"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:
lya67q6el9.fsf@void.com...
"Jim Wilkins" <
muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:
"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:ly5yif3vbg.fsf@void.com...
...
... with neo-Nazi hard-liners who claimed they could have won if
only things had gone a little differently. ...
Apparently psychologists call these "counter-factuals".
... the wartime total explosives weight delivered by the V1 and V2
amounted to one day and night of Allied bombing. ...
V1's could be devastating - so many so cheaply.
V2's were a vanity of where the plot had been lost.
As I understand it.
[[ V2s were intended to receive mid-course corrections but as a result of
their embarrassing defeat in the Battle of the Beams the Germans gave up sending radio control signals over England, as the British were too good at "bending" and spoofing them. When the Germans employed rapid frequency
hopping to prevent jamming their guided missile command links, the British countered by sending "turn right" on one or more channels which kept
throwing the missile off course. We simply jammed the receiver's IF
frequency. ]]
Another example is British HF/DF, Huff-Duff, which could determine the
direction to a U-Boot radio transmission in its first milliSecond
without rotating the antenna. The Germans had created a transmitter
that compressed a message into a 50 milliSecond burst ...
Heard about Huff-Duff.
The eccentricity which runs through the British and allies made for
unexpected ramshackle solutions which worked well and could be updated
quickly, as I understand it.
[[ HF/DF was a carefully engineered and extensively developed system, unlike Chain Home which was hastily slapped together from available parts. The
Germans didn't destroy it because they didn't recognize it as a radar, since
it wasn't like theirs. ]]
[[ Our forces in New Guinea where my father served were masters of
innovation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gunn
General Kenney was an engineer and inventor himself who contributed the
stock of his "parafrag" bombs.
https://ww2-history.fandom.com/wiki/AN-M40_Fragmentation_Bomb
The dense jungle canopy and lack of radar prevented the Japanese from
detecting extremely low flying raids. The treetop-skimming gunships would
open fire at 1000 yards and sweep the target clean, forcing the enemy troops into trenches where they were helpless, then the "coconut bombers" would destroy the enemy aircraft and supplies. The flat part of New Guinea was too wet to protect supplies in underground bunkers.
My father's unit had cold beer in their jungle Officers' Club, thanks to a
Jeep engine converted into a refrigeration compressor. ]]
Apparently due to British / commonwealth radio amateurs of the 1930's
- vs. banned by the Nazis controlling "the message" - British / allied
radars could be right contraptions which rapidly passed through
several variants sidestepping jamming, taking on improvements, etc.
Where the Nazi Germans had to have expensive well-engineered radars
but which once countered - eg. jamming - could not be easilyt adapted.
As I hear...
[[ R. V. Jones' book "The Wizard War" is a gold mine on that subject. He
wrote that unknown transmissions could be characterized as German by their
much tighter crystal-controlled frequency stability, which only expensive British lab equipment could equal. Britain turned to America for top quality radio gear in quantity, since your designs required tedious careful tuning
by scarce expert technicians. ]]
The British where amazingly good at keeping their mouths shut and not
letting leak out knowledge of what a significant group of people were
doing. What American politicians did apparently, seemingly
getting-off on the number of lives which would be lost with their
"juicy titbit" of broadcast disclosure...
[[ There were cases of politicos and reporters revealing sensitive material like dud Japanese fuses but military secrets are pretty safe here. The same happened with Argie fuses in the Falklands. I can't say more. ]]
Then the absurd over-reaction to Sept 11th 2001 - I mean something is
going to come in and bite you at home after so many wars...
[[ The US generally doesn't care about what happens in the rest of the
world, for example the Eurovision contest. We just do our thing and let you
do yours. Arousing support for foreign action requires considerable effort, which is what you saw there. Compare the politics to the Ems Dispatch or the defeat at Isandlwana. The incident at Fashoda was nearly hyped into a war
with France although the British and French troops at the scene were polite
and restrained. Supposedly the worst part was a French officer trying to
force down a drink of British whiskey. ]]
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