At 09:46 PM 1/18/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>On-board instrumentation on German aircraft was not that good (as it was
>also not that good on English or American planes early in the War) during
>the Blitzkrieg. Landmarks were often crucial. Stonehenge _may_ have been
>a landmark, but there weren't that many targets (none that I can think of)
>beyond it for bombing raids from the usual directions -- at most, it would
>have clued the navigator to tell the pilot to turn around.
>
>Stonehenge was definitely neither bulldozed nor bombed. It would show, and
>too many people have examined it since then. (And a number of groups held
>ceremonies there during the war, not always with the permission of the
>government despite the fact that they were on the same side).
>
>--
>Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
>
>WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
>and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
>
On the contrary, German aircraft during the Blitz used two fairly
sophisticated systems of radio navigation called Knickebein and X-Geraet.
The former used overlapping Lorenz beams to guide bombers along the
flightpath to their targets, using super-sensitive versions of their
blind-landing receivers. The latter used radio beams that intersected over
the target; one beam provided flightpath direction, the second announced
when the target was reached. The British expended a lot of time and energy
locating and jamming the signals, and later copied the system when Bomber
Command went on the offensive (called Oboe, I think). My apologies if the
details above are inaccurate; it's been a long time since I read R.V.
Jones' Most Secret War (great book, BTW).
Mark Gregory.
Received on Tue Jan 19 1999 - 20:45:48 GMT