WW1 Submarines and the Blockades

[BELFAST]

Really? I know of Enigma during WW2, but I don't remember that on WW1.

German Naval Codes

The Russians obtained a major intelligence prize early in the War. The German cruiser Magdeburg ran aground in the Baltic. A series of German misteps allowed the Russians to get their hands on the the ship's codebook. The Russians turned it over to the British. The Imperial German Naval code was thus an open book to the British who already had an overwealming superority. And even worse the Germans did not know or convinced themselves that their code had been compromosed. This gave the British major insights into German secure communications for much of WorldWar I. Naval intelligence during actual combat opetations, however, was primarily traffic analysis, assessing the direction and volume of transmissions without actually being able to read them.
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww1/intel/com/si/w1sic-brit.html


Room 40 played an important role in several naval engagements during the war, notably in detecting major German sorties into the North Sea that led to the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland as the British fleet was sent out to intercept them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_40

Churchhill mentioned this in a book after the war. Leading to the Germans begin to use enigma a much stronger code that was used in wwi in the early 1930s.


With code breaking and radio directing finding the German naval had big problems operating in the North sea.

 

[JohnOfNottingham]

German Naval Codes

The Russians obtained a major intelligence prize early in the War. The German cruiser Magdeburg ran aground in the Baltic. A series of German misteps allowed the Russians to get their hands on the the ship's codebook. The Russians turned it over to the British. The Imperial German Naval code was thus an open book to the British who already had an overwealming superority. And even worse the Germans did not know or convinced themselves that their code had been compromosed. This gave the British major insights into German secure communications for much of WorldWar I. Naval intelligence during actual combat opetations, however, was primarily traffic analysis, assessing the direction and volume of transmissions without actually being able to read them.
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww1/intel/com/si/w1sic-brit.html


Room 40 played an important role in several naval engagements during the war, notably in detecting major German sorties into the North Sea that led to the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland as the British fleet was sent out to intercept them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_40

Churchhill mentioned this in a book after the war. Leading to the Germans begin to use enigma a much stronger code that was used in wwi in the early 1930s.


With code breaking and radio directing finding the German naval had big problems operating in the North sea.

Mhm.... I see. But then how could have things like this happen?
Were the subs on a different code? Or hadn't the code reached the Brits yet?
EDIT: Though nonetheless, I see myself corrected.

 

[BELFAST]

Mhm.... I see. But then how could have things like this happen?
Were the subs on a different code? Or hadn't the code reached the Brits yet?
EDIT: Though nonetheless, I see myself corrected.

The Action of 22 September 1914 was a naval engagement that took place during the First World War, in which three obsolete British Royal Navy cruisers, manned mainly by reservists and sometimes referred to as the "livebait squadron", were sunk by one German submarine while on patrol.


Magdeburg

The German code books were also not destroyed; the Russians were able to recover three of the books along with the current encryption key. They passed one copy to the British Royal Navy via a pair of Russian couriers on 13 October.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Magdeburg#Service_history