Re: Code Name "Master"?

On Aug 26, 2:27 pm, Daniel <Wabke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Inherent problems as such affected the effectiviness of changing
randomly the code names employed?

Sorry I should have been clearer. The signal to noise ratio was very
high, tactical radio was line of sight, and transmission distances and
battery life were short. The combination made it important to keep
messages short and distinctive with little extraneous talk that could
cause confusion. Turning everything into a voice code just wasn't
worth it.

Can't say why, though... The idea was to air stuff and the other guys
around having no idea of what about you were talking. Proper use of
code and rare/minority/strange languages and/or slang come to mind as
methods to ensure that. Fourteen year olds seem to have been pretty
good at that at least since the beginning of the XX century...

Because large-scale operational shifts where it was important to
"conceal" units were rare. The sad fact of the matter is that World
War II was really not that much more mobile than World War I and
involved armies as large and cumbersome as any industrial age army. It
was rare that one side did not know the others frontline unit layout
as well as their own from point of contact to several 10s of
kilometers in the rear, including unit and commander IDs, unit
boundaries, MSRs and so forth, a quick glance at almost any G-2 or Ic
document and especially maps shows that.

Where such security could be effective was in the strategic realm, at
least for the Allies, the Germans rarely had any idea what was more
than about 20 klicks to the rear of the Allied front line. But the
Allies, with superior aerial and strategic communications intelligence
capabilities frequently knew details into the depth of the German
front all the way to Berlin.

"Slang" code was actually rarely effective, at least according to what
I have run across on tactical intelligence, although it was commonly
used by all sides. The probably with large armies from diverse
cultures is that you need the sland to be common enough for "everyone"
to know and signals intelligence tended to recruit just those types.
Obscure languages was a good ploy and effective if the unit density
was small enough, IIRC the number of Navajo codetalkers was quite
small, but then so was the Marine Corps, six divisions with nine
tactical infantry battalions required just 54 of them as a fair
minimum. But if you need them for each company in those battalions you
now have a requirement for about 270. If you then have to do the same
for the ETO and say 20 to 30 divisions the obscurity of the language
required limits the number of linguists. Plus there are other
problems, the linguists also have to be proficient in translating to
the common language.

Of course it depends on where you place the "tactical" landmark.
Company/platoon level... granted, given reaction times mostly.
Battalion and above... not so sure.

Practical reaction times would be at about the division level.

However, USMC devoted a few resources to codetalker Navajo, et al,
units... Against a pretty much less proficient adversary in radio
warfare. Granted, all that stuff would have been pretty much useless
at company (battalion?) level, if code names were used at that level
which was one of my original questions. But at Division/Corps level,
as the thread started, I see a whole world of posibilities for intel
gathering just by tracking unchanged code names and/or call signs over
the radio.

There was simply no need. HUMINT was too easy to be proficient at with
mass armies. Name rank and serial number was an outgrowth of the
Korean War *everybody* in World War II, with very few exceptions,
talked.

Big unit movement was one of the main areas of work in HQ intel
sections, and division/corps movements could give sometimes enough
time to pass the info up, provoke a reaction from own command, and
pass the orders down to enact it according to the info.

Actually no, that was generally top down. Intell gathered at the
division level came from the PW cages. In the US practice the initial
interogation was normally at the regimental S-2 level, with everything
going daily to the divisional G-2 for summary and batching to corps,
who then forwarded it to army. Intelligence processing though was done
normally at the army-level (that is where the western allies BIGOTED
personnel were to add their ULTRA input to the product) and then
disseminated down as bulletins to the corps and division.

OK, thanks... Call signs then were always in the parent Div's call
sign same letter, while authentication words were just that kind of
random and funny stuff that appears in the movies like: "Dogpatch,
dogpatch... Here Red Fox Six calling, over", etc...?

Yep, exactly. The authentication was usually a word inserted at the
beginning and end of a transmission so.

BTW, how were they disseminated? In the written daily orders for each
unit? Separate lists through signal corps lines?

IIRC the 3rd Army SOP correctly they changed at midnight and were
included in the daily unit SITREP, which would go down to platoon.

"Authentication" that was not subjected to the same problems inherent
in voice radio tactical transmission at the time? Looks like the very
same complication to me...

It was usually a single distinctive word or phrase that could be
easily understood - homonyms need not apply. :) Think of it as a
password.

Sure, but then again, I doubt dogfaces were involved in call sign/code
name creation business. They received that info form above, and had to
memorize new lists of words for authentication anyway every day, or
more often, close, near, over and beyond the limits of exaustion. It
was staff personnel who did that and at pretty higher echelons I'll
say. Their limits of exhaustion were far different and revolved
around, well... staff work. Do you think they actually took in mind
the possible limits of exhaustion of men nearer the front?

No, its not the creation, its the memory thats a problem. The British
actor David Niven had an interesting problem with that during the
Bulge when passing through an American checkpoint. He couldn't for the
life of him recall the current password, so he simply replied that he
hadn't a clue what it was, but did know that he had starred with
Ginger Rogers in "Bachelor Mother" - it got him past.:)

Still the point is that trusting permanent words over open radio
traffic eased the enemy's work for spotting units, while the
authentication still introduced the need for changing lists of words
to be passed and used each day.

Maybe, but it was an ease they didn't really require. I think it was
simply recognized and o the simpler and less complicated way of doing
things was accepted for its advantages that outweighed the minor
disadvanatage.

Seems to me like useless duplication, not "simpler the better" kind of
approach. Military logic, I guess.

Nope, the height of any logic - the simpler the better. Murphy's Law
and all that.

Cheers!

Rich

.

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