Thread by @TrentTelenko

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 1/ Okay, I went to the US Army's Signal Corps branch pub, the Army Communicator, at this link, to pull the history of WW2 German Army NVIS use to answer some challenges from yesterday.

See URL:
cybercoe.army.mil/AC/archive.html

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 2/ The next few tweets use information and screen captures from articles in the Winter 2004 issue of the Army Communicator that you can find at the previous link.

The German Army was using NVIS HF radio on armored cars in 1935.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 3/ By 1938, the Germans were moving to much bigger armored cars to support HF radios with both NVIS & Skywave antennas, so they could execute long range reconnaissance in support of their mobile doctrine.

The FuG-10 radio used for NVIS HF coms was not small nor light.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 4/ An interesting find regards mobile NVIS was a photo of a 1930's Soviet version of the Vickers 6-ton tank sporting an NVIS radio antenna.

This is a big what the h--l moment regards Soviet-Nazi secret tank development cooperation.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 5/ Returning to German armored forces, by 1940 in France, Guderian had integrated tactical operation centers (TOC) for multiple radio types in SPW half tracks to support VHF tactical, HF operational (see NVIS) and higher level coded Enigma

See:
cdvandt.org/DEHS2008-def.p…

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 6/ These German mobile force signals techniques from France are what Rommel brought to North Africa.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 7/ Rommel also brought a mobile signals intercept and decoding unit that utterly penetrated all British Commonwealth codes until it's destruction during the 1st Battle of El Alamein in 1942.

Photo from:
cdvandt.org/DEHS2008-def.p…

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 8/ The problem with a great intel source is you have to believe it at the right time.

Before Crusader, the British planted documents on a German armored raid. When they attacked, Rommel believed the deception over his SIGINT because he really wanted to crush Tobruk.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 8a/ TIK History discusses this starting at the 2:49:30 time hack in his Crusader video here.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 9/ My point in laying this out is not about trolling, but about "authoritative" history sources.

History writers are hostages their sources.

All you can do is pick the best ones and use their own best judgement as to the who, what, where, when, how and why.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 10/ The biggest difference between WW1 and WW2 was the deployment of mobile radio telecommunications networks to control land, sea and air forces.

The Germans prepared for WW2 with the best offensive radio telecommunications, radio nav, and radar systems on the planet.

See :

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 11/ The result of that German interwar preparation with mobile NVIS HF radio communications was the Germans side-stepped many of the issues of radio propagation for British Commonwealth mobile radios in North Africa.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 12/ During Crusader UK No. 11 tank radio didn't do voice at night beyond a couple of miles and it's Morse signals were blacked out between 5 miles and 100 miles. While the No. 19 radio needed different frequencies at night to work at all.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 13/ During Crusader, the UK Army didn't know what it didn't know about radio propagation. It's archival reports reflect that ignorance.

It took the UK until late 1941 to establish the Interservices Ionosphere Bureau (I.S.I.B.) too deal with it.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 13a/ But only after 43 UK based planes were lost in one night when weather closed in & radio propagation changed.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 14/ This paywalled article is the I.S.I.B. WW2 history.

The influence of wave-propagation on the planning of short-wave communication
Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers - Part IIIA: Radiocommunication(1947),94(11):200
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/52997…

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 14a/ This link is to the USA's IRPL history.
tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/24…

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 15/ Archival operational reports are great for a writing military history story...but we are over 75 years away from events.

The social and technological context we in the Sat-com & smart mobile device 21st century carry in our times mean we miss the that context for the 1940's

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 16/ Not knowing _How_ those competing German & UK telecommunications systems worked in North Africa, given the limited period understanding of radio propagation in the context of WW2 mobile operations, means you cannot know _WHY_ things happened as they did.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 16a/ If only because the people who wrote the Operation Crusader operational reports didn't understand what happened to them.

That knowledge was years in their future when they wrote their reports.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 17/ This is why I'm pointing out other sources in this thread, outside the archives, that provide that period social/technological context.

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius 18/18 A 21st century archival historian cannot understand what a retired US Army signals officers with decades of knowledge of HF communications in 20th century mobile operations does.

I'll trust this CV over an archival historian any day.

YMMV

@KtunaxaAmerika @crusaderproject @bermicourt @sommecourt @NavalAirHistory @JanTattenberg @JeffCRutherford @mike_bechthold @AlexFitzBlack @GeorgeMCR01 @garius @threadreaderapp unroll