Axis with secure communication

[Thumpalumpacus]

Any code system that relies on the enemy not having a captured a code decode machine for its security is close to worthless. The algorithm itself needs to be so strong on its own that capture of a machine is no cause for concern.

I think the Germans did rely upon the algorithm itself. They just didn't foresee the invention of the digital computer. The three-rotor Enigma with ten jack positions had almost one hundred billion (a one followed by eleven zeroes) possible permutations, which surely would have overtaxed the most dedicated cryptanalysis force without computers.

 

[rednev]

Rommel,s secret weapon Bonner Fellers - Wikipedia

 

[The Basket]

Doenitz was aware of tricks but he kept on at B-Dienst and the reply was yeah all good. So Doenitz was asking the question and his intelligence service was giving the all clear.

Doenitz was acutely aware and if he suddenly knew then he would have done something.

The Auxillary cruiser Atlantis had been up to no good and not a scratch but it rendezvous with U-126 and suddenly HMS Devonshire is poking holes in it. How could that happen? It only makes sense that if you believe the U-boats code was been read.

The most obvious is the Yamamoto shoot down. Long range P-38s just happen to appear and kill the commander in chief? That would ring so many bells it would be a campanologists delight.

The old adage of military intelligence been a contradiction holds true.

 

[Koopernic]

But why were the Axis so rubbish at breaking Allied signals?

The Germans broke the Allied Merchant Navy Codes and the Naval Codes for a short time. They regularly broke the US Army tactical codes which were encoded on a sort of mini enigma machine but this was not high level information.

However the main allied code machines were inspired by the Enigma. Typex (for the British) and Sigba (for the US) used the enigma algorithm only with more rotors (5 or 7) and bigger wheels than just 26 as well as other complications such as odd and even wheels.

They were considered unbreakable by the Germans (indeed they were at the time) and both machines were captured by the Germans.

This all arose out of the fact that the treaty of Versailles Prohibited German work in cryptography and code breaking. So the Germans just weren't set up and organised with a proper integrated department with real power at a level that combined Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and Heer

So the Germans ended up having machines developed by intelligent, qualified formally trained engineers with either an officer or commercial background at Siemens or Lorentz whereas the British had the Professors of Mathematics from Oxford and Cambridge who were invited to join a working group.

A little bit of an exaggeration but roughly true. I'm an engineer myself but I can see that a Ph.D in maths brings not a tool box of algorithms but a truck load of algorithmic tools.

Commercial companies, banks, share traders, news services all wanted secure messages so that their quotes weren't revealed to competitors and purchase decisions weren't revealed and lead to share price increases or news wasn't stolen.

 

[Admiral Beez]

This all arose out of the fact that the treaty of Versailles Prohibited German work in cryptography and code breaking. So the Germans just weren't set up and organised with a proper integrated department with real power at a level that combined Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and Heer

Then the Germans should have built its combat tactics without a dependence on micromanagement over wireless communications with head office. Bismarck might have made Brest had her captain not radioed home. Battle of Kursk might have been the surprise the Germans intended. And the U-boats, while forced to operate independently would be safer from intercept.

 

[Koopernic]

Then the Germans should have built its combat tactics without a dependence on micromanagement over wireless communications with head office. Bismarck might have made Brest had her captain not radioed home. Battle of Kursk might have been the surprise the Germans intended. And the U-boats, while forced to operate independently would be safer from intercept.

Quite the opposite is true. The German military was never micromanaged since von Clausiwitz that was their strength. Every Corporal, Officer or NCO squad, platoon, division had a clear line of replacement and a high level of autonomy to act. They were trained to attack, without seeking approval from command, which generally seized the initiative but sometimes lead to them attacking a larger force before they had built sufficient strength. It was the French in WW2 who had the flaw of micromanagement and it likely cost them their country as they couldn't process communications fast enough. It was Modell who said "a bad decision is better than no decision" I think it was Guardian who saw warfare as having a higher rate of decision making than the enemy.

The amount of communication was at a fairly minimum level since the Germans tended to maintain radio silence.

Edit: The breakdown is radio silence from the Bismarck has tragic origins. It is said that a mother who had a son aboard was over wrought with worry used her influence to gain a message of well being and status from the Bismarck. This likely cost her son his life I imagine.

Towards the end of the war the Germans began using kurier enigma which sent the transmission as a quick burst that was hard to intecept and direction find.

The 3F mode of kurrier enigma was impossible to direction find. It transmitted the dots and dashes of the code on separate frequencies with silence in between using SSBSC. Single Side Band Supressed Carrier. There was silence when no data was being transmitted, no carrier. This means direction finding couldn't work. So it got around the problem of weak code in another way.

The Battle of Kursk is being rewritten.

Anglo-German researches suggested in the liberal German magazine Die Welt that on July 12, the Germans lost just 5 tanks at Prokhorovka while "decimating" the Soviets, who lost 200 tanks in "kamikaze"-like attacks. Not only did this elicit a response from the Russian ambassador in Germany who called it propaganda",

Previously the Soviets had claimed 237. (The Germans lost perhaps 27 at Kursk)

Attempts to rewrite immutable historical facts, falsify the events of those years, play down the decisive role of the Soviet people in defeating Nazism and freeing Europe from the 'brown plague', look unworthy and insulting"

there were also calls in the Duma for the German government to prosecute the editor of the magazine to publish this article because it "obliterated the German nation's penance for what was done by Nazi Germany". (Link to all of this here).

Kursk WW2: Why Russia is still fighting world's biggest tank battle - BBC News
The under-performance of the early-war German economy - Axis History Forum
Full article: Citadel, Prokhorovka and Kharkov: The armoured losses of the II SS Panzer Korps Sonderverbände during the battle of Kursk, July-August 1943 (tandfonline.com)
Kursk WW2: Why Russia is still fighting world's biggest tank battle - BBC News

Ben Wheatley on Twitter: "MAJOR #KURSK ARTICLE/ARCHIVAL DISCOVERY! 20.7.43 & 1.8.43 II SS Panzer Korps armoured inventories reveal actual number of SS AFV lost during Operation #Citadel (41AFV+ PzI, 7.5% of 547 AFV) & the battle of #Prokhorovka (Max 16AFV 3.1% of 522 AFV) #SWW #WW2 https://t.co/nrdPO1TlHF https://t.co/55ibsTm3CU" / Twitter

 

[ThomasP]

Somewhere on the internet . . .

There is a rather large (over 1000 pg IIRC) in depth analysis of the subject we are discussing, not the OP as such, but of the different failures/problems/successes that the Allies and Axis governments and military intelligence services had along with the methods used. It tracks the development of the various nation's systems from (IIRC) the early-1930s through the end of WWII, by individual nation/service, and then puts the individual timelines together to show the interaction of the different events/factors. It was a joint US/UK document and was originally highly classified, and some of what was mentioned in it was quite surprising to me.

One of the items that surprised me is that the US did not "break" the Japanese AN-1 'Purple' diplomatic code and JN-25 naval code (as I had learned in history class in high school). Instead it states that the US was given examples of the pre-war code/cyphers and a complete manufacturing diagram of the coding/cypher machines that were used for the AN-1 'Purple' code, by a "Japanese national" (who remained unidentified in the document) along with a complete narration of how the system worked. Instead, what the USNs SIS intelligence unit did was similar to what the UK did in developing a system that could decode the messages almost in real time, although the UK had actual Enigma machines to work from.

The report went on to say that subsequently (but still pre-war) information was received in a similar manner as to the changes used in the Japanese JN-25 naval code/cypher system.

Again, on the internet there is an in-depth listing/narration of the 'Magic' sequence of decoded diplomatic and IJN messages leading up to Pearl Harbor. The sequence is somewhat unclear in some instances and there is a lot of stuff to wade through to make complete sense of it. If you wish to attempt it I suggest you take notes to help build an accurate timeline. The website is "The PEARL HARBOR ATTACK HEARINGS"

Anyway, the original joint US/UK document went on to say that without the aid of the Japanese national and the help of the Poles and French, or similar events such as the later capture of the Enigma machine(s) and its Japanese equivalents, it is unlikely that the Allies would have broken either the Japanese or German codes during the war.

I ran across the document back in the early-2000s and did not down load it due to it taking so long at the time (~2 hr if IIRC), and somewhat limited storage space (16 Gb hard drive). I will see if I can find it again.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Every Corporal, Officer or NCO squad, platoon, division had a clear line of replacement and a high level of autonomy to act.

In my time in the USAF, we were trained for the duties of our supervisor as well. If he went down, we were expected to be able to perform his responsibilities. I wasn't a combat troop, but as a firefighter the possibility was present. "That's above my pay-grade" was not in our lexicon. And if first-on-scene, we called the shots until relieved by seniors.

 

[GrauGeist]

Keep in mind that the Prussian school of military disclipline, which was handed down from the Imperial Romans through the generations, was standard German military doctrine.
Baron Von Steuben of Prussia trained General Washington's Continental Army in this exact same disclipline.

 

[Koopernic]

I think the Germans did rely upon the algorithm itself. They just didn't foresee the invention of the digital computer. The three-rotor Enigma with ten jack positions had almost one hundred billion (a one followed by eleven zeroes) possible permutations, which surely would have overtaxed the most dedicated cryptanalysis force without computers.

During the war with Poland the Germans upgraded enigma by making 10 of the letters of the keyboard rewirable. This meant that the Polish code breaking would not work due to the complication. Had they have made all 26 letters rewireable the allies may never have brocken in so early.

The Germans never stopped trying to improve, they just didn't do enough threby allowing allies to keep up.

 

[Koopernic]

Somewhere on the internet . . .

There is a rather large (over 1000 pg IIRC) in depth analysis of the subject we are discussing, not the OP as such, but of the different failures/problems/successes that the Allies and Axis governments and military intelligence services had along with the methods used. It tracks the development of the various nation's systems from (IIRC) the early-1930s through the end of WWII, by individual nation/service, and then puts the individual timelines together to show the interaction of the different events/factors. It was a joint US/UK document and was originally highly classified, and some of what was mentioned in it was quite surprising to me.

One of the items that surprised me is that the US did not "break" the Japanese AN-1 'Purple' diplomatic code and JN-25 naval code (as I had learned in history class in high school). Instead it states that the US was given examples of the pre-war code/cyphers and a complete manufacturing diagram of the coding/cypher machines that were used for the AN-1 'Purple' code, by a "Japanese national" (who remained unidentified in the document) along with a complete narration of how the system worked. Instead, what the USNs SIS intelligence unit did was similar to what the UK did in developing a system that could decode the messages almost in real time, although the UK had actual Enigma machines to work from.

The report went on to say that subsequently (but still pre-war) information was received in a similar manner as to the changes used in the Japanese JN-25 naval code/cypher system.

Again, on the internet there is an in-depth listing/narration of the 'Magic' sequence of decoded diplomatic and IJN messages leading up to Pearl Harbor. The sequence is somewhat unclear in some instances and there is a lot of stuff to wade through to make complete sense of it. If you wish to attempt it I suggest you take notes to help build an accurate timeline. The website is "The PEARL HARBOR ATTACK HEARINGS"

Anyway, the original joint US/UK document went on to say that without the aid of the Japanese national and the help of the Poles and French, or similar events such as the later capture of the Enigma machine(s) and its Japanese equivalents, it is unlikely that the Allies would have broken either the Japanese or German codes during the war.

I ran across the document back in the early-2000s and did not down load it due to it taking so long at the time (~2 hr if IIRC), and somewhat limited storage space (16 Gb hard drive). I will see if I can find it again.

" ran across the document back in the early-2000s and did not down load it due to it taking so long at the time (~2 hr if IIRC), and somewhat limited storage space (16 Gb hard drive). I will see if I can find it again."

The internet has become controlled by media tech corporations and with it have disappeared the independent websites and BBS that once provided superlative information is replaced by corporate owned media apps that control access with TOS and censor. The media tech corporation seek to monetise and control the narrative so much information is being lost. Even the Wayback machine has been digitally book burned in parts. Search engines no longer find arcane information but direct searches to saleable items or their politics they support. Amazon has banned hundreds of books.

My advice is download everything and make it searchable.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Anglo-German researches suggested in the liberal German magazine Die Welt that on July 12, the Germans lost just 5 tanks at Prokhorovka while "decimating" the Soviets, who lost 200 tanks in "kamikaze"-like attacks. Not only did this elicit a response from the Russian ambassador in Germany who called it propaganda",

I can't believe there was a Russian ambassador in Germany after Barbarossa. Aren't embassies of your enemies usually expelled once war is declared? Are you sure about what you've written here?

 

[Koopernic]

I can't believe there was a Russian ambassador in Germany after Barbarossa. Aren't embassies of your enemies usually expelled once war is declared? Are you sure about what you've written here?

The current 2020 ambassador.

 

[ThomasP]

Hey Koopernic,

I agree about downloading anything of interest in today's environment. The problem is that there is a lot of interest to me, in many different fields, and there are so many sources online. Although I do not use it for storage of anything significant, my iPhone has more storage than all of my previous computer hard drives put together. This does not count my current computer which has a 500 Gb drive (only about 65 Gb used). I also have about 500 Gb of external storage (all solid-state) which is about half used, counting back-ups.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Hey Koopernic,

I agree about downloading anything of interest in today's environment. The problem is that there is a lot of interest to me, in many different fields, and there are so many sources online. Although I do not use it for storage of anything significant, my iPhone has more storage than all of my previous computer hard drives put together. This does not count my current computer which has a 500 Gb drive (only about 65 Gb used). I also have about 500 Gb of external storage (all solid-state) which is about half used, counting back-ups.

My PC in university in the early 1990s had a 40 MB hard drive .

 

[cherry blossom]

It is quite hard to imagine how the Axis Powers could have vastly improved their cipher security. My only suggestion is that Herman Goring might have heard early in 1939 that the Kriegsmarine was saying that Luftwaffe cipher security was very bad. This is slightly plausible because the Luftwaffe were the worse trained operators of the standard German Military Enigma machines and used a system of sending indicators much inferior to Navy's method. This might have annoyed Herman, who had his very own cipher experts Research Office of the Reich Air Ministry - Wikipedia and he might have asked them for their advice. I don't know if any of the Forschungsamt staff knew about Menzer's SG-39 Schlüsselgerät 39 - Wikipedia but if they had, they might have mentioned that it gave a much stronger code and suggested that using that machine would make Luftwaffe signal security superior to that of the KM. At that time, Goring was running the Reich's economy so he might have allocated the resources necessary to produce SG-39 machines to replace the Enigmas in Luftwaffe service.
The 1939 version of SG-39 did have some weaknesses which historically were removed in the 1942 version. However, the changes made not only strengthen SG-39 but are absolutely necessary if an SG-39 machine can read a message encoded by the older standard Military Enigma. Thus that requirement would force the 1942 version to be adopted from the start.
The first British break into the German Military Enigma occurred in June 1940 and was into the Luftwaffe code. The breaks into the German Navy came after May 1941, so that the information that Bismarck was heading for France came from a Luftwaffe message, and into Army Enigma codes as late as 1942. Thus a determined Luftwaffe programme of re-equipment over 1939-40 might have removed the fruit bowl just as the British started to reach in. It is even possible that Luftwaffe boasting could have induced the other services to adopt the SG-39 as a standard machine in time to greatly limit the effectiveness of Ultra.

 

[pbehn]

My PC in university in the early 1990s had a 40 MB hard drive .

In Saudi Arabia in 1988-89 I was using a "state of the art" Ultrasonic imaging system, which used 20MB tape back-ups. It was developed by AmData (part of Halliburton at the time) to scan the Shuttle boosters following the Challenger disaster in Jan 1986. When I started work at BSC in 1978 there was a room with a computer terminal (not an actual computer), the size of a wardrobe that connected to the computer 20 miles away, all it did was access chemical analysis and mech.test results. My boss thought it was manna from heaven lol.

 

[SaparotRob]

I'm sure that back then it was manna from heaven. Better than Eniac, no?

 

[pbehn]

I'm sure that back then it was manna from heaven. Better than Eniac, no?

Only if you are a techy geek, I could ride from Hartlepool to Ladgate lane laboratories and ride back with the results quicker than I could get any info out of that thing. My wife worked in a bank, while I was using this 1960s terminal installed in the 1970s she was being taught computer programming by the bank she worked for in stuff that actually was "state of the art" at the time.

 

[SaparotRob]

It's sucks not being on the procurement committee.