Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
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.
But why were the Axis so rubbish at breaking Allied signals?
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.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.
Every Corporal, Officer or NCO squad, platoon, division had a clear line of replacement and a high level of autonomy to act.
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.
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.
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?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?
My PC in university in the early 1990s had a 40 MB hard drive .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.
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.My PC in university in the early 1990s had a 40 MB hard drive .
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.I'm sure that back then it was manna from heaven. Better than Eniac, no?