[Milsurplus] Re: [ARC5] Re: Knickebein

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On 4/20/05, Unserviceable but Repairable <cosmoline at ba-watch.org> wrote:
> Was this beam-intercept dealy same as "X-gerat.?"  Seems so.

X-Gerat used several intersecting beams, Marty - I wanna say three(?)

First intersect told them they were nearing the area, second beam told
bombardier to start his bombing clock, third intersect started a timed
stopwatch or such for bomb release. Maybe it was just two? All this
stuff was set up ahead of time. Knickebein was the earlier, more
simple system with the dots/dashes beams merging into a continous tone
as long as pilot stayed on track, with intersect beam for drop.

True story about the Halli-rigs, documented in several places that
escape me atm. They snapped 'em up where ever they could find one for
sale. Used 'em in those fat little twin engine costal patrol bombers
(Lockheed?) to locate the beams. Coventry apparently was a mistake,
someone got caught flat-footed or information was ignored.

They also had Y-Gerat and a few other evolutions of beams. Brits would
defeat, Germans would come up with new system, Brits would defeat, and
so on. took the Brits a while to catch on at first, someone found and
overly-sensitive Lorenz-type receiver in a crashed HE-111 and got to
thinking. Brits came up with some very clever stuff, too.

Chain Home and CHL still fascinate me, all of those huge, beautiful
towers. I did a lot of research on this maybe 20 years back or so. It
was a keen interest of mine. Unfortunately the early signs of CRS are
here.

'Most Secret War' by R.V. Jones is a must-read for this story. Sorry
to stray a bit off target, Taigh...

de Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ