WI British radios had worked at Arnhem?

A friend who knows a bit about radio says that British radios just happened to work on a waveband that was particulary prone to interference from buildings. Apparently this was not spotted because all the pre war testing was done on Salibury plain which is singulary lacking in buildings.

The radios worked okay in the desert but were poor in western europe with ranges that were lower than equivalent US and German radios. This combined with high (or low I cant remember which causes problems) sunspot activity at the time meant that the man pack radios didnt have the range. The jeep borne radios that should have been used at brigade level were lost in there gliders.

By the way this might be completely wrong I will ring my pal when I get the chance he is a complete radio nut.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
A friend who knows a bit about radio says that British radios just happened to work on a waveband that was particulary prone to interference from buildings. Apparently this was not spotted because all the pre war testing was done on Salibury plain which is singulary lacking in buildings.

The radios worked okay in the desert but were poor in western europe with ranges that were lower than equivalent US and German radios. This combined with high (or low I cant remember which causes problems) sunspot activity at the time meant that the man pack radios didnt have the range. The jeep borne radios that should have been used at brigade level were lost in there gliders.

By the way this might be completely wrong I will ring my pal when I get the chance he is a complete radio nut.
You are completely right. A few years ago some original radios of the type were put to test in the UK and at the battle site and your stated results were proven. There was also a marked change in performance depending on whether the trees around the town were wet or dry!! The project was filmed for the Battlefield Detectives series
 
You are completely right. A few years ago some original radios of the type were put to test in the UK and at the battle site and your stated results were proven. There was also a marked change in performance depending on whether the trees around the town were wet or dry!! The project was filmed for the Battlefield Detectives series

Thanks for that I went out on a bit of a limb there. Just imagine if people only discussed things they knew about, the internet would shrivel up and die:D
 
Even if the radio's work or the 1st airborne is better coordinated... it doesn't change the fact that XXX corps has to advance down a single two lane highway (that isn't wide enough for medium tanks to turn around) with trees on both sides that screen German anti tank battle groups from air observation and strikes, nor that this highway periodically opens up into congested urban areas, where German anti tank battle groups can take cover in buildings and down alleys and slow the advance

Except that it wasn't disastrously behind schedule until it got to Nijmegen to find the bridge hadn't been taken and had to spend 36 hours waiting to be able to cross.
 
The whole thing would have worked if the 82nd had done their job and taken the Nijmegen bridges instead of waiting for the Guards Armoured to come up and help them. Everybody else got their bridges on the first day, except the 82nd, who took until day 4.

As for the Monty comment, what a load of crap, show me an American general of his level who out performed him.

Well, it took 2 days to reach Eindhoven and then 1-2 days to repair the blown bridge to cross that
 

Blair152

Banned
A friend who knows a bit about radio says that British radios just happened to work on a waveband that was particulary prone to interference from buildings. Apparently this was not spotted because all the pre war testing was done on Salibury plain which is singulary lacking in buildings.

The radios worked okay in the desert but were poor in western europe with ranges that were lower than equivalent US and German radios. This combined with high (or low I cant remember which causes problems) sunspot activity at the time meant that the man pack radios didnt have the range. The jeep borne radios that should have been used at brigade level were lost in there gliders.

By the way this might be completely wrong I will ring my pal when I get the chance he is a complete radio nut.
According to A Bridge At Arnhem, one of the two books I read about the
Battle of Arnhem, the other being Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, the
1st Airborne was trapped in Arnhem for nine days, on a mission that was supposed to last five. The best dramatization of this, is in the HBO miniseries Band Of Brothers, where the 101st Airborne, is tasked to rescue
the British 1st Airborne.
 
Ofcourse alot of why the Englandspiel was so damned effective had as much to do with the Dutch Resistance fucking up as with the British Intelligence Services fucking up. A Flemish resistance fighter had found out that Lindemans was a double-agent a couple of months before Operation Market Garden. The Englandspeil as a whole only came to fruit because SOE failed to spot the pre-determined emergency code as used by a captured secret agent. He even send the word CAUGHT to the SOE but nothing was done. Except that they send even more agents to be captured ofcourse.

Then there are the persisten rumors that the whole Englandspiel was set up by SOE to make the Germans think that Overlord would be launched in the Netherlands instead of Normandy.

Quite right. It was hardly the fault of the Dutch that SOE cocked up so badly or that the German counter-intelligence had such a good run. Some of which was the fault of the internal SOE-MI6 war. Being Dutch, you will also appreciate that the Gestapo had also managed to compromise and blacken many reliable/loyal operatives and promote their own stooges and the existence of so many NSB members, secret and open and even NSB members who were loyal to the Crown made security a nightmare.
I would though remind you that the "Englandspiel" was long over by 1944 after two captured Dutch agents escaped from a concentration camp and got back to England in August 1943. The Germans conceded that on April Fool's day 1944-by sending the message "
Ah, I studied this for an MA essay... not quite the image of British Intelligence they'd like you to have!


A friend who knows a bit about radio says that British radios just happened to work on a waveband that was particulary prone to interference from buildings. Apparently this was not spotted because all the pre war testing was done on Salibury plain which is singulary lacking in buildings.

The radios worked okay in the desert but were poor in western europe with ranges that were lower than equivalent US and German radios. This combined with high (or low I cant remember which causes problems) sunspot activity at the time meant that the man pack radios didnt have the range. The jeep borne radios that should have been used at brigade level were lost in there gliders.

By the way this might be completely wrong I will ring my pal when I get the chance he is a complete radio nut.

You are completely right. A few years ago some original radios of the type were put to test in the UK and at the battle site and your stated results were proven. There was also a marked change in performance depending on whether the trees around the town were wet or dry!! The project was filmed for the Battlefield Detectives series
... I didn't know the thing with the radios was that bad!

I wonder if it's covered in The Foresight War?
 

Larrikin

Banned
According to A Bridge At Arnhem, one of the two books I read about the
Battle of Arnhem, the other being Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, the
1st Airborne was trapped in Arnhem for nine days, on a mission that was supposed to last five. The best dramatization of this, is in the HBO miniseries Band Of Brothers, where the 101st Airborne, is tasked to rescue
the British 1st Airborne.

Did you actually watch A Band of Brothers? The 101st was on the ground as part of the airborne carpet in and around Eindhoven at the start of the XXX Corps run. They did their job, and grabbed the first set of bridges, they had no part in the attempt to rescue the 1st.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
According to A Bridge At Arnhem, one of the two books I read about the
Battle of Arnhem, the other being Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, the
1st Airborne was trapped in Arnhem for nine days, on a mission that was supposed to last five. The best dramatization of this, is in the HBO miniseries Band Of Brothers, where the 101st Airborne, is tasked to rescue
the British 1st Airborne.
Be prepared to be nuked by some other board members.
Band of Brothers touched v e r y briefly on a very small aspect of the operation. Ryan's book, like his The Longest Day, is very good on detail and anecdote but suffers from his not having access to later released secret reports and documents that fill in some questions about the big picture. The film of Ryan's book is great entertainment, but has plenty of gratutious inaccuracies--try watching it and then reading William Golding's book (he was the screenwriter) as a concordance. For a genuine view of the Arnhem-specific part of the battle there is a film Their's is the Glory, often shown on low-rent cable and satellite channels made in the 1940s and features many of the actual participants of the real battle, British, Dutch and German and original footage taken during the battle (the clips you often see on mini-documentaries. Of course, instead of just reading books and watching movies, the town of Arnhem maintains an excellent Airborne museum and you can walk the battefield--which is mainly the town.
 

Cook

Banned
For those that are insisting that it was the British actions that caused it to fail, and those that insist it was actually caused by American actions:

It was the Germans that were responsible for Market-Garden failing.
 
For those that are insisting that it was the British actions that caused it to fail, and those that insist it was actually caused by American actions:

It was the Germans that were responsible for Market-Garden failing.
Uh... well, yes.

Though we certainly helped!
 
Throughout this forum I have noticed three supreme commandments, the breaking of any will result in major flaming:

1) Thou shalt not criticize Bernard Law Montgomery
2) Thou shalt not criticize Robert E. Lee
3) Thou shalt not ever forget commandments 1 & 2:D

Comments/Denials anyone?:rolleyes:
 
I have been authorized to criticize Monty. I don't know anyone who served under Lee, although Robert Lee did marry my sister. He's OK.
 
Throughout this forum I have noticed three supreme commandments, the breaking of any will result in major flaming:

1) Thou shalt not criticize Bernard Law Montgomery
2) Thou shalt not criticize Robert E. Lee
3) Thou shalt not ever forget commandments 1 & 2:D

Comments/Denials anyone?:rolleyes:
I suspect that Monty has a smaller (although possibly loyaler) following here than Patton - with little overlap between the two groups.:)
 
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