List of World War II electronic warfare equipment

This is a List of World War II electronic warfare equipment and code words and tactics derived directly from the use of electronic equipment.

Equipment and code words

• AI (Airborne Interception) – British night fighter radars
• Airborne Cigar (A.B.C.) – jamming transmitter carried by No. 101 Sqn Lancasters using 8th crew member to monitor and then jam German night fighters utilising Lichtenstein radar
• Airborne Grocer – British 50cm Lichtenstein radar jammer - see also Grocer/Ground Grocer
• ASDIC – Early British sonar system used for hunting U boats
• Aspirin – British Knickebein jammer
• ASH – Air to Surface H or AI Mk XV (U.S -AN/APS4). Centimetric airborne air-air radar derived from ASV operating at 3 cm wavelength at a frequency of 10 GHz. Used by 100 Group Mosquitos; postwar Sea Hornet N.F. Mark 21.
• ASV – Air to Surface Vessel radar. A 1.5 metre radar that could detect surfaced submarines at up to 36 miles.
• BABS (Beam Approach Beacon System) - British blind-landing system using Rebecca
• Benjamin – British Y-Gerät jammer - see also Domino
• Berlin – FuG 240, German night fighter radar, introduced April 1945, centrimetic (microwave) frequency radar (9 cm/3GHz)
• Boozer – fighter radar early warning device fitted to British bombers
• Bremenanlage - FuG 244/245, German airborne search radar
• Bromide – British X-Gerät jammer
• Carpet – 100 Group W/T (morse radio) jammer
• Cigar (later "Ground Cigar") – earlier ground-based version of Airborne Cigar
• Corona – 100 Group radio transmissions to German fighters designed to confuse German counter-attacks
• Chain Home radar – British land based early warning radar used during the Battle of Britain
• Düppel – German radar countermeasure called chaff in the US or Window in England
• Darky – RAF a backup system in case the other systems were broken or the operator of the other direction finding systems was dead. Using his radio, on 6.440 MHz the pilot could be talked back to his home base.
• Domino – British Y-Gerät jammer - see also Benjamin
• Eureka – portable homing beacon system - ground transmitter - see also Rebecca
• Filbert - 29-foot long naval barrage balloon fitted with internal 9-ft radar reflector - for Operation Glimmer and Taxable.
• Fishpond – British fighter warning radar add-on to H2S, fitted early 1944 to some bombers
• Flensburg – FuG 227, German radar device fitted to night fighters that detected British Monica transmissions
• Freya – German ground based air search radar
• G-H – British radio navigation system used for blind bombing
• GEE – British radio navigation system forerunner of LORAN
• Grocer (later "Ground Grocer") – ground-based version of Airborne Grocer
• H.F. D/F (High Frequency Direction Finding) – provided a radio position fix for the RAF up to 100 miles from the transmitters in Britain. The system was based on voice communications, and was used for aircraft to find their home bases. The development of GEE its primary function ceased but it remained in use until the end of the war as a back up system and a communications system between aircraft and their base.
• H2S – British ground mapping radar to see target at night and through cloud cover
• H2X – American ground mapping radar, development of British H2S
• Himmelbett – German controlled night fighter method
• Hohentwiel – FuG 200, German UHF airborne radar optimized for maritime (anti-ship) use
• Huff-Duff – Allied HF/DF High Frequency Direction Finding
• Jay beams – were introduced partly as a deception to help to confuse the Germans over the use of GEE. It was nevertheless just as useful as a homing beacon. A number of transmitters, from Lossiemouth to Manston in Kent transmitted on slightly different frequencies transmitted a narrow beam across the North Sea using a S.B.A. (Standard Beam Approach) transmitter, receivers for-which were fitted to all British bombers and could be received over a range of 350 miles at 10,000 feet. Once a bomber found a beam it could fly down it back to Britain. In late 1943, all but two beams were closed down with these final two shutting down towards the end of 1944 because GEE could do the job better and their use to deceive the Germans was by now redundant.
• Jostle – 2.5kw airborne jamming transmitter carried in sealed bomb bays of 100 Group Fortresses
• Kehl – series of German aircraft-mounted radio control sets for use in aerial guidance of the Hs 293 and Fritz X weapons.
• Kettenhund – German Eureka jammer
• Knickebein – German dual beam radar navigation aid, used early 1940
• Lichtenstein – German UHF (B/C and C-1 versions), later VHF (SN-2 version) night fighter radar, introduced 1941/1942
• Lorenz – Germans blind-landing aid
• LORAN – American navigation aid
• Lucero – British homing system carried by some Mosquitoes for homing-in on Kettenhund (Eureka jammer)
• Mandrel – No. 100 Group RAF swamping of Freya and Würzburg radar
• Metox – receiver installed on German submarines that gave warning of approaching aircraft by detecting changes in the transmissions from the radar.
• Meacon – Masking BEACON - British long wave jamming station
• M.F. D/F (Medium Frequency Direction Finding) - provided a radio position fix for the RAF up to 230 miles from the transmitters in Britain. The system was based on voice communications.
• Monica – Fighter radar early warning device fitted to British bombers
• Moonshine – British airborne Freya spoofer/radar jammer installed in 20 modified Boulton Paul Defiants (No. 515 Squadron RAF)
• Naxos – FuG 350, German H2S detection and homing device
• Neptun – FuG 218, German night fighter radar, introduced mid/late 1944
• Newhaven – target marking blind using H2S then with visual backup marking - from Newhaven
• Oboe – British twin beam navigation system, similar to Knickebein but pulse-based
• Paramatta – target marking by blind dropped ground markers - prefixed with 'musical' when Oboe guided - from Paramatta
• Perfectos – device carried by night fighting Mosquito's for homing-in on German nightfighter radar transmissions/triggering IFF
• Ping-Pong - ground-based plotting system for triangulating German radar site positions, allowing them to be attacked and disabled immediately prior to Overlord
• Piperack – airborne jamming transmitter carried by a lead aircraft that produced a cone of jamming behind it within which the following bomber stream could shelter
• Pipsqueak – was a code name for a Huff-Duff IFF mechanism used by the RAF in the Battle of Britain, to track the location of their fighter squadrons in the air. RAF fighters had an HF channel of their radios set to broadcast a signal for fourteen seconds of every minute. A clockwork mechanism regulated this broadcast.
• Rebecca – portable homing beacon system - airborne receiver - see also Eureka
• Rope - extended-length Window suspended from small parachute and dropped by aircraft of 218 and 617 Squadrons intended to deceive German Seetakt coastal radars - for Operation Glimmer and Taxable
• Seetakt – a shipborne radar developed in the 1930s and used by the German Navy, later improved into Freya air search radar.
• Serrate – Allied Lichtenstein detection and homing device, used in night fighter to track down German night fighters with Lichtenstein radar
• Shiver – first attempts at jamming Würzburg radar using ground transmissions
• Tinsel – British technique of feeding amplified engine noise via radio onto German night fighter voice frequencies to hinder them.
• Turbinlite – British searchlight & radar-equipped Douglas Havoc intended for illuminating attacking Luftwaffe bombers at night
• Village Inn – AGLT - British radar-aimed rear turret fitted to some Lancasters in 1944
• Wanganui – target marking by blind-dropped sky markers - prefixed with 'musical' when Oboe guided - from Wanganui
• Window – strips of aluminium foil dropped to flood German radar and radar operated anti aircraft guns and searchlights
• Würzburg – German ground based air search radar, very accurate and often used to direct FlaK
• X-Gerät, Y-Gerät – German beam guided blind bombing systems
• Z Equipment, British Infra red lamp system to allow friendly aircraft to be recognised by Village Inn-equipped bombers

Tactics

• Bomber stream – British tactic to overcome the Kammhuber Line
• Gardening – RAF operations dropping mines in strategic sea lanes, usually at the request of the CoS Naval Liaison Officer based at High Wycombe. As a spinoff, Bletchley Park cryptanalysts used German reports of Gardening activities to obtain decryption information on Enigma transmissions
• Kammhuber Line – British name for the German Himmelbett radar controlled air defence system
• Operational research – among other it involved the statistical analysis of anomalies, some caused by the use of previously unknown German electronic equipment or tactics based on the equipment and for example lead to the development of the Bomber Stream.
• Wilde Sau (Wild Boar) – German freelance night fighters, ie not parked round a visual beacon like the Zahme Sau (Tame Boar) fighters
• Zahme Sau (Tame Boar) – German tactic of guiding a night fighter 'parked' round a visual beacon, onto the incoming bomber stream by radar assisted ground commentary

See also

• List of World War II British naval radar
• Glossary of WWII German military terms
• Battle of the beams
• Signal Corps Radio (SCR)
• Air Ministry Experimental Station (AMES)

References

• Harris, Arthur Travers; Cox, Sebastian (1995). Despatch on War Operations: 23 February, 1942, to 8 May, 1945, Routledge, ISBN 071464692X.

External links

• Air Ministry equipment numbers