|
The role of electronics in World War II was very different than the very limited role in World War I. Radio and other electonics including sonar, radar, naigational beams, and proximity played major roles in the War. Command and control is important in any military campaign. This is true whatever the combat environment. It is especially important in mobile warfare so a commander can direct fast moving mechanized units. And of course radio gave commenmders just such a capability. Only the Germans at the onset of the war had fully thought this through and had a military force prepared to operate with modern command and control methods which were required by their Blitkrieg tactical doctrine. Radios were an important part of that, but not the only electronic equipment which appeared on the battlefield. While radid gave the German Panzers a critical advantage in the Battle of France, it would be radar that would turn that advatage to the British in the Battle of Britain. The Germans began the War with many serious limittions (force size, industrial capacity, raw materials, and agricultural productivity), Hitler believed that surperior scientific and indistrial capabilities as well as fighting spirit would in the war. It was not an optimistic sign for the Germans that they would be defeated by British technology when held most of the advatages. The Germans would develop impressive new weapons systems and technologies, but in the critical area of electonics it would be the Allies who would prevail. Especially when British technology was married to American industrial capacity.
Command and control is important in any military campaign. And has beem the case since the earliest military campaigns in history. Wjhile military technology had advnced hugely over the ages, commnd anbd control had not. Militaries thriough the 19th century was still using music and banners. Horns developoment into trimpets. Drims were little changed. This changed slightly in the 19th century with the development of electrical technology anf the telegraph. What fundamentally changed warfare was Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio (at first called wireles) at the turn of the 20th century. The impact was at first limited to naval warfare. World War I ended just as radio sets were becoming small and enopugh for ground warfare. Communictions are especially important in mobile warfare so a commander can direct fast moving mechanized units. And of course radio gave commenmders just such a capability. At the same time radio emerged as a massmedia for the public. Early radios were very expensive. At first they were most commmon in America and to a lesser extent Britain. In America development was all commercial. In Europe, goverments weere more involved. With the rise of the NAZIs (1930s), Germany quickly became the country wityh more radios per household than any other country, surpassing even the United States. This is primarily due to onbe man--MAZI Propganda Minister Josef Goebbels who realised that the radio could be vey important, if the NAZis could control the programming. Hitller and Anericn President Franlin Rooevelt were te first national; leaders toeddectively use rdio. Roosevelt of course did it in an opemn arket place of ideas. Goebbels realized that repetition was valuvkle in effectuve propaganda and wanted not only to vontrol the press, but to get into every German home. And to do this the NAZIs developed very inexoensive rafios. Before the NAZIs, only the rich and prosperous middle-clss could affird radio sets. Rather than big, beutiful pices of furtniture, the NAZIs came up with a small, 9-by-9-by-4 inches set done in Bakelite, on of the earlisr types of plastic--tThe Deutscher Kleinempfänger. And for those who could not even afford Kleinempfängerit, the Party had radios installed in bars, and restaurants, even public spsces like stairwells of apartment blocks where most wotkrs lived. There was a wide range of Party-controlled ptogrammimg, but included in the musical and othrr programming were Hitler's speeches and NAZI propaganda.
Production of these radios significantlyh expanded the German electromics industry. And it was t was the Germans by the onset of the war that had developed this idea and had a Panzer force with serious command and control capabilities. It was essential to the success of their Blitkrieg tactical doctrine. The Poles did not have a militay force cpble of resisting tyhe Gertmans (Septemvber 2930). The Bitish and French did with tanks that were as least as good as the Germns if not better. It was the German command and control capability that made the difference in the Battle for France (May-June 1940). A world War II historian exolains the result, the German Army hit upon the idea that "small, two-way radios could be used for military purposes—in tanks, trucks, command vehicles, even motorcycles with sidecars. A path forward emerged: a panzer division not just stuffed full of tanks but organized as an all-arms mechanized unit that could operate swiftly and cohesively. It was what had been missing during the years of trench warfare in the previous war: the ability for differing units to communicate efficiently and swiftly exploit evolving situations." [Holland] While the British wee behind on offensive operations Theame basic idea in a defenive role would play out in the Battle of Britain. It would be the Americans that would bring radio to its full battlefield potential. Americam companies manufactured radio equipment, including walki-talkies, in huge numbers. By the time that that American combat troops were deployed in large numbers. This mean that even small infantry units had immediate contact with headquarters units. And thus could call in both artillery support and air cover. No World War II military force had comparable commuicantions facilities to the U.S. Army. Radio communication also permitted Admiral Döntiz to direct his U-boat operations in the Battle of the Atlantic from French headquaters.
While radid gave the German Panzers a critical advantage in the Battle of France, it would be radar that would turn that advatage to the British in the Battle of Britain. The Germans began the War with many serious limittions (force size, industrial capacity, raw materials, and agricultural productivity), Hitler believed that surperior scientific and indistrial capabilities as well as fighting spirit would in the war. It was not an optimistic sign for the Germans that they would be defeated by British technology when held most of the advatages. Radar was not unknown to the Germans. With their focus on offensive operations and belief that they had superior aurcraft, the Luftwaffe did not give much attention to radar development, although the Kriegsmarine did. Nor did knowcking out the Chain Home Network feature prominantly in the Luftwaffe assault on Britain. They were focused on destroying the Royal Air Force on the ground which they had largely done in their previous offensives. They assumed that they could do the same when they launched Eagle Day. The Lufwaffe was shocked not only when radar warmings saved the RAF, but with the quality of the British fighters and skill of the larely inexperienced British pilots (July 1940). Even while the Battle of Britain was being fought out, Britain was transferring radar and other electronics technology to the United States. A new radar set on Oahu spotted incoming Japanese carrier aircraft, but the operators did not yet have confidence in the equipment (December 1941). The U.S. Navy was rapidly equipping their ships with radar and this would give the Pacific Fleet a needed critical edge in the biter-fought engagemebnts ariund Solomons when the Imperial Fleet still had superior forces. Radar played an especially important role in the American Pacific submarine campaign. The Kriegsmarine initally gave more attention to radar than the Luftwaffe. Radar controlled guns wert a factor in Bismarck's sinking of HMS Hood. Unlike the British, the Germans did not begin transferring radar technology to their Japanese ally until late in the War. SONAR is often thought of in connection with the Battle of the Atlantic, but radar may have played a more important role. The British worked out early in the War that aircraft were the key to defeating the U-boats. The Atantic is, however, a big place and to kill a U-boat you needed to find them. Early radar sets were too big for aircraft. The British had the answer--the Cavity Magnetron. This not only permitted radar sets to be put on small craft, but the short wave lengths enabled much greater percission in findung the U-boats. But the British did not have the industrial capicty to build them. This was taken up by the Raytheon Corporation in America with technical support of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology. This resulted in both mass production and minuarization. Allied patrol craft were equipped with radar which could pick up on even a p eriscope. By late 1943, U-boat duty was one of the most perilous assignments in World War II. As the ballance in the air war changed, it was the Germans who used radar to detect incoming bombers. The Kammhuber Line prioved extremely effective. German radar, however, could only detect the Allied bombers, it would not counterbalance the industrial capacity of the United States and Britain and the waves of bombers, eventually accompanied by fighter escorts, hurled at the Reich.
Sonar had more limited applocations than radar, but was still vital in World War II. The use of sonar was primarily used against the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic. Britain attached much more importance to SONAR (ASDIC) than was waranted by the level of the existing technology. This was one reason the British agreed to German U-boat construction in the Anglo-German Naval Treaty (1935). With the outbreak of the War the limitations of existing SONAR immeditely became apparent. British SONAR had a more limited range than German torpedoes. In addition theSONAR was no good when the U-boats were on the surface (Döntiz emphasized night ime surface attacks) and SONAR operators lost contact when depth charge runs began. Fortunately, Hitler had not attached much importance to the Kreigsmarine, includung the U-boats. Early U-boat success and the failure of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, caused Hitler to focus on the U-boats to knock Britain out of the war by cutting off needed raw materials and war supplies. The British launched a crash program to improve their SONAR equipment. Eventually imprived SONAR combined with imprived RADAR would masrer the U-boat threat. The Japanese also had a major submarine fleet, but used it poorly. Even so technology developed in the North Atantic was deployed against Japanese submarines in the Pacific. The Japanese developed acoustical systems, but had poor SONAR capabilities. In addition the RADAR on Ameican submarines helped find Japanese Marus.
As strategic bombing targetting distant sites became an important feature of World War II, the beligerant countries began developing navigational signals. The resulting technological effort became what is now called the Battle of the Beams or as Chufrchill phrased it--the Wizzard War. Here the Germans were even more ahead of the British than on radar. The German Freya radar was more advanced than anything in the Chin-Home Netwirk. And in this case were the first to develop a usable system. This is rather curious because the Germans had developed a largely tactical airfirce. It was the British that had ficused in bimbers, almost entering World War II with biplane figters, (Actually the Navy wsas still using biplanes well into the War.) The Luftwaffe began working on navaigational beams for bombers (1939). There first system was Knickebein (Crocked Leg), using a system of interesting beams. This was not at first of major importance to the Germans because the Luftwaffe was developed as a tactical air force. Its inintial assignments were daylight operations in support of ground forces. The German pilots and crews could over relatively short distances navigate by land marks or revive directions from ground spotters. This changed with the Battle of Britain, specificalkly the Blitz. When the Germans were forced to bomb at night because of day light losses, the began to use Knickebein which could direct the Luftwaffe bombers to the cities whuch were targetted. The system was not precise, but good enough to get the bombers to the targetted city at night. The British did not beliece that sych a system was possible because oif the vcuriuture of the earth. Thankfully British intelligence picked up some warmings and R.V, Jineses in Air Ministry (Intelligence) managed to detect the signals and develiop counter measures. What followed was a cat and mouse operatiin with tge Gerans developing new systens and the British counter measures. This declined in importance as the Luftwaffe withdrew most of their fighter and bomber squadrons to support the Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union (March 1941). It is at this point that the Battle of the Beams shifted primarily to British navigational beams. ncredably, RAF Bomber Command had no such systemns at the outbreak of the War. RAF bombers were susposed to find targers using celestial navigation. There was no effort to test the effectiveness of such findings which birders in sheer lunacy. Not surprisingly, early raids were not only inaccurate, but often could not even find whole cities. The British as a result, well after the War began, commenced working on navigational signals of their own. The British early in the War had found that their bombers could not attack during the day because of Luftwaffe fighter defenses and even when penetrating fighter defenbses, cloud cover often obscured ground land marks. Bomber Command thus has to shift to night bombing. They thus faced the same problem the Luftwaffe faced--navigation. Thus the Briish developed navigation beam systems pf their own: Gee and Oboe were developed. Gee-H eventually proved so precise that RAF Bomber Command could bomb more accurately at night than the Americans during the day with their Nordon Bombsights.
With failure in the Battle of Britain, the German ficus in the West shifted to the U-boat camapaign in the North Atlantic. Electronics was a vital tool in the Battle of the Atlantic, most notably SONAR and RADAR. Navigational electronics was also important, playing an ijmoportant role in locating the U-boats. Here the British Y stations played an important role. In the before the U-boats could be effectivelky targeted, this at least enabled the British to route the conviys round known U-boat concentrations. Another major British innovation was Huff-Duff--high-frequency direction finding (HF/DF). It was a radio direction finder (RDF) develped by Robert Watson-Watt. High frequency (HF) refers to a radio band that can effectively communicate over long distances, such as between U-boats and their land-based headquarters. The Brirish used HF/DF to very accurayely locate U-boats when they transmitted. It had other uses such as to locate friendly aircraft as a navigation aid.
Another important naval weaoon system is mines. The original mines were contact mines. Magnetuc mines appeared in Workd War I followed by accoustical mines in World War II. Naval mines played an important role in World War II although not as important as World war I. The German seizure of Norway and subsequentky France meant that the British could not create an effective North Sea mine barrier to restrict U-boat opeations as they did in World War I. Both the Germans and British used mines in the Battle of the Atlantic. The Germans devised some novel mines, but they were quickly countered by the British. The Americans used mine to tighten the blockade around the Japanese Home Island at the end of the War. Mines could be laid by both surface ships and submarines in addition to aircraft. Here it was primarily the United states that that the ability to lay mines by aircraft in any numbers.
Of all the major technical innovations, perhaps the most important was the VT proximity fuse. It played a major role in the Pacific War after it was introduced (1943). The Japanese Kamakaze attacks would have been much more difficult to beat off and thus achieved more ship kills without the VT fuse. Because of fear that the secret might be compromised it was not used in ground operations, but was finally introduced in Europe only after the surprise German Bulge offensive (December 1944).
Holland, James. "The ‘Nazi War Machine’ wasn’t wctually that mechanized," HistoryNet (April 21, 2022). this article first appeared in World War II Magazine.
Navigate the CIH World War II Section:
[Return to Main World War II technology/tactics electronics page]
[Return to Main World War II technology/tactics page]
[Return to Main World War II page]
[Biographies]
[Campaigns]
[Children]
[Countries]
[Deciding factors]
[Diplomacy]
[Geo-political crisis]
[Economics]
[Home front]
[Intelligence]
[POWs]
[Resistance]
[Race]
[Refugees]
[Technology]
[Totalitarian powers]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Return to Main World War II page]
[Return to Main war essay page]
