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Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
Jul 24, 2021 • 16 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
One of the most difficult issues in researching & writing about electronic warfare in WW2’s Pacific Theater is it’s systematic exclusion from the USN’s official histories. This exclusion was as systematic was it was intentional.

1/
The war diaries of the US Navy are both digitized and available on the Fold3.com service.

A simple search on the radar decoy code name “Window” in the WW2 War Diaries gets thousands of hits.
2/
 fold3.com
Window was one of the names for radar dipole decoys dropped from A/C, rockets, bombs and artillery.

The Japanese were both technically skilled and increasingly proficient in its use by 1945.

And, like those thousands of Fold3.com war diary hits, their efforts
3/
...using window didn't make USN WW2 institutional history.

My trail of Japanese window use started with a spread sheet from MacArthur’s Sec. 22 files that detailed 53 locations and 54 specific instances of Japanese window use.

These occurred between 31 Aug. 1943 & Jan. 1945. 4/
The first window use against a SWPA radar was at Hammond Island, Queenland, Australia.

This Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) radar site worked with No. 3 Fighter Sector (3FS) in covering the Torres Strait facing New Guinea, which operated between 1942 and 1943.
5/
The Japanese plane that did it was likely a IJN flying boat operating from Salamaua.

6/
The last Section 22 tactical window reference was from Jan 1945 to a cache of window captured from a belly landed Jill bomber found in Caguray River Bed (Philippines).
7/
Lt. Commander Sudo Hajime’s gima-shi “deceiving paper" was 1st used a Guadalcanal in May 1943.

In addition to pre-dating the Hammond Island drop, this was well before the Operation Gomora firebombing raid on Hamburg.

8/
 quora.com/Did-the-Japane…
The USMC 10th Defense Battalion March 1944 war diary while on Kwajalein shows successful Japanese air raids on 8 March 1944 were aided by the use of gima-shi radar countermeasures vs it's 2-meter band SCR-268 GFC radars.

9/
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Anti…
SSgt Jacob Marty from USMC Air Warning Squadron-1 was killed in that March 1944 attack.

Subsequently the 10th's SCR-268's were replaced by US Army SCR-584 to support 90mm gun while USN Mark 20 radars were adapted to ground based searchlight work.

10/
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Ai…
The Digital collection of the WW2 National Museum has a nice interview with Thomas Kolesa, a US Marine Mk 20 radar operator at Okinawa.

11/
ww2online.org/view/thomas-ko…
Thomas Kolesa modified his Mk 20 at Okinawa to extend it's range from 25,000 to 30,000 yards when the Japanese figured out it's range based on when their planes were being illuminated.

/12
Returning to 1944, the 1st US Navy mention of a warship seeing Japanese window in FOLD3.com was 12 Feb 1944 at ~0200 in the morning by USS Mustin (DD413).

She was escorting CVE's off Roi Island.
13/
Pretty much every USMC amphibious landing from Eniwetok to Okinawa saw Japanese use of window.

The USMC early warning teams attached to IIIMAC & US Army XXIVth Corps at Okinawa recorded 43 separate window drops the nights of 12-19 April 1945.

14/
Yet how many naval histories of the Pacific War mention that even once?

There are a lot of history PhD's awaiting the ambitious willing to run this down.

/End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 17
The CO of the top scoring Buk [Nato designation SA-11 Gadfly] battery in the PSU did an interview ~2 years ago (early 2023).

He said they used their own Mavic drones to check that their camouflage and

Zoltan Dani & A2/AD doctrine🧵
1/ Image
...that their battery concealment was good enough to fool Russian drones.

So, the PSU does a drone quality assurance check on its camo during the "hide" phase of the hide-shoot-scoot cycle, AKA you have to survive in order to have the opportunity to shoot enough to become the highest scoring SAM battery.


2/
In contrast, the Russian VKS parks their missile TELARs in the middle of a field to get maximum obstacle clearance and range. Then they are shocked when hit by deep strike assault drone or GMLRS rocket.


3/
Read 18 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 16
In 2005, the Strategypage -dot- com web site had the following on the downing of an F-117 over Serbia.

These tactic are the heart of Ukrainian IADS doctrine.
---
How to Take Down an F-117

November 21, 2005: The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this. Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit.

1/Image
The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles. The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft. Zoltan was an example of how an imaginative and energetic leader can make a big difference. While Zoltan’s peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons

2/Image
The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan’s battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles. This is how he did it.

3/Image
Read 15 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 15
Lots of US military officers like to believe Ukraine is identical in most ways to Saddam's Iraq & some are foolish enough to say so publicly.

It'd just not true in terms of Ukrainian IADS leadership, equipment, organization, training and doctrine.

1/
The #2 of PSU in Feb 2022 had been imbedded in Serbian air defense in 1999 during Operation Allied Force.

Where Col Zoltan Dani SA-3 Goa unit not only defeated USAF SEAD doctrine from 24 Mar to 10 June 1999 with good training & tactics.

Zoltan also bagged an F-117.

2/ Image
Image
Ukraine spent 23 years duplicating Zoltani's emissions control and mobility doctrine for it's IADS.

Additionally in 2014-2015, the PSU IADS operated under the Russian long range MLRS/TBM park directed by UAV's that were cued by EW-Sigint for a year.

Minimally the Ukrainians
3/
Read 11 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 14
The problem for this USN-Taiwan "hellscape strategy" is it's obsolete given that the Chinese have access to Russia's newest generation of FPV interceptor drones to counter it, via using China's "5 times bigger than the rest of the world combined" drone industry & sea militia.

1/ Image
US Flag ranks and their senior staffs' refuse to acknowledge the disintermediation of drones mil-tech.

All you need is a game controller/radio or a smartphone controller & a waiter tray stand.

Then you are launching a FPV drone with 70% the lethality of a Javelin ATGM
2/ Image
The Drone paradigm shift for Flag rank ground officers is like Horse Cavalry from 1913 to the WW1 1918 battlefield - cold.

For Flag Rank naval officers, it is like going from the 1922 battleship line to 1950's jet carrier battle group.

USN senior leaders have more problems.
3/
Read 6 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 13
One of the 'benefits' of being a 33 year 3 month vet of the US military procurement enterprise is you are around when the bodies are buried, directly or through people you know.

Such was the case with US Army anti-drone procurement.

Portrait of US Army procurement failure🧵
1/
This is an email correspondent of mine talking about US Army anti-drone kit testing, prior to 2010, about a competition between two anti-drone contractors --

"The toughest part of detecting drones is figuring out if they're drones or birds.
2/
That was actually the big 'step' they managed.

But, no, the directed pulse did not interfere with their radar. And the test they did they took down seven drones in less than seven seconds at range.
3/ Image
Read 18 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 13
This is a failure of US Army leadership of the same class as the withdrawal from Kabul.

And it's not two year failure. It is an eight year failure. The information was available.

If money is interest, US Army Flag ranks were not interested.

1/
ISIS was using small drones on the 82nd Airborne in Mosul Iraq in 2017.

Pablo Chovil wrote an article for War on the Rocks about his combat experience under ISIS small drone attacks.

2/ Image
About the time Pablo Chovil's article, I was briefing DCMA officials about how a sub-national militant organization printed a 13 drone swarm for less than the cost of a single Hellfire missile and disabled seven jet strike fighters and a helicopter gunship of the VKS.
3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets

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