What Could the Germans Have Done About ULTRA?

Anaxagoras

Banned
Suppose that, for whatever reason, the Germans discovered the full details of ULTRA and knew exactly how the Allies had cracked the Enigma code. What could they then have done about it? It seems to me devising an entirely new way of encrypting their messages and then implementing it throughout the entire German military would be an enormous logistical challenge. Are they simply screwed?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Yes they are, they tried to add another rotater to the enigma but we still cracked it.

If I'm not mistaken, if there had been a complete intelligence breach, the Germans would have known that adding another rotater would only buy them time and wasn't a permanent solution.
 

Pangur

Donor
True but they never knew until the end of WW2.

To be more precise it was not made public knowledge until 1974 . Was there anything the Germans cold have done? Adding another rotor would have bought time until they came up with something else. Could have done so? Dont see why not
 
Suppose that, for whatever reason, the Germans discovered the full details of ULTRA and knew exactly how the Allies had cracked the Enigma code. What could they then have done about it?

The question is how would they do that? Various parties had their doubts about the security of ENIGMA but without hard evidence no one was willing to do more than tinker with it. The German agents in the UK had been completely compromised so I'm not sure how they could find out about Bletchley Park. Basically I'm not sure that your premise is plausible to start with.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes they are, they tried to add another rotater to the enigma but we still cracked it.

Only after capturing a copy of the 4 rotater unit; the cracking required a captured unit first, so the time window is however long it takes the British to capture the new enigma machine.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The question is how would they do that? Various parties had their doubts about the security of ENIGMA but without hard evidence no one was willing to do more than tinker with it. The German agents in the UK had been completely compromised so I'm not sure how they could find out about Bletchley Park. Basically I'm not sure that your premise is plausible to start with.

I'll figure that part out later. :)
 
The question is how would they do that? Various parties had their doubts about the security of ENIGMA but without hard evidence no one was willing to do more than tinker with it. The German agents in the UK had been completely compromised so I'm not sure how they could find out about Bletchley Park. Basically I'm not sure that your premise is plausible to start with.

Capture mark Clark during his negotiations with Vichy and torture it out of him
 
No, but is you aim tactical of strategic. I think for up to bataljon level enigma is still good. For bigger operations go for one time pads.
 
I don't think a one-time pad system would not work for something one the scale of communication throughout the entire German military.

The soviets used them in the 70s and 80s and the Italians used them during ww2. Their slowness was compensated by the fact that they were unbreakable. Fort mead still has a few in the safe if needed too
 
I wonder why the rotor assembly didn't used randomized selection of characters on the Enigma device. Imagine the sheer nightmare of the cryptographers at Bletchley Park if the Enigma machine used randomized alphabet selection on the rotors--even the British analog computer Colossus wouldn't be able to keep up.
 
The soviets used them in the 70s and 80s and the Italians used them during ww2. Their slowness was compensated by the fact that they were unbreakable. Fort mead still has a few in the safe if needed too

The British also used them in the 80's and yes they would be slower but that's better than having your messages read...
 
Just knowing that it had been compromised would have reduced the value to the allies. Then taking steps like changing rotors more frequently and issuing additional rotors that could be used would have made the decryption more difficult. I believe there were also plugboard connections on the front of the enigma machine that were not used as actively as they could have been. another interim step could have been adding a 'pre/post encryption' step. This could be as complex as another box to run the text string through or as simple as a single substitution cipher. Even a single substitution cipher would make a correct Bletchley solution look like gibberish until the substitution was applied
 
I don't think a one-time pad system would not work for something one the scale of communication throughout the entire German military.

but it would work with something like submarines, and it is all a matter of layered complexity.

As duckie already said at lower levels some form of improved enigma would still be useful.

for the subs you could even use a system like this:
at the start of the trip the sub gets a book (some literature) and the message sent to the sub are only numbers, from the page, line , position number you compose the words in the message. every sub a different book, and the whole thing will very much unbreakable. especially every trip they would get a different book.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The Germans probably do a series of things that help.

- Introduce 4 rotor enigma. Maybe a different one for various services.
- Germans could be quiet chatty. Many things sent over air waves that could be sent by courier or land line. For example, at one time they sent an entire seasonal war plan for full army group by radio. Easy to stop.
- Send a lot more fake messages.
- Likely try some big victory if UK does not know Germany knows. We have to suppose when the Germans find out, but as a part of deception plan, it could be quiet effective. For example, like we did with Patton, imagine fake messages that make it look like Turkey is about to join war and invade Cyprus and other areas. Make fake German units look like they are staging to be moved to help Turkey. But then attack with units in North Africa.

Or LW was chatty, so send messages greatly exaggerating damage to factories and weakness of German fighter commands to spring a big trap.

Or if timing right, give fake go code on Sea Lion with a few easily recallable units moving.

- There are lots of little things that can be done once a party understand they have compromised communications.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Just knowing that it had been compromised would have reduced the value to the allies. Then taking steps like changing rotors more frequently and issuing additional rotors that could be used would have made the decryption more difficult. I believe there were also plugboard connections on the front of the enigma machine that were not used as actively as they could have been. another interim step could have been adding a 'pre/post encryption' step. This could be as complex as another box to run the text string through or as simple as a single substitution cipher. Even a single substitution cipher would make a correct Bletchley solution look like gibberish until the substitution was applied

We know what they U-boats tried, but had trouble getting to work. All units moved based on individual maps for each subs with marked location points. So you are never at location 56 north, 15 west. You are 100 miles NE of point K. Unless you have copy of map in U-boat, you can't figure out where they are at. It was abandoned as too much work, too hard to get to work right. But if you know the 4 rotor is temporary fix, then steps like this will be done more often, and better.
 
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