Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "Military Aviation History"
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@RCAvhstape : Did you read what I said carefully? It was late in the War I was talking about. Except from aircraft in close range, they could NOT see periscopes with radar. That was a cover story to keep the decoding of German radio messages secret. Books and articles on the U-boat war have been repeating the radar nonsense ever since. In the 1980's the secret of Bletchley Park came to light. The Kreigsmarine would for example send out a radio message "Go to sector such-and-such" in Enigma code. When the sub was on station as ordered, there would be a British aircraft prowling about, having also been ordered to to go to the same place (without being told about the eavesdropping).
This is how British radar worked then: A transmitter emitted very short pulses at 20, 000 watts or similar power. radio waves are reflected by any metal surface, provided that the area of the surface is greater than the wavelength. A receiver detected the reflected pulses and the time delay gives the distance. If the surface is curved the radius must be much greater than the wavelength. However, because any practical size antenna means that be transmitted pulses must spread out as they travel out, the power intercepted by any metal surface decreases as to the square of the distance. At 1km, the power intercepted by a periscope-sized surface might be 0.1% (200W); at 2km 1/4 of 1%; at 3km 1/9 of 1% and so on. At 100 km its down to 0.02 watts. Only a fraction gets reflected back by the target in the right direction - for a periscope it might be 1% (0.0002 watts) at most. That also spreads out as it returns over the same 100 km, so the radar receiver only gets 0.000000002 watts (2 nanowatts). If the range is 200 km - more like the typical minimum distance from a possible radar base to a patrolling sub - only 2 femtowatts gets back, way way below the natural noise level (about 200 femtowats). It's hopeless. Detecting aircraft was possible as the radar cross section of a typical aircraft was at least 1000 times bigger.
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@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 : True. But the British were masters of selective release of information and disinformation, quite successfully confusing the Germans on many things. As this video points out, Radar didn't need to be kept intensely secret, and the Germans knew as much about radar as anybody, and certainly knew all along that the Brits had radar, except about the high power transmitting magnetron perfected by the Brits, and high sensitivity radar pulse receiving technology (eg semiconductor diodes) perfected by the Americans. But it was absolutely CRUCIAL to keep the Germans unaware their naval radio messages were being read in England, so with the manufacturing knowhow of magnetrons and semiconductors being kept strictly secret, it was worthwhile "leaking" the fake story of detecting periscopes by radar, so the Germans "knew" just enough to excuse to themselves that their submarines were getting promptly destroyed, and not look round for another reason.
Another deception by the Brits (getting a bit off-subject) was this: The Germans had an agent in England whose job it was to report back to Germany where V2 rockets were landing, so they could verify the acccuracy of aiming, which was extremely good. But the Brits knew who he was, and arranged for certain authorities to leak false landing information to him - and the Germans were fooled into thinking the aiming technology was no good, and gave up precise aiming.
Mark Felton can get things wrong. For instance, just like the attacks on the US, attacks on Australia were kept quiet, In another video he claimed that the limited Japanese bombing of Australia produced panic. It did not - because the Australian government slapped a D-notice on it, preventing reporting by news media - we all, except those actually bombed, remained unaware. No Facebook or email back then to spread information around.
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@justinchetham-strode5234 : Yes, of course, disinformation is a perfectly acceptable tactic in wartime. But only if it clearly helps in winning the war, as you have alluded to. The trouble is, there are differences and nuances:-
Example A: The Brit's use of disinformation about using supposedly using radar to detect subs in order to fool the Germans - clearly this is a valid and ethical use. It shortened the War, and helped win it.
Example B: The suppression of news of Japanese bombing of Australian towns to prevent panic and prevent the Japanese getting a sense of success via reading newspapers - this was a valid and ethical thing too.
Example C: The misrepresentation of COVID management in the USA by Trump - especially the claim that New Zealand had a very nasty second wave (they had something like 10 deaths) to make it seem that COVID in the USA wasn't so bad - this is clearly unethical, and stupid, as it weakens the will to implement COVID control measures in the USA.
Example D: The continual reporting of success in the Vietnam War by General Westmoreland: This is an interesting one. It is probable that Gen Westmoreland (a "rock painter" as American soldiers use the term for dud officers) actually believed his own bull twang. Even so, it was both greatly unethical and really stupid, as it lead to the death and serious incapacitation of vast numbers of US troops for no good reason - eventually it became clear the War was lost and the Yanks got chased out. And all because the Vietnamese wanted independence after successively being exploited by the French, then the Japanese, then when the Japs lost in WW2, the rotten French came back again, the country having been carved in two (North & South) by the fool Mountbatten. The Vietnamese asked the US for help in getting the French out, but the stupid Yanks wouldn't help, so they asked the Chinese - the Chinese did help. Then the Yanks came in because it was communist help.
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