft but at night and in clouds it was still dangerous. It has excellent range accuracy but it was better to use optical to lay and train the guns and the radar to range and direct search lights. Wurzburg D was more accurate than any allied radar up until 1943 when the SCR-584 radar was introduced after the Germans jammed SCR-268. -Wurzburg-Riesse was a Wurzburg-D in a 7.4m power driven dish. This doubled range and improved accuracy to 0.15-0.2 degrees. It entered production at the same time as Würzburg-D. It as a FLAK radar but was also used to direct night fighters on to their target. -Source "Fritz Trenkle" book on radar in German.
Thanks again for the outstanding research and documentation. In addition hearing the anecdotal comments of interrogations of German POW's really ties the science of the issues to the effeteness of the equipment and policies. together.
This is a great overview of US electronic jamming systems and tactics. As every electronic signal can be located, switching on such systems gave the Germans the location, speed, size and flight direction of any incoming bomber formation. In a certain way, the jamming devices replaced German RADAR signals. During the Vietnam war, the USAF had the rule that such jamming devices should only be switched on once an enemy RADAR had located an aircraft. Doing interviews with German RADAR operators after the war would confirm that it worked against such stations, but that was only one part of electronic warfare then and now. During the last six to eight months of the war, the Germans had severe ammunition shortages. If FLAK did not open fire at aircrafts using jamming devices in March 1945, the reason is not only jamming. The crews operating the jammers didn't know much about the situation on the ground, but noticed how the Germans were firing less shells at them every month. The conclusion for them was that the jamming worked very well.
I really like the way the text highlight follows along. It's a small thing but I don't have to follow along so closely and can check out the rest of a page too, for charts and photos. Those little jamming antennas are really trick. I had no idea that jamming was as effective as that, back in ww2. So now I wonder what a modern E2 Hawkeye sees. Thanks for this awesome upload.
All this electronic equipment relied on Glass Vacuum Tubs/Valves and Transformers running at high voltage to deliver the required power output. The great weight, bulk, power demands and expense of WW2 pre-transistor or solid state component electronics might not be appreciated.
This was very helpful. I have asked for German WW2 radar very often. As it is very little information on German WW2 radar development and usage compered to the allied documentation
How were the guns actually controlled by the radar? Was it automatic or did the gunners have to adjust the guns according to something provided by the radar?
I have a request/suggestion. Please do a video on how the Flak 88 and the other big bore cannons worked. If it's possible please explain how the travers/elevation gunners knew when they were on the proper gun bearing/azimuth and elevation. Did the gunners have a lighted dial or was there a type of optical reference that would illuminate when the gun was pointed in the direction/elevation the firing solution computer had arrived at? Thanks for your hard work.
Extremely interesting. Though I love WWII history, I have never encountered useful information covering ECM in WWII. Most of this information is new to me. Thank you!
👍Another excellent video, thank you. Chaff or "Window" as it was dubbed by the British was not used for some period (over a year?) after it was developed. This was due to concerns that the Germans would quickly work out what it was and adopt similar tactics to mount a new bombing offensive against Britain. By the time Window was deployed, bizarrely, the Lufwaffe already also had Chaff (Düppel) which they had also been holding of on using for the same reasons. The Lufwaffe did eventually use Düppel but it was limited and nowhere near as effective as Allied use of Chaff. As a few folk have commented, it great to get some details of these systems. The rapid development of EW during WW2 is amazing. It went from virtually nothing to quite sophisticated systems in such a short period.
Most of the kit was actually developed in the UK by a combined US/UK team called American British Laboratory 15 (ABL-15) which was a division of the NRDC Radio Research Laboratory. They were collocated at Great Malvern in south west England with the British Telecommunications Research Establishment who did all of the radio and radar research for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm.
Thank you, I have always wondered about USAAF ECM capabilities. Was there also any emphasis on jamming Fighter Direction communications? I know that the RAF had some capability for that against the German night fighters.
Could you do a video of how the pathfinder radar works or cover it in a different video? What are they using as a reflector source when aiming using radar?
It's something that never seems to get any attention at all. Everything you see and hear about the bombing campaign against Germany is either the planes or the 88 mm flak guns. Never the electronic aspects.
@@Gloomendoom Problem with 100 Group was they were only actually operational between June 1944 and the End of the War. Of course they operated B-17 and B-24 and also had the USAAF 803rd (Provisional) Bomb Squadron under their Tactical Command. 100 Group supported USAAF missions and the 803 flew sorties to assist RAF Bomber Command Missions.
@@alltat There are entire books about this; at least about the British (who were well ahead of the US in all this) and their EW arms race with the Nazis.
It would have been nice if Masters of the Air had included something about radar, chaff, and ECM, but I can understand why they skipped it. It would be hard to show in video, and advancements would mean it would be mentioned here and there, so the audience would probably forget what it was all about.
Time 2:50 U.S War Department Evaluation. What is meant by D/F accuracy ranges 0.2 degrees? The 10 feet or 3 Metres Small Wurzburg dish operating on 482 Mhz or 0.6 Metres wavelength giving a bearing accuracy of 0.2 degrees sounds most doubtful? Should it be 1.22x 0.6/3 or 0.24 radians not degrees, an error of about 60 times for resolution. 17 degrees beam width makes sense for such a long wavelength. Would 0.2 degrees not need a 10cm wavelength and a 33 Metre dish?
@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Wurzburg from late 1941 onwards was fitted a rotating offset dipole (Wurzburg D). This produced a conical scanning lobe which put an amplitude modulation on the received signal (which was compared with references signals produced by the dipole spinning system and produced error signals show how far off the Dish centre line the target was) This allowed the operator to steer the dish until the errors disappeared and at that point the dish was around 0.2 degrees of the actual target position. You're totally right in the fact at the beamwidth of a Wurzburg radar beam without such a system is huge and that was a problem with the original A Model (that relied on the operator steering the dish until he got the strongest signal) and C Model (where a Up/down / Left/Right lobe switching multiple dipole system was used). Even with the Conical Scanning System, the D Model wasn't accurate enough to aim Flak guns. The Conical Scan system on the Giant Wurzburg with its much bigger dish had an accuracy of 0.1 Degrees and that could directly aim Flak, however it's primary role was as target and interceptor tracking for the Himmelbett night fighter control system.
@@richardvernon317 Thanks, I’ll look that up. Did allied 3cm wavelength radar conical spinning dishes as fitted in late war Mosquito and presumably P-61 night fighters allow similar improvement and could they automatically steer the dish to track a target. I’d imagine the allies were far more sophisticated.
AI Mk VIII didn't have that feature, the pilot aimed visually once he got in range. Mk IX had a single target track mode but never saw service. Meanwhile the US developed SCR-720, which used a helical scan method and couldn't do a conical-scan track. It did however offer a substantial performance upgrade over AI Mk VIII, and replaced it in British service as AI Mk X. The same set was used in the P-61.
Nope. The Jammers and Chaff stopped the guns from being aimed at the Bombers when there was Cloud between the Bombers and the Guns. The Bombers dropped their bombs using PFF methods. PFF stands for PathFinder Force and it means almost exactly the same as it does for RAF Bomber Command. Specialist Aircraft with trained crews leading the main force bombers on to the target via use of Electronic Navigation Aids. In the case of the USAAF, their Pathfinders were lead ships in each combat box that navigated to the target by use of H2X / G-H / Micro-H blind bombing systems and when they dropped their bombs so did the rest of the formation. Accuracy was not increased, but reduced, but the Bomber losses were reduced.
Did the allies have the technology to build jammers in 1939? What was the history of them realizing they needed jammers on bombers and who/when were they developed?
The Germans started the Jamming War in February 1942 when they jammed the 1.4 Metre Band RAF and British Army Radars covering the English Channel during the Channel Dash. First British ECM equipments were Moonshine - Aircraft carried Pulse Radar Repeater Jammer used to return an echo that looked like a formation of Aircraft on the scope of Freya type radars . First used to try and pull German Day Fighters away from real Air Raids in July 1942 Mandrel - Ground and Aircraft based Pulse Radar Nosie Jammer to be used against Freya type early warning Radars. First used in December 1942 by Bomber Command with two aircraft in each squadron being fitted with the jamming system. Tinsel - this used the Bomber's own radio systems and involved the wireless operator tuning his HF Radio system across the frequencies used by the Germans for fighter control communication and when he had picked up a controller and intercepting aircraft talking, he would transmit the sound of one of the aircraft's engine on that frequency via i microphone fitted in the engine bay for a couple of minutes. That system was introduced again in December 1942. The British and the US started their countermeasures organisations at around the same time and by the end of 1942 the US had a RCM laboratory set up in the UK as part of the British TRE effort to design equipment for both the USAAF and RAF requirements. The British started fitting Jammers in their Bombers in late 1942. The USAAF, operating in good weather and daylight didn't until October 1943 when they started to put Blind Bombing Radars in their aircraft where such Jammers would help protect the bombers when bombing though cloud cover.
The RAF invented IFF and used it in the Battle of Britain. The Germans tried to do the same, but never uniformly, and later the British introduced _Perfectos_ to trigger the German IFF, allowing Mosquito fighters to home-in on the enemy. The Luftwaffe responded by disabling the IFF, but this led to German aircraft being shot-down by their own flak.
Want to know the funniest thing about simple Doppler radar systems. They are by far the hardest radar to jam. Many people have attempted to jam simple police traffic radar with no luck. In fact on a bet one of it's early traffic radar designers couldn't even do it. It's because simple microwave sources vary in freq so much. One would need to perfectly match each radar guns freq. Its illegal btw but has never been successful. On the other hand jamming police laser speed devices has been successful and isn't regulated. Many devices are being sold.
It is interesting that the Germans were ahead of the allies in many areas(eg. Cruise and balistic missles), but in the area of real effectiveness(radar), they were behind by 3 years. I guess Hitler was okay with "wonder weapons" that killed a lot of civilians, but wasn't that interested in radar to protect his own people.
The Germans did lack the cavity magnetron, a key component, but so did US, before UK did gift them the cavity magnetron. Hitler was a horrible wicked evil person, but its dangerous to paint him as more horrible wicked evil then he was. Third Reich did spend enormous resources on air-defense, look at the size of the flackwaffe, or the number o air-raid-shelters that was built.
When yhe Allies decided to attack flak batteries directly must have been terrible for the Germans. Those guns are basically out in the open. Once the air burst munitions were allowed to be dropped, those gun crews were hosed.
Side note: I was the director of the National Electronics Museum (2005-2022). I interviewed a guy who was a German kid during WWII. He told me Allied Chaff/Window hung from everyone's Xmas trees during the winter of 44. The museum had a Giant Wurzburg on display that I located in Boulder, Colorado. After a post-war stint in Sterling Va., as part of three Wurzburg radars painted red, white and blue. We had the red one. It was sent west to a more RF friendly area to do research the on the Northern Lights. It was eventually abandoned in place at Table Rock, I believe after the 1957 International Geophysical Year.
I’ve worked in the EW community for much of my career. I’m getting ready to wrap up a 45 year career in Naval Aviation and was a flight test engineer for much of it. EW to me is so challenging and rewarding, much like a good game of chess. Love this video!
My oh my!
Thank you! Being free and able to vote for who I think should lead is such a terrific way to live. Thank You for that!
Any chances that the Chinese could contact you for more information....?
I worked in EW from 1966 to 2012 when they made me superintendent for ten years. Here is another EW document, much of it was classified much of my career. falcon.blu3wolf.com/Docs/Electronic-Warfare-Fundamentals.pdf
This is a friggin gold mine of EW history.
I am always impressed by the thorughness and accuracy of your reports. Keep'em coming.
this is why Grampa Roy flew as B 17 air crew operating these, won the War, came out and bought motorola stocks, went back to working on cars, and had a "Car Phone" radio in the 60's.
Wow, honestly amazed. When I first subscribed to this channel, I was skeptical about choosing such a narrow scope of aircraft- specific time, type, and nationality. I thought there wouldn't be much that I didn't already know, being in the US and interested in WW2 aviation. But wow! Every other video contains some system or feature or weapon or tactic that I didn't even know existed. Fantastic work.
I am old an have always been interested in WWII and military technology and I never heard of the vast majority of this. Thanks, you are doing an incredible job!
I’m the same
This is an extremely impressive video. Subscribed. The most impressive aspect is the large volume of high quality original source material. _Very good work._ The only improvement would be references to the documents in the description. That would elevate this to engineering-research quality. This is better than any technology-history public broadcasts I've ever seen. I knew about chaff/window. However, I did not even _suspect_ active electronic countermeasures were so effective, so early.
Best Wishes. ☮
Operation Biting played a significant role in identifying the capabilities of the Wurzberg Radar, the risks and difficulties of this mission is a good illustration of the allies comprehension of the impact of this system on their campaign.
I'm not even 60 seconds in and I'm already excited due to the introduction highlighting the previous videos in the series. I love watching the evolution of this channel! Also, congrats on 50k subscribers!
After 11 bombing missions in late 1944, my father and his crew were transferred to radar and other counter measures. As he described them to me, these missions generally were solo flights to detect radar or radio transmission or to do the primary jamming off the coast of England. One of his crew once related to me that they had a radio intercept mission a few days into the Battle of the Bulge that for the lack of radio traffic led them to believe they may have been the only plane flying in norther Europe at that time.
Was he in the 36th squadron flying B-24s?
@@wdtaut5650 Yes he was. He originally was with the 492nd Bomb Group until it was taken over by the OSS to serve as an espionage unit. I have some of his flight record information from his time in the 492nd, but nothing concerning the 36th Bomb Group.
@@cdjhyoung My dad was in Lt. Hamilton's crew. The 36th was his only overseas assignment. He told us, in general terms, what they did but never said anything about any particular mission. I got the idea flying solo as they did was nerve-racking.
@@wdtaut5650 Nerve-racking may not be the whole of it. These crews were considered expendable. Missions were by time in the air. My dad related to me they were given missions with no end time or return time on three occasions. He challenged the officer briefing them the first time if they could land after a certain time. He told me the look on that Major's face told him they didn't expect them to ever make it back. I don't know if it was common, but my dad's crew were together their entire tour until they returned state side. He, his co-pilot and flight mechanic were obsessed about trimming those airplanes in such a way as to gain the maximum linger time possible. They couldn't do much with a bomb load, but once free of bombs, or these radar jamming missions they could re-trim the airplane and shift the load enough to gain air time. When on their last leg of Transport from Iceland to Scotland, they still had enough fuel to continue on to their assigned air field instead of a layover in Scotland like the rest of the crews. It served them well returning from missions when the airfields were socked in being able to go north for open skies or in these jamming missions when they could exceed the normal linger time of a B24.
Awesome military tech video, thanks! I served on a ship as a Radar technician 40 years ago, so I'm always interested in its origins. I didn't realize the Germans had that tech in 1936! Thankfully, they didn't adopt it on a rapid pace.
Their a difference between designed year and adopted year bud. Btw all most all radars used in the early part of the war was designed in mid 1930's
@sailordude2094 Various Nations had thought about radar from the late 1920's onwards (thought the people to did ionosphere research had been measuring the height of the ionosphere with pulsed radio transmissions from the mid 1920s). A few of them being Gregory Breit and Merle A. Tuve who were doing research in the US and got a guy called Leo Young at the NRL to build a pulse Transmitter for them. In the UK, its Edward Appleton and a guy called Watson Watt doing the same. Leo Young was the Leader of US Navy Radar Development and build a short range set in 1934. Somebody in the Royal Navy came up with the concept in 1928, but couldn't get funding. The British Army's Signals Experimental Establishment had two guys called Butement and Pollard who came up with the idea of a Pulse radar in 1930 for aiming Army Coastal Batteries at ships. As at the time there was no threat and no Money, nothing came of it even after they build a working lab model. Germans were working on a Continuous Wave system for ship detection until the switched to a pulse method in 1935. Watson Watt of course got asked to look at the Air Defence Issue in early 1935 and that lead to the British going all out on a long wave length / Long range system off the bat (Chain Home), and following that with aircraft based systems to make up for the limitations. As soon as the Royal Navy and British Army found out about what the RAF were doing, they both wanted in, the Navy just on the Info side, but the Army joined the RAF effort which saw Butement and Pollard joining the RAF effort and they developed a number of systems which lead to British Beam Radars like the US and German Radars.
The Germans radar development was mainly driven by the Electronics industry. The German Armed Forces wouldn't work together and stopped the industries that they dealt with from sharing data or kit. Three systems in Service or Development at the start of the war. A Search Radar (for surface search and gun laying and air search use (SEEKET and FREYA) and a search light layer for flak (WURZBURG).
The US (Navy and Army) Systems were driven by the Service Signals Research Establishments. The Navy working on an Air / Surface Search kit (CAMX) and the Army working on two for Air Search and Search light aiming (can't remember the SCR numbers). all systems beginning deployment in 1939-1940
British had CH long range early Warning operational in 1938. A smaller Transportable CH type system called Mobile RDF Unit in production in 1939. Air Intercept and Air to Surface Vessel in an advanced state of development. A Transportable Gun Layer radar (not a good one) just entering production and the Coastal Defence Radar in advanced development which became the basis of the Chain Home Low radar which was ordered in July 1939.
They hat different frequencies.....not as good as allied(Brits)
-Germany can be credited with inventing radar in 1932 ahead of the UK and USA in the sense of both detecting the first ship and detecting the first aircraft by radar.
The head of the German Navy's Signals Branch the Physicist Admiral von Kunhold had been developing active sonar for both mine hunting and hunting of enemy submarines but wished to extend the sonar to fire control for both submarines and surface ships. It eventually worked for u-boats (the famous Type XXI could aim its torpedoes with 3 undetectable Doppler pings (at the time since maximum straight methods didn't work).
-The difficulty of using active sonar on a surface ship against another surface ship lead him to use sonar techniques with radio instead of sound waves.
-They developed a 13.5cm microwave radar of a mere 600mW output using a Barkhausen Kurz Oscillator and were able to create a Doppler radar that could detect ships.
-The microwave was way to weak but more success was achieved with a 50cm split anode magnetron or 4kW. So by 1932 and 33 they were detecting ships and aircraft and ranging them.
-Split anode magnetrons tended to be a little unstable so the switch to acorn valves was made and a 1.2kW 50cm set called Seetakt was produced which was latter changed to 1.5kW at 60cm. By 1938 all German Cruisers and Destroyers on up were being fitted out with Seetakt.
-Bismark had the FuMO 23 Seetkat of 1.5kW power but only 3 months latter Tirpitz had FuMo 26 with 8kW power and lobe switching for blind fire control (0.25 degree accuracy) and new vacuum tubes shock resitant to gig gun fire.
-Seetakt altered to 2.5m was called Freya and used as an early warning radar against air raids about 13 were in service by the battle of france.
-von Kunhold had originally approached Telefunken Company but the head of R&D a Runge mocked the idea of radar so von Kunhold had the little GEMA company who made sound recording equipment for training hydrophone operators make the radar.
-Runge had second thoughts and this lead to Telefunken developing the Wurzbuirg radars.
-The poor relationship between the men caused by Runge rudeness lead to poor cooperation. von Hunkhold was a proponent of microwaves and Telenfunken could have developed them.
-In April 1942 the Germans made a fatal mistake and abandoned their microwave program due to shortages of staff against advice of Dr Martini who headed the Luftwaffe electronic warfare operations. They had by then developed a tunable 800W split anode magnetron and a LD6 disk triode that could produced about 25kW at 27cm but could produce 9kW at 9cm.
About 8 month latter they discovered the British magneto but by then staff had been disbanded with many even drafted into the army. This meant the Germans took a long time to analyse the captured device.
Wurzburg Radar development started in 1936. The first production equipment's were not issued until the summer of 1940. The first equipment was not fitted with the conical scan based steering system, so were not that actuate. The Conical Scan system entered service in 1941, but even then the radar didn't have the accuracy to aim guns by radar fixes alone. The Giant Wurzburg was capable of aiming guns by itself, but it was needed to provide GCI radar control due to its range (and until mid 1943, two Giant Wurzburg radars were required for each GCI box). The Giant Wurzburg's primary role in Early Warning was as a height finder as the Freya radar couldn't do that function.
Würzburg could conduct blind fire. Here is the timeline:
-Wurzburg A entered service by mid 1940. It did not have conical scan but 3 separate Operators: one for elevation, another for traverse and another for range. By nodding the aerial, the Position of the bomber could be determined within 2-4 degrees. It had been designed as an easily transportable early warning radar. It occasionally scored hits on bombers in clouds using verbal aiming but was usually used to que searchlight and optics.
-Wurzburg C with conical scan entered service in Feb 1941. The conical scan allowed tracking accuracy of 0.3 degrees (when directly above without ground plane interference in which case accuracy was 0.5) and required only one man to operante both elevation and traverse but still had a range Operator.
-Wurzburg D entered service in May 1941. By June 1941 there were 72 on the production line. It had the same conical scan but added synchro's for transfer of data to the Kommandogerate FLAK predictor. It also improved range accuracy from 100m to 16m.
-Thus Wurzburg D could conduct blind fire. Obviously 0.3 degrees works out at 5.23m at 1000m or 25m at 15,000ft but at night and in clouds it was still dangerous. It has excellent range accuracy but it was better to use optical to lay and train the guns and the radar to range and direct search lights. Wurzburg D was more accurate than any allied radar up until 1943 when the SCR-584 radar was introduced after the Germans jammed SCR-268.
-Wurzburg-Riesse was a Wurzburg-D in a 7.4m power driven dish. This doubled range and improved accuracy to 0.15-0.2 degrees. It entered production at the same time as Würzburg-D. It as a FLAK radar but was also used to direct night fighters on to their target.
-Source "Fritz Trenkle" book on radar in German.
Goering early in war witnessed german shoot down english a/c famos quote no enemy plane will fly over the reich what a fat fool he doomed nazi germany
Thanks again for the outstanding research and documentation. In addition hearing the anecdotal comments of interrogations of German POW's really ties the science of the issues to the effeteness of the equipment and policies. together.
This is a great overview of US electronic jamming systems and tactics. As every electronic signal can be located, switching on such systems gave the Germans the location, speed, size and flight direction of any incoming bomber formation. In a certain way, the jamming devices replaced German RADAR signals. During the Vietnam war, the USAF had the rule that such jamming devices should only be switched on once an enemy RADAR had located an aircraft. Doing interviews with German RADAR operators after the war would confirm that it worked against such stations, but that was only one part of electronic warfare then and now.
During the last six to eight months of the war, the Germans had severe ammunition shortages. If FLAK did not open fire at aircrafts using jamming devices in March 1945, the reason is not only jamming. The crews operating the jammers didn't know much about the situation on the ground, but noticed how the Germans were firing less shells at them every month. The conclusion for them was that the jamming worked very well.
Another outstanding presentation. You are a true scholar and historian.
I really like the way the text highlight follows along. It's a small thing but I don't have to follow along so closely and can check out the rest of a page too, for charts and photos. Those little jamming antennas are really trick. I had no idea that jamming was as effective as that, back in ww2. So now I wonder what a modern E2 Hawkeye sees. Thanks for this awesome upload.
Great presentation as always.
I just want to say that I love and appreciate you and your content.
All this electronic equipment relied on Glass Vacuum Tubs/Valves and Transformers running at high voltage to deliver the required power output. The great weight, bulk, power demands and expense of WW2 pre-transistor or solid state component electronics might not be appreciated.
Modern high power radar often use klystron vacuum tubes...
I’m thoroughly enjoying this series. I worked some with fire control radar systems in the US Navy. EW was always a concern.
Awesome video, thanks!
This was ton foil they used to jam German radars and later on its in yout kitchen for baking and storing food!
Top quality video as usual on this channel
Excellent work as always!
This was very helpful. I have asked for German WW2 radar very often. As it is very little information on German WW2 radar development and usage compered to the allied documentation
Another great vid.
How were the guns actually controlled by the radar? Was it automatic or did the gunners have to adjust the guns according to something provided by the radar?
I have a request/suggestion. Please do a video on how the Flak 88 and the other big bore cannons worked. If it's possible please explain how the travers/elevation gunners knew when they were on the proper gun bearing/azimuth and elevation. Did the gunners have a lighted dial or was there a type of optical reference that would illuminate when the gun was pointed in the direction/elevation the firing solution computer had arrived at? Thanks for your hard work.
Extremely interesting. Though I love WWII history, I have never encountered useful information covering ECM in WWII. Most of this information is new to me. Thank you!
Thanks!
Thank you for the channel Super-thanks donation. It is much appreciated!
Hats off once again , each video contains a raft of surprises . Hadn't considered the EWO as a wwii creation , now I know better.
Thank you.
It’s what helped win the Battle of Britain
👍Another excellent video, thank you. Chaff or "Window" as it was dubbed by the British was not used for some period (over a year?) after it was developed. This was due to concerns that the Germans would quickly work out what it was and adopt similar tactics to mount a new bombing offensive against Britain. By the time Window was deployed, bizarrely, the Lufwaffe already also had Chaff (Düppel) which they had also been holding of on using for the same reasons. The Lufwaffe did eventually use Düppel but it was limited and nowhere near as effective as Allied use of Chaff.
As a few folk have commented, it great to get some details of these systems. The rapid development of EW during WW2 is amazing. It went from virtually nothing to quite sophisticated systems in such a short period.
Many thanks!
Again Thank you!
Thank you!
The engineers who developed this stuff must have been working around the clock to stay ahead. Could you someday cover the home front?
Most of the kit was actually developed in the UK by a combined US/UK team called American British Laboratory 15 (ABL-15) which was a division of the NRDC Radio Research Laboratory. They were collocated at Great Malvern in south west England with the British Telecommunications Research Establishment who did all of the radio and radar research for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm.
Thank you, I have always wondered about USAAF ECM capabilities. Was there also any emphasis on jamming Fighter Direction communications? I know that the RAF had some capability for that against the German night fighters.
Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is just nuts!
Amazing!
Could you do a video of how the pathfinder radar works or cover it in a different video? What are they using as a reflector source when aiming using radar?
Man, I would love to get hold of a bunch of those Impact pamphlets.
i had no idea electronic countermeasures were so effective.
I didn’t realize how sophisticated things had become since Chain Home of the Battle of Britain
It's something that never seems to get any attention at all. Everything you see and hear about the bombing campaign against Germany is either the planes or the 88 mm flak guns. Never the electronic aspects.
Have look at what 100 Group RAF got up to. You might find it interesting.
@@Gloomendoom Problem with 100 Group was they were only actually operational between June 1944 and the End of the War. Of course they operated B-17 and B-24 and also had the USAAF 803rd (Provisional) Bomb Squadron under their Tactical Command. 100 Group supported USAAF missions and the 803 flew sorties to assist RAF Bomber Command Missions.
@@alltat There are entire books about this; at least about the British (who were well ahead of the US in all this) and their EW arms race with the Nazis.
Once enough jammers were available Blue Oyster Cult was formed and wrote the song Me 262.
Another info rich video! Do you know who manufactured the airborne radar jammers?
Question , How did this jamming , effect German night fighter efforts ? Great video !!!
Could you do a video on the 36th squadron's role in electronic counter measures?
The book 'Instruments of Darkness' covers the subject, and related subjects, in detail.
Absolutely. I was going to post that but now I don't have to. (Incidentally the author is Alfred Price)
It would have been nice if Masters of the Air had included something about radar, chaff, and ECM, but I can understand why they skipped it. It would be hard to show in video, and advancements would mean it would be mentioned here and there, so the audience would probably forget what it was all about.
Time 2:50 U.S War Department Evaluation.
What is meant by D/F accuracy ranges 0.2 degrees?
The 10 feet or 3 Metres Small Wurzburg dish operating on 482 Mhz or 0.6 Metres wavelength giving a bearing accuracy of 0.2 degrees sounds most doubtful? Should it be 1.22x 0.6/3 or 0.24 radians not degrees, an error of about 60 times for resolution. 17 degrees beam width makes sense for such a long wavelength.
Would 0.2 degrees not need a 10cm wavelength and a 33 Metre dish?
@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935
Wurzburg from late 1941 onwards was fitted a rotating offset dipole (Wurzburg D). This produced a conical scanning lobe which put an amplitude modulation on the received signal (which was compared with references signals produced by the dipole spinning system and produced error signals show how far off the Dish centre line the target was) This allowed the operator to steer the dish until the errors disappeared and at that point the dish was around 0.2 degrees of the actual target position.
You're totally right in the fact at the beamwidth of a Wurzburg radar beam without such a system is huge and that was a problem with the original A Model (that relied on the operator steering the dish until he got the strongest signal) and C Model (where a Up/down / Left/Right lobe switching multiple dipole system was used).
Even with the Conical Scanning System, the D Model wasn't accurate enough to aim Flak guns. The Conical Scan system on the Giant Wurzburg with its much bigger dish had an accuracy of 0.1 Degrees and that could directly aim Flak, however it's primary role was as target and interceptor tracking for the Himmelbett night fighter control system.
@@richardvernon317 Thanks, I’ll look that up. Did allied 3cm wavelength radar conical spinning dishes as fitted in late war Mosquito and presumably P-61 night fighters allow similar improvement and could they automatically steer the dish to track a target. I’d imagine the allies were far more sophisticated.
AI Mk VIII didn't have that feature, the pilot aimed visually once he got in range. Mk IX had a single target track mode but never saw service.
Meanwhile the US developed SCR-720, which used a helical scan method and couldn't do a conical-scan track. It did however offer a substantial performance upgrade over AI Mk VIII, and replaced it in British service as AI Mk X. The same set was used in the P-61.
So, if radar was jammed did/would that allow bombing at lower altitudes to increase accuracy?
Nope. The Jammers and Chaff stopped the guns from being aimed at the Bombers when there was Cloud between the Bombers and the Guns. The Bombers dropped their bombs using PFF methods. PFF stands for PathFinder Force and it means almost exactly the same as it does for RAF Bomber Command. Specialist Aircraft with trained crews leading the main force bombers on to the target via use of Electronic Navigation Aids. In the case of the USAAF, their Pathfinders were lead ships in each combat box that navigated to the target by use of H2X / G-H / Micro-H blind bombing systems and when they dropped their bombs so did the rest of the formation. Accuracy was not increased, but reduced, but the Bomber losses were reduced.
Why couldn't the Gegmany come up with counter counter meassures 🤔
Do you know where in the aircraft the ECM operator sat?
He had a reclining armchair and a small windshield right on the third engind
No jam was harmed or eaten during the production of this video. 🐿
Did the allies have the technology to build jammers in 1939? What was the history of them realizing they needed jammers on bombers and who/when were they developed?
The Germans started the Jamming War in February 1942 when they jammed the 1.4 Metre Band RAF and British Army Radars covering the English Channel during the Channel Dash.
First British ECM equipments were
Moonshine - Aircraft carried Pulse Radar Repeater Jammer used to return an echo that looked like a formation of Aircraft on the scope of Freya type radars . First used to try and pull German Day Fighters away from real Air Raids in July 1942
Mandrel - Ground and Aircraft based Pulse Radar Nosie Jammer to be used against Freya type early warning Radars. First used in December 1942 by Bomber Command with two aircraft in each squadron being fitted with the jamming system.
Tinsel - this used the Bomber's own radio systems and involved the wireless operator tuning his HF Radio system across the frequencies used by the Germans for fighter control communication and when he had picked up a controller and intercepting aircraft talking, he would transmit the sound of one of the aircraft's engine on that frequency via i microphone fitted in the engine bay for a couple of minutes. That system was introduced again in December 1942.
The British and the US started their countermeasures organisations at around the same time and by the end of 1942 the US had a RCM laboratory set up in the UK as part of the British TRE effort to design equipment for both the USAAF and RAF requirements.
The British started fitting Jammers in their Bombers in late 1942. The USAAF, operating in good weather and daylight didn't until October 1943 when they started to put Blind Bombing Radars in their aircraft where such Jammers would help protect the bombers when bombing though cloud cover.
I didn't know that IFF had been developed so early.
The RAF invented IFF and used it in the Battle of Britain. The Germans tried to do the same, but never uniformly, and later the British introduced _Perfectos_ to trigger the German IFF, allowing Mosquito fighters to home-in on the enemy. The Luftwaffe responded by disabling the IFF, but this led to German aircraft being shot-down by their own flak.
Police can sit in their identical radar equiped cars and all run their exact same radar models at the same time and not affect each other in fact.
At the beginning of this video:
Is that a _Vickers Wellington?_
How were the German Flak guns controlled by the radar? What did the Japanese and Italians use?
There was a device that interpreted Signals to the guns.....
spaghetti and rice-eaters would use bats
I wonder how much the limited life expectancy of the spot jammer operators caused training problem for the Allies.
We called it window
What a pity the operators of the _"Carpet"_ aerial jamming system were not called _"Rugrats."_ 😉
Want to know the funniest thing about simple Doppler radar systems. They are by far the hardest radar to jam. Many people have attempted to jam simple police traffic radar with no luck. In fact on a bet one of it's early traffic radar designers couldn't even do it. It's because simple microwave sources vary in freq so much. One would need to perfectly match each radar guns freq. Its illegal btw but has never been successful.
On the other hand jamming police laser speed devices has been successful and isn't regulated. Many devices are being sold.
You did not convert pounds of weight into kilograms once. Now I am hopelessly confused.
It is interesting that the Germans were ahead of the allies in many areas(eg. Cruise and balistic missles), but in the area of real effectiveness(radar), they were behind by 3 years. I guess Hitler was okay with "wonder weapons" that killed a lot of civilians, but wasn't that interested in radar to protect his own people.
The Germans did lack the cavity magnetron, a key component, but so did US, before UK did gift them the cavity magnetron. Hitler was a horrible wicked evil person, but its dangerous to paint him as more horrible wicked evil then he was. Third Reich did spend enormous resources on air-defense, look at the size of the flackwaffe, or the number o air-raid-shelters that was built.
I know what Chaff was, tin foil strips. What was Carpet?
The active jammers he talks about, that’s the code name
Next time please provide sufficient details to support your conclusions. /sarc
The one thing that the Germans lacked.........the cavity magnetron.
Yes, the same thing that your microwave oven uses..............
When yhe Allies decided to attack flak batteries directly must have been terrible for the Germans. Those guns are basically out in the open. Once the air burst munitions were allowed to be dropped, those gun crews were hosed.
The Germans were the first to try to deal with the foe's overwhelming air by going all in on missiles and other GBAD and it just didn't work for them
They should be fired immediately for vandalizing a life saving million dollar machine.
#Fbiatlanta
Algorithm.
nhtxhd
boffins in sheds in their backyards
defeating the hun.