Landships II

The Germans made some used of electrified fences, primarily on the Belgian Dutch and Alsace Swiss borders but also in a couple of places on the Western Front where the local conditions allowed the generators to be located in caves or very strong bunkers. There were some suggestions for the electrification of the cables of British barrage balloons but these seem to have eminated from the lunatic fringe and were not taken seriously or followed up. As far as sound is concerned, I did some research on sound weapons for a book some years ago and found nothing in the form of offensive weapons (sound location and ranging is quite a different matter) during WW1 - for what its worth here is the relevant extract
"

Sound is another form of transmitted energy. Its use as a weapon has been largely confined to the field of psychological warfare, that of affecting morale. Military bands may boost the morale of ones own side whilst fearsome noises (such as produced by the Celtic war horns) may be employed to strike fear into the enemy. On a few occasions more direct effects have been sought.

 

When the Romans fought the Germanic tribes there were occasions when the legionaries were besieged in their fortified camps. It appears that they were subjected to non stop rhythmic drumming from teams of German drummers. Not only did this have a negative impact on moral and also deprived the Romans of sleep but it may also have had physiological effects. The huge war drums used by the Germanic tribes would have produced sub sonic harmonies well below the threshold of hearing. These can produce feelings of deep unease and fear and constant exposure may result in permanent damage to the nervous system. It has been suggested that Roman veterans of this campaign suffered from long term psychological problems.

 

It was in Germany again that the concept of using sound as a physical weapon was revived in the 20^th century. In the later part of World War Two Dr. Richard Wallauschek designed the sound cannon. This used specially designed combustion chambers in which a mixture of methane and oxygen was pumped in on a regular (and frequent) cycle and ignited. The explosions created shockwaves that produced a very high amplitude sound beam emitted at pressures in excess of 1,000 milibars about 50m away. The sound was focused using parabolic reflectors. It was believed that the sound beam would cause soldiers caught by it major discomfort and could be fatal. Tests on animals tended to support this. No tests were carried out on humans (which is surprising given the nature of the Nazi regime). Like so many other weird weapons the sound cannon was shipped off to the USA where nothing more was heard about it. In post war France a government scientist, Dr.Gavreau, embarked upon a series of experiments aimed at the development of sonic weapons. Various accounts of these are often contradictory but it would appear that one laboratory was destroyed and a number of research assistants made very ill. The results of Gavreaus work do not appear to be in the public domain and one must assume that the French government is sitting on these. In 1999, in Berlin, a paper was presented by Jurgen Altmann to the conference of the Acoustical Society of America. This questioned reports that the US government was conducting experiments along the same lines as Dr.Gavreau. Altmann questioned the efficacy of such devices and ended by stating he had found no evidence that humans would be disabled by being severely disturbed or losing physical control: I have found no hard evidence for vomiting or uncontrolled defecation, even at levels of 170 dB or more. The idea that sonic weapons were possible was dismissed as emanating from conspiracy-heads or military nuts. This is strange as there is well documented evidence of instances where sound has produced just those specific symptoms that Altmann claimed not to have found. In the late 1950s the Republic Aircraft Corporation developed a turbo prop fighter intended to match the speeds of pure gas turbine jets. Testing of this aircraft, the XF-54H Thunderscreech, had to be abandoned as the high speed of the propeller tips produced potentially lethal inaudible shock waves. Such noise had serious effects on the human nervous and digestive systems so that anyone standing within 200 yards of the aircraft when its engine was running up for takeoff was subjected to extreme nausea and a blinding headache, for many the vibrations had the same result as a powerful and instant enema. It could take more than 24 hours to recover. It is interesting that these are precisely the symptoms that Altmann denied were possible. one has to wonder if some dis information exercise was being carried out

-- Edited by Centurion at 15:53, 2008-08-20

-- Edited by Centurion at 15:53, 2008-08-20

-- Edited by Centurion at 15:54, 2008-08-20

Dear Peter ,

i made a picture from a big "artillery phonetic system " .

In Koblenz war tecnical museeum.

It looked very old . The mechanik parts dated for me like

a construction in the early 20'ties . Maybe this monster

was even older ????

I must go to Koblenz the next days for another research,

so i can look for more information.

The picture above is the only one i took-

Best regards

Gerd

This looks like a sound ranger/ course plotter. These were widely used from mid-20s to the early 40s to spot and target aircraft at night (in those pre-radar days). I have an article somewhere claiming the concept was tried earlier in WW 1 using a simple wood plank which would separate sound left/right or to/left. So with two guys you knew "where to look for". The machine you photographed looks to me as a typical mid-30s equipment with four baffles being piloted by two soldiers and the course being plotted possibly in the square trailer shown in front of it. There was very little electronics in it actually , that's the brains of the two operators that are used as "micro-chips" to turn sound picked up from an aircraft into rotation of the machine to track the plane. The rotation of the baffles is then electro-mechanically conveyed onto a course plotting chart. These devices are usualy quite big and odd looking with the baffles looking like anything from square boxes to saxophones and they sure would make nice additions to any Sci-Fi movie arsenal. But if the machine you photographed turned to be pre-1919 it would certainly be a find!

JCC

I had said that sound was not used as an offensive weapon but detection and ranging was another story

Sound based aircraft detection systems were used quite widely during WW1 but I think the machine shown is probably from about 1930 (I have seen photos of similar apparatus developed by the Japanese at about this time). There were of course the huge concrete sound mirrors built in Britain. Development of these continued after the war and some still remain in place today. However more portable devices were also built during WW1 and I enclose a photo. of a French device

The big problem with sound is that it is relatively slow. The aircraft making it arrives not too long after the sound is detected so that the advanced warning is relatively short. With WW1 aircraft speeds this was usually about 15 minutes which is time to scramble a fighter (and get it to altitude) if you have one standing by with its engine at least warmed up, by WWII the time was down to the proverbial four minutes so sound was dropped even before radar was available.

The use of sound for locating guns was first tried by the Russians using multiple mictophones connected to a machine invented by a man named Benois (one of the late Peter Ustinov's ancestors). I enclose a photo of one preseved in a St Petersburg museum. By the end of the war a much more sophisticated British system was in widespread use, further developed it was used in WWII.
These location and ranging machines used sound so low as to be inaudible to the human ear so the machine was essential.

-- Edited by Centurion at 12:25, 2008-08-24

Thanks for the info on sound ranging !

Shouldn't we split this thread into a new "sound ranging" thread and let only the "weirdo"/experimental stuff here ?

JCC

Don't forget the first radio bearing stations for directing the bombing routes of Zeppelins and later for aircraft form Germany towards England. Of course, shortly after the Brits used electronic jamming measures to intercept the signals and also to distort them.

Hello Gentlemen !
Sorry that i take part of the discussion so late after my post.
I tould there that i will have a special look to the museeum exponate in some weeks
and find out more about tis type. Indeed it is so as you all mean : accustical signs of
aeroplanes coming up are hardly to make out exept the direction they came from.
You can make a test by you own going to a civil airfield where sportmachines are starting and
landing. Please close your eyes and turn an arm in the direction where you think an aeroplane is coming from . Open your eyes and have a quick look . You will be astonished
in which direction you point !!
How said Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding ?
We believe in Good and pray for R A D A R !

In this sence

Nice discussions here

Your's sincerely

Gerd

JC Carbonel wrote:

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...

But what was actually tried (or at list seriously considered) during WW I ?

JCC

---

Sorry to be resurrecting a comparatively ancient topic but I see nobody has mentioned Italian engineer/inventor/(probable) confidence trickster Giulio Ulivi and his "Radiobalistica". Web searches should reveal numerous "hits" - such as http://www.carlobramantiradio.it/ulivi.htm.  While the Italian language is far from my strong suite (and on-line translations are imperfect) it seems the idea was to locate munitions by a form of radar then focus microwave (or perhaps terahertz - it was all "infrared" in those days) frequencies for the induced electric currents and arcing to then detonate the target.  Numerous trials were conducted, arcing effects were incontestably demonstrated (much to the discomfort of iron-shod horses and power station operators) but unfortunately field trials were unable to replicate the same successes with explosives hidden by observers as for those prepared by Ulivi himself.

It was certainly taken very seriously at the time, by the French, Italians and the British.  And quite possibly by the Germans too.  A fantasist would note that we still have little idea of the effects high-powered terahertz radiation might have on materiels and there appears to be insufficient information on the construction of Ulivi's apparatus to rule out a THz operating principle for it.  Ulivi called his rays F-rays (after his initial Italian Admiral sponsor) and then M-rays, after the Admiral's 19 year-old daughter with whom he eloped.

Anyway, this is sounding very similar to the magazine-cover story mentioned by the O/P.  Although it seems to bear the full set of hall-marks of a 'con job' to these jaundiced eyes it was, as said, apparently taken quite seriously at the time.  The serious skeptics seem to have emerged after the event.

[edit] Just to add that this New York Times article of 21 June 1914 seems quite close to some of the detail in the Italian source given above:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9500E2DA1F39E633A25752C2A9609C946596D6CF

(note, 559Kb PDF, initial load can be slow).

 

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Sunday 15th of November 2009 07:49:45 AM