German WW2 radio technology in the cold war

[LA6NCA]

Hellol.

A friend of mine is working on a book about the Cold War.
He will focus on secret intelligence and communications.
We need more information on the following:
Some communications experts believe that soviet had better field radio equipment than Nato countries. .
Here in Norway we had AN / GRC-9 communications in field brigades to 1980.
They were mostly used on AM. A hopeless project.
After the war Soviet took all they could find of German radio technology.
Entire factories with engineers.
When one looks at the Russian radios from the Cold War, one can see the German inspiration.
How were the English and American radio technology influenced by the German?
I have the impression that there was no influence.
How was the quality of the Soviet, English and American field radio equipment?
What was the influence of the German WW2 radio technology in this?

greeting LA6NCA

[Val]

If we are talking about cold war and Russians, take a look at this bug.

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015...-us-diplomats/

This stuff is definitely unique and ingenious.

[cris2006]

Hi,

I find comparing radio technologies of WWII fascinating...although your question refers to Cold War radios, but here we go...
If you talk about influence after the war, German radio designs left a clear mark in Russian army and Soviet allies' radios such as R-105, R-108, R-109 and RF-11.
The same did not happen with American and British army post-war radios, let's see why.
Instead, it could be said that Britain and the USA were in a way influenced by German military radio technology and tactics early in WWII.
As we all know, the Germans were ahead of everyone else in this field in the mid and late 1930s, having produced and tested most of their radios (field sets and backpacks) that were to be used throughout WWII, not to mention tank and other specialized radios for specialized troops.
The UK and the USA, on the other hand, had huge cuts in military budgets in the 1930s and many of their military radios by the end of same decade were totally obsolete.
For example, one of the main American field sets of the 1930s for groud troops was the SCR-131, which was mounted on a wooden case, had a limited range of 5 miles and could only send messages with a telegraph key (no voice)!
For almost the entire decade of the 1930s, the Americans did not even have a backpack voice operated set that could be used on the march.
Their first designs of such backpack voice operated sets were the simple but not very rugged SCR-194 and SCR-195 AM "walkie-talkies", that were developed in 1938 but were only tested in manouvers in 1940 (these first "walkie talkies" were replaced by the more reliable and famous SCR-300 backpack FM radios as from 1942).
The lack of sets for vehicles was also evident.
However, with the outbreak of the war, budget priorities changed and both the Americans and the British basically had to quickly come up with new radio designs and tactics for their troops.
You may say that both nations were in a hurry to fill this huge gap, the British even more than the Americans due to their early involvement in the war and their geographical proximity to the enemy.
So British radio designs were produced in a matter of months, or weeks, with a rather practical approach, IMO without much concern with appearance or finish (at least not to the same level of the sophisticated German radios of the time). So you hear such stories about sets such as the British WS17 (radio for communication of searchlight units), drawn by a radio ham on the back of an envelope and made up with parts commonly available at London shops and stores... the radio just had to perform well... and it did!
More professionaly British made sets by the PYE industry such as the WS18 backpack (with capabilities similar to Torn.Fu.d2) and the WS19 tank / vehicle / field set were also developed and produced in haste as from 1940.
None of these British designs was clearly inspired by German designs, but it could be said that the concepts of compactness, modular designs, versatility, the need for a backpack for ground troops and specialized radios for the armoured troops and combined operations, all concepts that the Germans had already mastered and put into practice with great efficiency, were by 1940 also evident to the Allies, no doubt in part because of the German success in the early stages of the Blitzkrieg.
The Americans in their turn, had a little more time than the British to develop their new radios before they faced the enemy.
There is a well known 1942 issue of the Signal Corps magazine that has an article in which several captured Japanese, Italian and German radios are pictured and briefly described (and duly labelled by American propaganda as inferior to US radios!).
It is thus clear that the Americans had the chance of carefully studying German designs and tactics early in the war before coming up with their own new generation of radios...
This new generation of American military radios was released in 1942 presumably with a lot of improvements to German designs (mainly the use of crystals and the launch of FM technology for short range voice operated sets). These new generation US radios, however, also showed some features that were typical of previous American radios. For instance, American field sets typically had dry batteries for the receiver, while the transmitter was powered by hand cranked generators. The Americans seemed convinced that this feature was better for field sets than radios going only on batteries like the German "Tornisterfunkgeräte". As a result, all US AM field sets produced during the war came with handcranked generators: army designs SCR-178, SCR-179, SCR-288, SCR-284 and SCR-694 (the predecessor of GRC-9) and also US marine corps TBX radios...
The Americans also came up with both brilliant and unique concepts ahead of their time, like the first "hand-held" radio, the famous SCR-536 (BC-611) "handie-talkie", and less farsighted ideas like the cavalry SCR-511 "pogo stick" radio set (in itself a good radio, but with a design that was not compatible with modern warfare).
So, while some German influence might have existed but is not always evident in British and US wartime radios (and consequently also in the US and UK postwar radios that followed), some people say instead that the Germans might have copied a British 1943 radio design, the WS38, when the Germans produced their Kl.fu.spr.d "Dorette". This seems plausible as the Dorette was produced after the WS38 and both models have a similar design (radio held on the operator's chest and batteries in a separate unit on the operator's back or waistbelt).
Hope this information is useful!

Cheers,

Cristiano

[cris2006]

Hi,

Sorry, the magazine I mentioned above is in fact a February 1944 issue of Radio News magazine (Special US Army Signal Corps issue).
All Axis radios mentioned in same magazine are described as inferior to US radios, with the exception of 100 WS transmitter, which deserved a separate article in pages 178 and 179 and is described as "exceptionally well built".

Cheers,

Cristiano

[Funksammler]

The western allies did analyse all German technology during and after the war (you only have to read some of the Felkin reports to see how this went; I assume the Russians did the same, but here in the west the evidence of that process is less accessible). Reading between the lines of these reports you get the impression that the British felt themselves ahead in terms of technology and only considered the occasional technical detail "of interest to the British industry"....

Compared to some US late war designs the German effort was indeed rather primitive but... The Germans put their focus on autonomy (= battery life), their design drive was to minimise the number of radio tubes and components and to achieve frequency stability by mechanical means over a large temperature range (so that their equipment could be used from the Tropics to the Arctic).

In a sense the Russians seem to have pursued the same design philosophy after the war and therefor copied more from the Germans.

The US design phylosophy seems to have focussed more on automation and simplicity for the end user. The use of FM, AFC, AVC, squelch, the use of X-tals etc. all made for highly effective equipment, but they used highly complex electronic circuits with a multitude of valves; their batteries probably wouldn't have lasted a day in the harsch Russian winter...

The post war British philosophy was driven by the dire economic reality the country was facing: mend and make do (and focus industiral production on export). So the Brits soldiered on with 19 sets and copies of US sets for many years.

regards,

Funksammler

[cris2006]

Hi Funksammler,

The British did have some reason to think they were ahead in terms of radio technology, as they put much of their effort into the complex development of a sophisticaded radar system, which played a key role in the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the RAF in the Battle of Britain.
Priority to cutting edge radar technology also probably explains in part why the British ended up with less wartime designs (and maybe less refinement) for ground troop radios when compared to the Americans.

Cheers,

Cristiano

[LA6NCA]

Thanks for the detailed answers.

Thanks for the detailed answers.
This can be used.
Much of the German WW2 radio technology was entirely unknown to the German engineers who were educated in the 1960s and 1970s.
It was probably not so in East Germany. ??
Thanks again for your answers.
LA6NCA

[Val]

(I assume the Russians did the same, but here in the west the evidence of that process is less accessible).

Yes, there's detailed reverse analysis reports available how Russians analyzed and measured the German radios, but i'm not going to provide them here as they are in Russian, mainstream users can't read Russian here and secondly, the original question was about secret intelligence - there is difference between ordinary military radio technology and spy radio technology - those reports do not cover the spy radio technology.

Regarding original Russian military radios and their German influence - that lasted at least to the end of the '80 - take that R-123 - channel preselector was "spizdeno" from FuG and that set was in the service to the end of the '80.


http://buklib.net/image/86/o_dc63a6d..._m31a5dd24.png
http://photo.qip.ru/users/otrok/4169327/

[Val]

Russians copied several German radios, including Köln.
However their manufacturing skills were unadequate.
Here's the comparison of the original "Köln" and Russian
copy "Dozor"

http://lucafusari.altervista.org/pag...P310Dozor.html

Loot at the performance parameters table. Even having the original
technology at their hand, they weren't able to reproduce it with similar
quality and parameters.

[la5he@yahoo.no]

After the collapse of DDR ( East Germany ) several WaPa sets became availablein the West. At one time I picked up a near mint R-104. Looking inside , it became apparent the similarity to the Wehrmacht 15SE.b design.
Ragnar

[Well]

Translate, please

"spizdeno"

My analysis of one radio. Soviet copy. Google in help:
http://antradio.kievrus.com/forum/vi...p?f=541&t=4683

[la5he@yahoo.no]

Translate, please

My analysis of one radio. Soviet copy. Google in help:
http://antradio.kievrus.com/forum/vi...p?f=541&t=4683

No English Version available ?


Ragnar

[Hue]

No one has mentioned the WW2 USAAF aircraft radios copied by the USSR and in fact manufactured in Russia into the 1970s. In the NATO countries, meanwhile, aircraft radio had moved on to frequency synthesized SSB equipment and UHF equipment. From what I have seen, USSR equipment was considerably behind NATO equipment in general.
The Feb. 44 RADIO NEWS magazine with photo article can be viewed at
americanradiohistory.com There's nothing there that will be revelatory to you,
but some nice photos. There are mistakes in some places, in some model names.
Their criticism of Japanese radios is not much overdriven. I am quite familiar with many Japanese radios and I can tell you the ground radios with no exceptions
reflect 1933-1941 design. The magazine's point about the radio cases being bent and distorted easily is absolutely true.Their aircraft radios show better design and continuous progress - but one thing I have noticed is there were about as many aircraft radio types as there were aircraft types - no exaggeration. I won't go more into that here, but this is a category of equipment I seem to be most interested in now, to the point where I might dispose of all my German field radio.
There are a few small things on post-WW2 US radios that I wonder, if these ideas were copied from examined German equipment. The 'Bandantenne" - I believe I read about this idea in a pre-war US ham radio magazine, but it didn't appear here
until the 1951 PRC-8,9, 10 radios. The the 'projection dial scale' idea used in the
Navy SRR-11, 12, 13 receivers ca. 1955; I wonder if this was adopted from the E52 system. Also one little thing, the post on radio tuning 'spinner' knobs, I have seen some German radios with this, and it seems also to have appeared in U.S. military radios and test equipment in the 1950s and on. This is just a little item, but it is so well designed and useful that I think it's a fine innovation.

[Hue]

To clarify, the 'spinner' radio knob I mean, has a small post on its face, for higher speed turning. On this particular knob, this post can fold flat against the surface of the main knob. This prevents the post from being broken off if the radio strikes
something else. Not a big deal, but I think it is a neat and useful idea.

[Hue]

In fairness, I should add that i'm very aware that the homeland USA never was bombed; factories, transportation, and fuel supplies were all sufficient to produce great masses of war materiel, and with enough manpower that new equipment could be continually designed. This was a GREAT advantage.