GoodGuy
Posts: 1506
Joined: 5/17/2006
From: Cologne, Germany
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MarkShot
I thought the British were using Huff Duff to triangulate on German u-boat tranmissions? Where were the receivers located located? Escorts? Air search?
Both.
Afaik, Mosquito and Lancaster bombers used to conduct recon missions with Huff-Duff + radar .... their mission radiuses (radii? sp?  ) covered most of the U-Boats' aeas of operation in the North Atlantic by 1943 or late 1943.
The famous Hunter-Killer Groups either used recon planes (CV based) or escorts which were equipped with Huff-Duff. Once the sub (if still surfaced) got in radar range, the radar was used to track it (H2S radar was first installed on a plane in January 1943 btw), then the improved ASDIC was used in case the sub tried to escape with an emergency dive.
Surprise bombardments (bombs/depth charges) or surprise fire coming from those planes also threatened refuel/resupply meetings, and such planes, along with the Hunter Killer Groups, were able to kill all German supply subs ("Milchkühe" -> "dairy cows") during the war and even sunk a number of regular subs during those resupply-rendezvous. Ultra informations AND Huff-Duff were essential here.
As far as I know the German Sub Commander Dönitz and the Navy developers were not aware of the existence or the operating mode of the Huff-Duff devices. They just focused on Allied radar development, but couldn't get enough informations about the most recent developments, plus their own devs were not able to reduce the wavelengths (for german radar systems) as quickly. The german nightfighters in 1944 used 9 cm radars and devices that could kinda ride on a "beam" coming from Allied planes using H2S or used ground-based homing systems (radio etc.)
Also, the german counter-measures Metox and Naxos (for british H2S) put in german subs were meant to be "simple" warning systems (just a light in fact) that could detect changes in transmissions from Allied radar systems, but german developers did not follow the Allied development, a development where the wavelength was being reduced constantly, down to 9, 5 and even 3cm radars at the end of the war, afaik. So warning devices became useless at the point where Allied planes were using devices with other wavelengths, although the NAXOS received some upgrades.
Allied shore-based Huff-Duff installations had been constructed around the North Atlantic, covering a good part of the U-boats' lines of approach (from french sub-bases), the channel and parts of the american East coast, just to name a few areas.
Huff-Duff combined with ASDIC + the work done at Bletchely Park beat the german subs in WW2. Allied radar improvements made sub-attacks at night (surfaced) almost impossible, but the Allies' advantage regarding radar technology appeared to get toned down somewhat in 1944 IMHO - as the germans came up with similar or other interesting solutions (i.e. nightfighters with radar, subs with snorkel, improved ground installations, "Düppel" -> chaffs).
Back to the topic. Strict radio silence hampered quite a few of japanese air and carrier operations during WW2. While it made sense to maintain silence where an enemy can track down the direction of a radio signal (questions is whether the japs knew about Huff-Duff or not, though) in theory, it hampered coordination and assignment of reserves.
So, having such an option would add some realism, no doubt.
My 2 cents
< Message edited by GoodGuy -- 6/13/2007 11:12:58 PM >
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"Aw Nuts"
General Anthony McAuliffe
December 22nd, 1944
Bastogne
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"I've always felt that the AA (Alied Assault engine) had the potential to be [....] big."
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8th of August, 2006
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Should there be a radio silence option? - 
. PTO 2 was the best of them, 4 absolutely sucked. They are all lame compared to UV/WITP, both of which are what the PTO series could only hope to be. Koei's best games are the RTK series. RTK10 was a very well done game, minus the Russian Orchestra playing during ancient China. 
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