Military radio communication

I don't know anything about the use of early use of radio communications by militaries but I imagine that messages began to be intercepted soon after they became common. If you just broadcast your orders to everyone then the enemy knows exactly what you are going to do. Ciphers and code are vitally important.

During the Winter War (1939-40) the Finns were intercepting unencoded Soviet radio messages. This shows how untrained and unprofessional the Red Army was at that point. The Finns were basically given status reports on the enemy's conditions, movements and plans by the enemy itself. This helped to enabled them to use their desperately outnumbered and ill-equipped army to the greatest effect possible considering the situation.

The nature of radio communications means that broadcasts are very easy to intercept. This means that encoding messages is important unless you are ok with the enemy knowing what you are sending out.

Military radio communication? If you mean all wirelesses communication using radio waves than part of it is encoded and part not. Battlefield commands on lower levels tend not to be encoded. There is no time to encode them and since time between command and its execution is short, enemy can not use their knowledge to his advantage.

Any other communication tend to be encoded.

Not sure when it started but by start of WWI armies were encoding their communication and listening to that of their enemies. Practice must have started right from start of use of radio in military as encoding was already well established during era of written commands.

Morse was easier since its encoded on paper and then transmitted in code, encoding real time voice communication is far more difficult and has really only been practical since the early 1990s and even then the theory was far better than the practical results.

For some reason mobile phone companies are far better at this sort of technology than the military, probably because a phone is working between only two points so only two units need to knew the decrypting tools, a military radio signal needs to be decrypted by every other set and anybody else who can listen in within a large geographical area.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_voice]Secure voice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The current British system is Bowman, which dates from 1989, came available around 2005 and, in the opinion of most people who use it, still doesnt work properly. I'm just a history geek, ask Bish, whos probably had experience with it.

What is more important is the changing frequency, when using encryption, which makes jamming the radios harder, and impossible at a greater distance. This will cause communication problems within own troops too, because everyone has to have the right code, and this method consumes more batteries.

The higher commands issue frequencies to the troops and the troops switch to the next frequency for example every hour. Same frequency is used by a single platoon; if one wants to talk with the company or battalion commander, one has to use its own frequency. Electronic warfare can only jam a large number of frequencies at close range, not far. Using terrain helps to avoid jamming and increases the range and quality of voice.

Outside combat radios are not used, except for deception. Deception, when radios are transmitted from an empty area, can be used. For real the troops are somewhere else, but not using the radios; they are always on off course, for emergencies. Radio communication becomes allowed when the first shot is fired.

Radio tangent is pressed only a few seconds at a time. Message is broken up into short transmissions; only a couple words at one time. This prevents the enemy from locking on that frequency and then from jamming it. Unlike in every video, movie and piece of sound, words "over" and "out" are not used; they lenghten the conversation unnecessarily. Conversation just ends when no one speaks again; every message is however acknowledged with ones own designated name.

Nemowork said:

Morse was easier since its encoded on paper and then transmitted in code, encoding real time voice communication is far more difficult and has really only been practical since the early 1990s and even then the theory was far better than the practical results.

For some reason mobile phone companies are far better at this sort of technology than the military, probably because a phone is working between only two points so only two units need to knew the decrypting tools, a military radio signal needs to be decrypted by every other set and anybody else who can listen in within a large geographical area.

Secure voice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The current British system is Bowman, which dates from 1989, came available around 2005 and, in the opinion of most people who use it, still doesnt work properly. I'm just a history geek, ask Bish, whos probably had experience with it.

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I'm not to clued up on signals but the guys i now don't like Bowman. Before that we used Clansman but everything was encoded. It was a bit complicated, but i was ok with it. It was used right down to platoon level.

From what i gather they have now stopped teaching it. Big mistake in my view. Secure radio's are all well and good until they go down.

Military Communications trivia.

During the Boer War British forces were aware that telephone conversations were being overheard by Boer sympathisers. Lord Roberts arranged for conversations to be conducted by officers conversing in Classical Greek.

Faced with a similar problem in 1940 while in conversation with French government officials discussing the French surrender, Winston Churchill employed Hindustani speaking Guards officers as intermediaries.

The Chindits in Burma while talking "on air" on open radio circuits found that Cockney Rhyming slang totally confused the listening Japanese. American and Australian pilots charged with air drops to the Chindits were given lessons in Rhyming Slang. (Fish and Chips= Nips.)

For a few years leading up to and during the Cold War, messages between the National Security Agency and it's stratigically placed U.S. NAVY "Floating Platforms," bounced encrypted signals to each other off of the moon. However, this method of communications soon proved to be unreliable, both electrically and mechanically, and was eventually abolished; which also attributed to the subsequent decommissioning of those Technical Research ships.

Ancientgeezer said:

Military Communications trivia.

During the Boer War British forces were aware that telephone conversations were being overheard by Boer sympathisers. Lord Roberts arranged for conversations to be conducted by officers conversing in Classical Greek.

Faced with a similar problem in 1940 while in conversation with French government officials discussing the French surrender, Winston Churchill employed Hindustani speaking Guards officers as intermediaries.

The Chindits in Burma while talking "on air" on open radio circuits found that Cockney Rhyming slang totally confused the listening Japanese. American and Australian pilots charged with air drops to the Chindits were given lessons in Rhyming Slang. (Fish and Chips= Nips.)

Click to expand...

Didn't US forces use native Americans for the same thing. Not sure if it was in the Pacific or Europe.

Bish said:

Didn't US forces use native Americans for the same thing. Not sure if it was in the Pacific or Europe.

Click to expand...

That was the subject of the film "Wind Talkers" with Navajo Indians communicating-a more organised system.

Ancientgeezer said:

Military Communications trivia.

During the Boer War British forces were aware that telephone conversations were being overheard by Boer sympathisers. Lord Roberts arranged for conversations to be conducted by officers conversing in Classical Greek.

Faced with a similar problem in 1940 while in conversation with French government officials discussing the French surrender, Winston Churchill employed Hindustani speaking Guards officers as intermediaries.

The Chindits in Burma while talking "on air" on open radio circuits found that Cockney Rhyming slang totally confused the listening Japanese. American and Australian pilots charged with air drops to the Chindits were given lessons in Rhyming Slang. (Fish and Chips= Nips.)

Click to expand...

The cockney rhyming slang is interesting, I never knew that.

In the memoirs of a Wehrmacht panzer gunner it said that radiomen routinely transmitted frontline messages in impromtpu ephemisms that other Germans would immediately understand.