German Naval Radar
Updated 17 October 1999
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3. Radar Designation
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| With the outbreak of the
Second World War, radar development became very complex and, from the historian's
point of view, it is difficult to provide a complete record of events.
On the one hand the needs of the three services resulted in separate development
to meet their individual requirements, and in each case a different system
of code designation was adopted. For reasons of secrecy, and due
to a degree of jealousy, inter-service communication was poor, and subsequent
development depended significantly on personal contacts between the services
and the contractors' scientist. On the other hand the contractors
themselves were working for all three services and, naturally used ideas
developed for the equipment of one service in that of the others.
It was only in the second half of the war that attempts were made to introduce
a uniform system of designation for radar sets. Up to this point, there
existed no fewer than six different classifications. For example,
in the third system introduced, in the surveillance radar FuSE 80 Freya,
'Fu' means Funkmess (radar), 'S' means Siemens (the manufacturer),
'E' refers to the set's function (in this case Erkennung or reconnaissance),
'80' is the running number and Freya the set's code word.
Sometimes a code was added for the type of installation, eg FuSE 62A Würzburg,
in which 'A' means stationary ground installation with mechanically rotated
aerial; to confuse matters the AA gunners of the time referred to this
set as FuMG (Flak) 40T/A.
The early sets were simply called DeTe
I (or sometimes set A1), DeTe II and so on. When the family of German
radar sets began to grow this was found to be insufficient, and arabic
numbers were introduced, 100 to 199 being reserved for naval tactical sets
working on a wavelength of 80cm. In 1938 a more specific designation
system was introduced, giving fuller details of the set; for example the
first set installed aboard the armored ship Admiral Graf Spee was
FMG 39G (gO). The 'FMG' means Funkmessgerät (radar device),
'39' is the year of introduction (1939), 'G' is the manufacturer (GEMA),
'g' is the frequency code (335-430MHz) and 'O' is the type of aerial installation
(radar tower on top of the rangefinder tower). See tables below for
full list. |
| G |
GEMA |
| T |
Telefunken |
| L |
Lorenz |
| S |
Siemens |
| A |
AEG |
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| L |
trainable antenna on top of
bridge |
| M |
trainable antenna on a yardarm |
| O |
battleships; radar tower,
or hut, on top of a rangefinder |
| P |
battleships; radar root integral
with enlarged rangefinder tower |
| S |
fixed antenna on torpedo boats |
| U |
submarine version |
|
| c |
182 to 215MHz |
| f |
120 to 150 MHz |
| g |
335 to 430 MHz |
| kl |
95 MHz |
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and so on |
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| Table 1:
Manufacturers |
Table 2:
Type of antenna installation |
Table 3:
Frequency bands |
| In about 1943 these designations
were replaced by a standardized system, giving code letters for the type
of set and a running number, details are given in Table 4 (which also includes
the old DeTe code for clarification). Existing sets were recorded
under this system, the FMG 39G (gO) for example becoming FuMO 23, the FMG
39G (gP) becoming FuMO 23, the FMG 39G (gL) becoming FuMO 21, and so on.
However, the codewords for the sets were retained through all the systems
so a Freya, for example, was always called a Freya by its
operators. It should be pointed out that the above refers only to
the genealogy of the naval coding systems; the Wehrmacht and the
Luftwaffe
employed different designations, although some of the basic naval sets
were the same as the landbased Würzburg (for reasons of simplicity,
the following description of the radar installation aboard German ships
employ only the last designation system, so only FuMO-, and FuMB-, etc,
sets are referred to). |
| |
| Type |
Frequency
[MHz] |
Range
[km] |
Bearing
[m] |
Accuracy
[º +/-] |
Employment |
| FuMO 21 |
368 |
14-18 |
70
m |
3 |
Destroyers |
| FuMO 22 |
368 |
? |
- |
- |
Capital ships |
| FuMO 23 |
368 |
? |
- |
- |
Capital ships |
| FuMO 24/25 |
368 |
15
- 20 |
70 |
0.3 |
Capital ships,
destroyers |
| FuMO 26 |
368 |
20
- 25 |
70 |
0.25 |
Capital ships |
| FuMO 30 |
368 |
6
- 8 |
100 |
5 |
Submarines |
| FuMO 61 Hohentwiel-U |
556 |
8
- 10 |
150 |
3 |
Submarines |
| FuMO 63, Hohentwiel-K |
556
to 567 |
12
- 20 |
150 |
2 |
|
| FuMO 81 Berlin-S |
3300 |
20-30 |
100 |
5 |
Surv set, Prinz
Eugen, destroyers, E-boats |
| FuMO 213 Wuerzburg-D |
560 |
40
- 60 |
35 |
1.15 |
AA gunnery |
| FuMB 7 Timor |
- |
passive |
- |
- |
? |
| Palau |
- |
passive |
- |
- |
? |
FuMB 3
Bali |
- |
passive |
- |
- |
? |
| FuMB 4 Sumatra |
- |
passive |
- |
- |
? |
| Seetakt |
- |
- |
- |
? |
- |
Table 4: Particulars of the principal
German radar sets
| The various type designations
were in fact even more complex than the above indicates, for every small
alternation in the type of installation, the function, frequency and other
modifications, resulted in the provision of a new code. In addition,
each installation consisted of two basic parts - the set itself and the
antenna - and as it was possible to interchange these, using the antenna
of one set with the primary equipment of another, yet another level of
designation was possible. Thus a precise listing of all German naval
radar sets is almost impossible, and no such list exists in any German
literature. Even a simplified listing of radar type designations,
with their technical particulars, would require a intensive research in
German and foreign archives, and the interviewing of surviving witnesses
by a researcher export in both radio technology and naval history.
Thus it is not possible to guarantee complete accuracy in describing the
radar installations in German warships but hoped that this article will
provide stimulation for further detailed study in this complex and poorly
recorded area.
There is one hope of full clarification:
The Allied mission to Germany at the end of the Second World War produced
many detailed studies of German developments. Among them was, presumably,
a report on radar (possibly including drawings and photographs of the sets
in surviving German naval units), copies of which are probably buried somewhere
in the US and British archives. Hopefully they will eventually be
released, allowing somebody to discover and publish them.
For the above reasons the following description
of German naval radar concentrates mainly on the visible differences in
antennas. As contemporary literature on Second World War German warships
includes a great number of excellent pictorials (see Bibliography), this
article does not use photographs to illustrate all the variations in radar
equipment in Kriegsmarine vessels but concentrates on giving general
coverage by means of drawings so that the reader may try to identify the
different system in his own personal library by using these as a guide.
However, some caution is required because in the majority of such photographs
I have noted that the antennas have been carefully turned end-on so one
can see that there is a mattress antenna, but cannot see sufficient detail
to identify it. Moreover, in the second half of the war the antennas
in the centimetric field became so small that the are often mistaken for
blocks or anemometers. The reverse is also true; for example, one
of the distinctive items on German naval units in the later period of the
war was a trumpet-shaped object which might be mistaken for radar but is
in fact an acoustic fog-horn. There only exist about five really
good postwar photographs of German warships showing their full complement
of active and passive radar antennas, from the 2m x 6m mattress of the
FuMO 24/25 to the small cone of the FuME 2 Wespe g.
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| Classification |
Translation |
| Dezimeter-Telegraphie (DeTe) |
Decimeter-Radio - the first
German codeword for radar, sometimes misinterpreted as Deutsches Technisches
Gerät |
| Funkmess (FuM) |
Radar set |
| Funkmess-Ortung (FuMO) |
Radar - direction finder,
active ranging. |
| Funkmess-Beobachtung (FuMB) |
Radar - detector, passive
detection (of enemy radar transmission). |
| Funkmess-Erkennung (FuME) |
Radar - detector, active Identification
Friend/Foe (IFF). |
| Funkmess-Störsender (FuMS) |
Radar - interference sender,
active jamming. |
| Funkmess-Täuschung (FuMT) |
Radar - deceptor, active deception
(by means of transmitting interference signals). |
| Funkmess-Zusatz (FuMZ) |
Radar - with very specialized
improvements for various purposes (eg, high-precision bearing). |
Table 5: German Radar Coding System,
c1943 |
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