Radios. Infantry battalions.

[Ivan Sorensen]

Something that occurred to me when looking back over the Command Control discussion and that I realised I am not really sure about.

For the infantry battalion, how many radios would be available in various nationalities to receive orders from the next level up? And who might have none at all.

What about the company commanders to receive orders from Battalion?

For simplicity lets focus on leg infantry.

[Mike Headden]

From what I’ve read it’s not just how many were issued but how many were working.

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Guy Farrish]

Infantry Battalion HQ to Company British Army 1940+ – Wireless Set No.18 – HF (low HF – 6-9MHz) Used a ground wave propagation for a max range c10miles (realistically nearer 5) (there was a theoretical longer range propagation because of ionospheric refraction beyond the skip zone or skip distance  but this is not particularly relevant here as it was low powered for that).

You can find out much more about the tech specs at Wireless for the Warrior

along with lots of other British wireless sets.

*

How many were delivered and used and to whom and whether they worked as Mike suggested, is another and very long story.

As for German – I need a lie down very shortly:

Look for Torn.Fu series (not as rude as it sounds – Tornister= backpack) for the infantry backpack series (HF except for the Torn.Fu.d2 which was a low VHF band that was used for voice nets) and Feld for you guessed it Field radios (VHF sets-los -a couple of km max usually).

If you want afv sets look for FuG series  Funkgerat (radio)- usually HF or low VHF but some worked in MF band.

There were more systems – they developed a UHF point to point mesh system which eventually extended across northern France and most of the rest of occupied Europe.

America? Tons of stuff out there – SCR-300. Backpack. Loads more.

Russia – wave enthusiastically. Or check Walter Gromov’s Radio Museum I have little idea of how commonly these found their way to the actual front lines. Or if they worked when they got there or if anyone knew what to do with them.

Happy browsing.

 

* Edit: Been niggling away all night! 38 set down to platoon – but only later in war. Often there were not enough for every platoon.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Wire was still the preferred means of communication.  Battalion HQs would rely on signal assets to keep the wire laid even on the march.  HQs movements usually followed advance parties sent out to establish the new HQ site and the first thing they ever did was establish telephone communications.  Remember too, they did not have digital on the fly encryption for radio comm, so it was often  less useful than hard to tap wire. Triangulation on signals with radio direction finders might make the HQ likely to get artillery or air strikes on it if they spent too much time on the radio.

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

low HF

 

Oxymoron Shirley? 🙂

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Guy Farrish]

Wanna talk sporadic E VHF propagation, sunshine?

 

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Wanna talk sporadic E VHF propagation, sunshine?

 

Well it’s the right time of year for it 🙂

Equatorial or auroral?

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Guy Farrish]

Blimey! Life moves on dunnit. It must be nearly 40 yrs since I learned this and I went to have a look just to make sure I wasn’t talking my usual goop and you know what? I wish I hadn’t. My mind had latched on to solar ionisation (hence the appalling ‘sunshine’ pun above!) and now people are telling me about wind shear sheeting E layer and meteor effects!

Equatorial I liked – pretty regular and predictable, you’d also get Es over large land masses at US midwest latitudes, but auroral seems just wrong and irregular and I don’t think I’m having it (although it was interesting for various reasons with some arctic countries’ anomalous vhf propagation – so I’m told).

Gosh! That’s a long way off WWII radio sets isn’t it?

Watch out for tropospheric ducting an’ all.

[John D Salt]

Time to post this again.

21 Army Group/2064/2/OPS/(B) of 16 August 1944, “Lessons from Battle” by the Staffordshire Yeomanry, quoted in NA piece number WO 232/77 “Communications within the Infantry Battalion”:

“Bad Infantry Communications. These are without exception deplorable. There is the general defeatist attitude amongst infantry that their communications are bound to fail once the battle starts. The attitude is justified as they always do. The result is that the plan has to be too rigid, and once troops are committed it is impossible for them to adjust themselves to the enemy’s reactions. The whole system of infantry communications seems to require a complete overhaul.”

WO 232/77 also points out that battalion HQ has only one set for rear link to brigade, so if the CO roves away from his HQ he is out of radio contact. Obviously there could not have been all the modern panoply of main, tac, alt and step-up headquarters.

All the best,

John.

[Guy Farrish]

Hmm -still wind ’em up and let ’em go then?

[MartinR]

Yes, wind them up and let them go. WW2 manpack radios were awful, short ranged, heavy and unreliable, so yes, Infantry below battalion level largely relied on orders/missions (depending on inclination), field phones, flares and runners. I note in Charles McDonald’s “Company Commander” that he does most of his artillery calls using a field phone and pre registered fire missions. I can’t actually recall him ever using a radio.

Vehicle mounted radios worked much better, so those lucky tankers, motorised infantry, FOs etc could chatter away happily. Not all of them though, I’m just reading the Memoir of a someone who command an SP gun platoon in a Panzergrenadier battalion in 1944, and he complains that none of his halftracks have radios so he has to use hand signals or run from gun to gun tto issue orders.

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[vtsaogames]

Sounds like no radio below battalion works. Or roll a 6 to see if it is transmitting. If so, then enemy can roll to see if they locate the radio.

 

Company Commander is great for nitty-gritty stuff. I recall that once during the war his company attacked a village with a platoon of armor support and another US company within view with their own platoon of armor. There was a preliminary bombardment and an air strike. The troops got up and cheered at this rare show. After all that, the Germans put up a perfunctory resistance and surrendered.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[MartinR]

Yes, Company Commander is a fabulous read. I was particularly struck by the incident of an entire US artillery battalion firing for effect, but dropping 1000 yards short (!), and Noone was able to correct the fire. His absolute terror of tanks was palpable, although as his company had been overrun by 12th SS Panzer Division, understandable. He seemed to regard bazookas as completely useless.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[vtsaogames]

The highest ranking fatality in the US Army in WWII was Lt. General McNair (and 110 others, 500+ wounded), killed by the 8th Air Force dropping short in the Normandy bocage.

 

2.5 inch bazookas bounced off T34-85s in Korea. Makes me wonder how they fared against Panthers and heavier armor. 3.5 inch bazookas were rushed to Korea.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[Pieter Roos]

Also worth remembering that in many cases, early war radios were receive only below platoon level (in tanks), and were sometimes morse code rather than voice.

The 2.5inch bazooka could penetrate panthers from the side (Soviet AT riles could, and U.S./British 57mm AT guns as well) but not from the front. To the point one of the U.S. airborne divisions issued captured panzerfausts and printed hastily translated instruction pamphlets.

[Author]

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