

"Some German bombers landed at UK bases, believing they were back in Germany." - JakeSc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams

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samlittlewood
I dimly recall from my youth in Cornwall that it was a particular problem if
the aircraft ended up too far west - they would leave the South Wales coast,
cross the Bristol Channel - confuse that with the English Channel, and then
land, lost, at the first airbase they found in Cornwall -thinking they were at
least in France.

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rcfox
Interesting! You always hear about the battles won with guns and bombs, but
very rarely do you get to learn about battles between engineers.

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Yaggo
Interesting indeed. If you think all the new tech in WW2 (missile, radar, atom
bomb, Enigma, u-boat), calling the WW2 "the first war of engineering" isn't
far from the truth.

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arethuza
U-boats were a major factor in WW1 - the United States probably wouldn't have
entered the war if it hadn't been for German attacks on transatlantic
shipping.

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eru
And even encryption was important in WW1. The Germans did a pretty good job at
listening to the Russian communications.

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jontywareing
There is a spectacular book about the Battle Of the Beams written by R. V.
Jones, who was the British scientist in charge of countering the German
technical advances.

I can't recommend it enough, although it is a very in-depth read:
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Secret-Penguin-World-
Collection...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Secret-Penguin-World-
Collection/dp/0141042826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281960791&sr=8-1)

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hga
Here's an US Amazon.com entry: [http://www.amazon.com/Most-Secret-Penguin-
World-Collection/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Most-Secret-Penguin-World-
Collection/dp/0141042826/) Based on a review comment and the page count it
looks like it's a version of _The Wizard War_ I cited in another posting in
this topic.

Lots of inexpensive used paperback editions available.

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wglb
Hallicrafters S-27 ftw!

As one of my EE professors stated, "In RADAR, the odds are stacked in favor of
the jammer". While this isn't radar similar principles apply.

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kranner
The article actually says 'RAF bases', not 'UK bases', so I presume the error
wasn't necessarily as large as the distance between Germany and the UK.

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nvoorhies
It mentions however that the system was used after the campaign has switched
to night bombing, which was months after the evacuation from France. The error
was at least as large as the channel.

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kranner
... but not as large as Germany to UK, which is what the title says. The title
does not say 'occupied territory', but 'Germany'.

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richtofen
Like! :-)

~~~
richtofen
Truly a leaf from the Art of War. Confound before Conflict.

