[Milsurplus] LO radiation

[Steve Byan]

On Mar 28, 2005, at 3:50 AM, Hue Miller wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Don Davis" <dxguy at earthlink.net>
>
>> ...name one ship that was
>> sunk by Rx emissions....  Probably a combination of plausible denial  
>> to
>> protect ULTRA, advertising by Scott and others, and ignorance of folks
>> around the periphery in the Navy.
>
> I don't understand how the "plausible denial" or "disinformation" thing
> worked. Surely it didn't fool the Kriegsmarine; if the technique  
> worked,
> they surely would have been using it, and we'd know about it.

The point was to mislead the Germans via disinformation that the  
British and Americans had some super-good DF'ing technology that let  
them home in on U-boat receivers. Even if the German's couldn't do it,  
they could be left with at least the possibility that the Allies could.  
This disinformation protected either the secret of centimetre radar  
made possible by the magnetron tube, which the Germans did not know  
about, or the secret of ULTRA, which was Bletchly Park's decryption of  
the German naval intercepts which were encrypted by the Enigma machine,  
by providing a plausible but misleading explanation for the increase in  
German submarine losses.



I've been searching for the place where I read that the Allies pushed  
"DF'ing the Local oscillator" disinformation via the contract with  
Scott for their receivers. I've been looking through the likely spots  
in Churchill's 6 volume history of WWII  
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039541685X/qid=1112030523/sr=2 
-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-3054552-6996922>, but haven't found the  
reference yet. I also re-read the Bletchly Park parts of "Alan Turing:  
The Enigma" by  Andrew Hodges  
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802775802/102-3054552-6996922>  
and didn't find it there, either.

I don't have a copy of "The INVENTION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD" by Robert  
Buderi  
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684835290/qid=1112031696/sr=2 
-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/102-3054552-6996922>, as I borrowed it from the  
library when I read it, so I haven't yet been able to revisit this  
book.

The reference I recall also might have been in "The wizard war: British  
scientific intelligence, 1939-1945" by  R. V Jones  
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0698108965/ 
qid=1112033693/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/102-3054552-6996922?v=glance&s=books>,  
another library book that I haven't yet been able to revisit.

I did find the following reference on the web  
<http://www.vectorsite.net/ttwiz4.html#m3>:

"Centimetric ASV had greater maximum and shorter minimum range than  
longwave ASV, was much more accurate, and Metox couldn't detect it.  
U-boats were hit without warning on the surface at night and in low  
visibility. Escort vessels were also fitted with centimetric ASV,  
allowing them to hunt down U-boats at night. Doenitz and his senior  
officers were baffled, suspecting at first that the sinkings of their  
submarines were due to the work of spies. They were further confused  
when a RAF Coastal Command prisoner told his captors that RAF planes  
were homing in on emissions from Metox, leading to an order for the  
removal of Metox from all U-boats."

Metox was a countermeasures receiver carried by the U-boats which gave  
warning of the early British longwave antisubmarine radar.


Regards,
-Steve
--------
Steve Byan <stevebyan at mac.com>
Littleton, MA