Battle of the Beams

Common card · No. 321204

The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation for night bombing in the United Kingdom. British scientific intelligence at the Air Ministry fought back with a variety of their own increasingly effective means, involving jamming and deception signals. The period ended when the Wehrmacht moved their forces to the East in May 1941, in preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union. The idea of beam radio navigation was developed during the 1930s, initially as a blind landing aid. The basic concept is to produce two directional radio signals that are aimed slightly to the left and right of a runway's midline. Radio operators in the aircraft listen for these signals and determine which of the two beams they are flying in. This is normally accomplished by sending Morse code signals into the two beams, to identify right and left. For bombing, the Luftwaffe built...

Read on Wikipedia